If I’m going to buy a cheap Chinese product, why not get it for a
fraction of Amazon’s cost? That’s the thought motivating my shopping at
Temu, a Chinese-backed competitor to Amazon.
For example, this dog
jacket costs $25.99 on Amazon but $9.89
on Temu. It can be challenging to find the corresponding items
across the websites, but it is possible – reverse image searching can be
helpful.
Why would I want to see Amazon’s reviews for a product I found on
Temu? I’m even more suspicious of Temu’s reviews than Amazon’s. Consider
the dog jacket, which I found on Temu with 126 reviews and 4.8 stars. On
Amazon, the jacket has 9 reviews with 4.9 stars. On Amazon, more reviews
typically increase my confidence in their average, as does varied prose,
pictures, reviewers’ history, and verified purchases. (Though none of
this guarantees a review is genuine.) This diversity of signaling is not
present on Temu, which often has 10-to-100 times more reviews than
Amazon, almost all of which are five-star one-liners.
In fact, the five-star glut on Temu made me wonder if it was even
possible to leave a negative review. (On Amazon, I’ve had merchants
challenge and remove my reviews under bogus rationalizations.) I
recently left two negative reviews of products on Temu and was curious
to see if they showed up; they just did.
I gave two stars to this bathroom mat. I can see
329 textual reviews out of 58,356 item reviews. Aside from a few 4
stars, all the reviewers gave the product five stars. That’s hard to
believe. Similarly, for these ear muffs, I can see 190
of the textual reviews (out of the 349 item reviews), the vast majority
of which are 5 stars. There are some critical reviews, but they are only
viewable at the bottom of a near-infinite scroll. I can’t figure out how
the reviews are ordered, but it is not by date and positive reviews are
obviously favored.
My conclusion, therefore, is that Temu will accept a critical review.
But the reviews are worthless. By commission or omission, the platform
is overrun with useless 5-star reviews.
2024-03-13 update
A month later, my low-star reviews are still on Temu and are, in
fact, at the top of the listings. So I don’t think Temu is preventing
people from leaving authentic reviews, nor is it hiding them, but there
is still a glut of inexplicable positive reviews.
2024-03-27 update
My low-star ratings are no longer visible on the page of the
products. They can still be found if you browse by date, but in the
default view they’ve been displaced by older-but-higher ratings. That is
disappointing and suspicious.
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