Amazon customers can now leave star-only ratings without writing any text reviews, beginning today, August 4th. Amazon calls it a “simplified seller feedback experience” and says that increased rating submissions will “give customers more information to confidently make purchase decisions,” but critics argue that the absence of written reviews is damaging to both sellers and buyers alike.
For sellers… they lose the ability to accurately appeal star-only reviews because there's no incorrect or misleading statements to contest.
For buyers… they end up seeing more star ratings but less helpful information.
For me personally as a shopper… the difference between seeing several hundred star ratings vs several thousand ratings is negligible in my decision making process, and I'd lean towards wanting more review content like photos, videos, and detailed written reviews over more star ratings.
At some point the statistical relevance of having more star ratings becomes inconsequential and “4 stars” is “4 stars” when it comes to judging a product based on its aggregate rating.
Amazon already tried star-only ratings in 2023 and eventually reversed course after massive seller backlash, which it began to experience again this time around.
However the company feels confident that its decision will actually help sellers. It wrote:
“Our preliminary tests show that this simpler process helps sellers collect more ratings faster. We also found in our tests that many of these star-only ratings come from customers who have had positive order experiences but previously did not provide written feedback, which in turn may lead to an increase in the average seller ratings for many selling partners.”
In response to abuse, Amazon wrote:
“Customers will be required to select a reason before they can submit any rating below four stars. We’ll review this reason to ensure it meets the seller feedback eligibility criteria. For example, if a customer leaves a low rating because they are dissatisfied with a product, we'll automatically omit it because it is not relevant to your performance as a seller. We’ve also implemented solutions that allow us to automatically detect and remove abusive feedback, without any action required from you.
1 star idea, Amazon. No feedback.