Amazon love user generated content like feedback and reviews, but they are going to ditch the Amazon Review the Review comment feature as of today, Wednesday the 16th of December.
The reason given for scrapping the comments feature on reviews is very simply that while reviews and feedback are important to Amazon’s customers and sellers, the comments feature on customer reviews was rarely used.
If you’re one of the few that will miss the Amazon Review the Review feature, it’s not like there aren’t plenty of other ways to make your opinions of a product heard. You can still click the helpful button to show your appreciation. If you have something to say about the product you can of course submit your own review and then there are questions as well.
Every product on Amazon comes with the ability to add ‘Customer questions & answers’. Rather than commenting on reviews, if you have a product query this is the place to ask… and the place you’re most likely to get an answer. If you have an opinion on a question someone else has asked then comment away to your hearts content adding useful content if you’ve got spare time on your hands. The only thing you won’t be able to do after Wednesday this week is to add comments to reviews.
As a reminder, Amazon encourage you to share your opinions, both favourable and unfavourable on products you have used. However they don’t allow reviews:
- by someone who has a direct or indirect financial interest in the product.
- by someone perceived to have a close personal relationship with the product’s owner, author or artist.
- by the product manufacturer, posing as an unbiased shopper.
- multiple negative reviews for the same product from one customer.
- in exchange for monetary reward.
- of a game in exchange for bonus in-game credits.
- negative review from a seller on a competitor’s product.
- positive review from an artist on a peer’s album in exchange for receiving a positive review from them.
21 Responses
I love the people that feel they have to comment on every question they see… ‘ I have never used one so don’t know sorry’. ‘ Sorry, i don’t know’. ‘I can’t answer you about this, but……’
You seem them all the time… WHY?!!!
B-)
More time on their hands than they know what to do with.
their the same flavour of folk that always ask you to pack securely
It means that sellers will no longer be able to give their side of the story in response to a negative review of their product. Pretty important for some.
Also means you cant ask if they still think this is a good product 6 months later. Or does this have screws or is it rivetted? Etc.
Genius: negative review from a seller on a competitor’s product.
This is disappointing. They may be “rarely used” but most reviews don’t need comments. When they are used they are typically very useful, to expand or critique a review that deserves it.
Sometimes they are humorous or not productive but it is very easy to skim over these.
And afaik it’s also funny Amazon gave no notice, they were just straight up and gone. with the Review comments. I cant find any ahead of time notice.
“I love the people that feel they have to comment on every question they see”
This is mostly Amazon’s fault. If you bought a product, and there is a question for that product, Amazon will send you a mail asking to help, formulated in such a way that majority of people feel obliged to answer. That explains so many useless and stupid answers like “I dunno…”
This is really frustrating as I could actually help someone who gave me an answer as I have since found the solution myself.
As of today, 1/1/21, I can still add and read reviewers’ comments, but only when using Internet Explorer.
But if using Firefox, I cannot see the comments section at all.
It’s been more than 2 years that they weren’t sending us email notifications when someone posted a comment. I went to see my old reviews and there were tons of comments on some: never got wind of one! So yes, that was useless but because of their doing.
Truth be told I complained about comments on reviews over 10 years ago. Some idiot disagrees with your taste in your polite review and they run off their mouth. A comment section was not a place to FLAME the reviewer, it was a place to say “You said you bought a 100% cotton one elsewhere. Please tell me where, I can only find itchy polyester” and boom! Useful communication.
But to read “you have no taste in movies, go back to watching explosions-a-minute movies” when I strictly watch B&W films and criticized one is and someone got butthurt is a useless comment. I have not watch any movie after 1999 and I only watch B&W films any longer. Not interested in anything else now that I’m older.
Also I don’t know how many times Amazon removed my comment privileges because I replied to such an A-h0llio. If you provoke me,, you’re gonna get an earful back. Yet they left comments on my reviews such as “you’re such an expletive and you should have been aborted because you don’t like ___ music” but my reply telling them they were projecting and why the self-hate, go see a shrink and PS: you’re the one with no music taste… that got deleted and my account blocked. It baffles the mind.
SO nope. Not upset. It was time to do away with the comments. Idiot millennials moderate amazon and they were always biased. They shoot first, miss and then cry wolf when you shot back and struck a chord. NOW! If only they would restore the thumbs down button. Sorely missed! Either remove all thumbs or leave both. Life isn’t thumbs up and no night, no dark, no black. T’aint all white/rosy glasses Polyanna, folks!
This was such a useful feature! Might not’ve been used much, but when it was used it was often quite priceless.
I’m not one for flaming replies and they should indeed be filtered or blocked etc, but people often say things that are incorrect in their reviews, and that then misleads everybody else who looks at that review if nobody is allowed to correct them.
They need to allow the seller to respond to a negative customer review, it’s part of good customer service, and lets other buyers see that the problem has been resolved,. Now as far as I can see there is no way for this to happen. Customer service has gone backwards because of this.
Thats crazy. “A feature that doesn’t have any issues staying put shall be removed because its rarely used”.
Im fairly certain this is cropdusting the issue. The real issue is that they want to stop people from commenting fullstop.
Because it was becoming a political platform by commenters.
And right now people are being banned left and right on social media. Not even people ho did anything wrong, but by being adjacent to peoplewho’ve done something wrong.
Censorship and closing down avenues to people to speak their opinion has been happening all over in a large way since november.
Im not surprised comments are being shuttered.
How am I supposed to tell people how stupid their review is cause they aren’t the product correctly? 🙂 But seriously, the comments really were a good way to inform the reviewer that maybe they are actually using the product wrong….the problem is the reviewer is not notified about the comments. It could be a way to educate people.
Amazon betrayed their relationship with Parler to shut them down to censor free speech. And many websites have also removed the ability to comment on articles, etc.
The real purpose behind Amazon shutting down the ability to leave comments is pretty clear.
Thank you for this post. I noticed that the comments on reviews have been appearing intermittently for the last few weeks. I managed to post a (favourable) comment on a review yesterday, but the comments have gone again now. I thought it was a glitch at Amazon or perhaps a browser issue at my end, so I’m grateful to you for pointing out the real reason.
I get the impression Amazon has long since given up on gave up on the community side of things. If comments are “rarely used” it’s because Amazon stopped notifying reviewers of follow-up comments some time ago. What’s the point of commenting if the reviewer isn’t going to know you’ve done so? In the past I have had some interesting discussions with reviewers about books and music, and I will miss this. On the other hand, I’ve seen some polite negative reviews of popular authors (particularly Stephen King) met with a barrage of abuse, and I certainly won’t miss that!
This really scorches my butt. I hated it when amazon stopped informing the reviewer of comments. That was bad enough but at least I could go to my reviews to look for comments. I complained to customer service but obviously keeping their reviewers happy has zero priority for them.
1/12/21: An update to this.
Comments have now disappeared even when using Internet Explorer.
(As of today, 1/1/21, I can still add and read reviewers’ comments, but only when using Internet Explorer.
But if using Firefox, I cannot see the comments section at all.)
This is incredibly disappointing. I have learned so much from the review comments over the years, often far more than I would have learned from the review itself. If someone posts bad information in reviews, it is in the comments that you were able to learn the true story. Many products would have 50 plus comments on a given review which turned into a very useful discussion of the product. It also shows you how good a seller is based on their responses to poor reviews. Terrible decision by Amazon. It was definitely not done with their customer’s best interest in mind.