Giving Reviews the Thumbs Down

WSJ.com - By LAURIE KAWAKAMI :: E-COMMERCE/MEDIA

Some Online Shoppers Cry Foul When Sites Reject Negative Reviews

Peter Brig wanted to warn others about the problem he had with the computer storage discs he purchased from Newegg.com. But when he tried to post a product review on Newegg's Web site, the company rejected his submission. Twice.

"I just wanted to tell other people about the incompatibility" with his Sony DVD burner, says the 44-year-old U.S. Army engineer from Orlando, Fla., who says he is a loyal Newegg customer. "But they didn't allow me to communicate that to anyone."

Frustrated, Mr. Brig voiced his dissatisfaction with Newegg's review process on ResellerRatings.com, where customers provide feedback on online retailers. Within days of his posting, a Newegg representative contacted Mr. Brig by telephone, apologized and offered him a full refund for his purchase.

While Mr. Brig was glad to receive the refund and continues to shop on Newegg, he says: "I still don't know if I truly trust their review process."

Customer product reviews are popular among online shoppers and an increasing number of merchants are rolling them out. But some retailers are struggling with how they should handle a flood of submissions, and in particular, negative reviews that could make it difficult to sell a product. Even established players have had to adapt: After years of letting Internet users anonymously critique everything it sells, Amazon.com Inc. last year began requiring reviewers to register an email address or provide a credit card to combat abuse in its system.

Consumers are also learning that what happens to their feedback varies widely from site to site. Many sites simply use automated filters to check reviews for profanity and then publish a majority of them. Others, like Newegg, have employees closely vet each submission and reject a greater percentage of reviews. Still other sites ask customers to police themselves by reporting offensive posts and rating the usefulness of reviews.

Newegg, which boasts more than 175,000 reviews "from buyers like you" on its homepage, says Mr. Brig's first review was rejected because of confusion with the title of his review, which appeared to comment on his DVD burner not the blank DVDs he purchased. His second submission was declined because it mentioned information about a rebate, which is against Newegg's review policy of not including time-sensitive information.

The company says it has a team of eight people who monitor reviews and reject submissions if they are too vague, mention competitors or criticize a brand without specific product insight, among other reasons. From July 1 to Aug. 2, the site received 18,188 reviews and rejected 15% of them, according to a Newegg spokesman.

Newegg, City of Industry, Calif., has been the target of numerous complaints on online forums where shoppers gripe about the omission of their reviews and the lack of negative commentary on the consumer electronics retailer's site. Stuart Wallock, director of marketing for Newegg, says products with an overwhelming number of negative reviews are removed from its Web site, along with all of the complaints.

According to Forrester Research, just 26% of online retailers currently use a product review feature. While more sites recognize the potential for product reviews to build customer trust and loyalty, many are fearful that negative reviews might annoy manufacturers or hurt sales, says Carrie Johnson, an e-commerce analyst with Forrester. Some sites are also unsure how to handle issues of censorship.

"That is one of the reasons why using reviews are so tricky," Ms. Johnson says. "Customers will feel duped when their reviews don't get posted, and feel that there is censorship going on."

Overstock.com Inc. recently overhauled its review policy. The Web retailer had been relying on its merchandising group – the employees responsible for deciding which products to sell on the site – to monitor reviews submitted by customers, but found that the group tended to approve only positive reviews. In January, the Salt Lake City-based company changed the monitoring responsibilities to its marketing team. The company now says it posts both positive and negative comments, as long as they are constructive.

"We learned that customers won't trust the site if there are only positive reviews," says Tad Martin, senior vice president of merchandising and operations at Overstock. He says the company also pulls products that receive overwhelmingly negative customer feedback.

Some Web sites dedicated specifically to product reviews, like CNET Networks Inc.'s CNET.com and Shopping.com Ltd., which uses product reviews from Epinions.com, rely on their community of reviewers to police themselves. Both sites require users to register and feature mechanisms that allow members to report offensive posts and rate the usefulness of individual reviews.

EBags Inc., which sells handbags and luggage online, says it has tried to improve the quality of its reviews by focusing on people who have made purchases on its site, rather than those who may have purchased the same bags elsewhere. The Denver company makes it easy for its customers to submit testimonials by emailing them surveys 21 days after a purchase. Noncustomers can still submit reviews, but only after first registering at the site. EBags says that about 98% of its more than 620,000 product reviews come from eBags customers. EBags asks customers to provide their overall impressions of their purchases, as well as details such as the frequency and occasions in which they use their bags.

Last summer, KBToys.com began using a similar email system for automatically soliciting reviews from customers after they make a purchase. Michael Wagner, chief executive of Denver-based eToys Direct Inc., which operates the KB Toys site, says the reviews can help the retailer boost sales. "Customers can't touch and feel the toy, but if someone else like them reviews the product, it's something they value."

The site has about 30,000 reviews posted on items ranging from Cabbage Patch Kids to action figures. Authors of reviews identify themselves with such names as "Michelle, neighbor to five lovely children," to "Barbara, Grandma of two from Harrisburg, Pa." An automatic filter checks for language and a two-person editorial staff manually reviews each submission before posting. Mr. Wagner estimates that fewer than 1% of reviews are rejected, something he attributes to the fact that the company's core customers are mothers.

But customer reviews don't work for every merchant. Large retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Best Buy Co. don't feature customer product reviews on their sites, despite the use of them at competing sites from Target Corp. and Circuit City Stores Inc. Walmart.com spokeswoman Amy Colella says that the company continues to evaluate the effectiveness of customer reviews, but has yet to implement a review system as part of its online business. Best Buy didn't return calls seeking comment.

At Wine.com, where users can anonymously comment on the company's selection of wines, the success of the review system have been mixed. The site receives about 100 to 150 reviews each month, and last year rejected about a quarter of its reviews because of inappropriate content, says Russ Fradin, senior vice president of business development. He said many of the rejected reviews are derogatory, sometimes with racial overtones or sexually offensive references. He attributes the trouble to the anonymous nature of the Internet, and not something unique to the site or wine enthusiasts in general.

"We think it's a nice feature. It's good for customers, builds community and people like it when they see it, but it's not our most important feature," says Mr. Fradin. The San Francisco-based company also promotes the opinions of well-respected wine critics. Mr. Fradin says wines reviewed by other customers tend to be some of the site's best sellers.

Manufacturers also see product reviews as a tool to gain direct customer feedback, instead of using focus groups. At eBags, manufacturers are given online access to a compilation of customer reviews relating specifically to their products. Laurie Gilner, executive vice president of TRG Group Inc., which makes travel gear under the Swiss Army and Timberland brands, reviews shopper feedback from eBags once a week.

"We look at them and siphon out the information that is most valuable to us," she says, "specifically if they're saying things like they want a better bag strap, we go in and look at that product."

Analysts believe the number of sites to offer reviews will grow in the next few years. Customer reviews are similar to word of mouth and capitalizes on the idea of community, says Adam Sarner, an e-commerce analyst with Gartner Inc. "For a retailer, having a customer act as an advocate or even a trusted representative of your site is huge and can be extremely powerful," he says.

But retailers must be prepared to keep the review process open and honest, accepting both positive and negative reviews. "If you get caught" censoring complaints, he says, "you've blown so much more than one or two bad reviews. You've essentially lost the trust component."