Why I only consider Amazon’s 3 star rating and you should too

When browsing Amazon, it’s easy to jump straight to five-star praise or one-star warnings. But what if I told you to skip over the most valuable insights in three-star reviews?

Why 5 star reviews are often too positive

While it may seem natural to focus on five-star reviews first, it’s important to understand that they don’t necessarily portray a product in the most realistic light. These extreme reviews are often influenced by the user’s emotions and biases—feelings like joy and excitement about the product.

For example, in a state of excitement, the user writes only about the features that impressed him, while ignoring its shortcomings, and most of these reviews are written shortly after receiving the product based on the first impression instead of providing a more neutral long-term experience. You must have come across a few reviews on Amazon like these: “I just unboxed the product and it looks great!”. Emotions are also subjective and vary greatly from person to person. One person might give a product five stars while another might give one star even though the product is the same.

In addition, individual experiences with specific types of products also differ. For example, someone who buys a mechanical keyboard for the first time might be impressed by its tactile feel and RGB lighting because it’s their first time experiencing these things and write an overly positive review full of praise. In contrast, someone who has owned several mechanical keyboards may not find these features as impressive and expect more from a keyboard.

Biased reviews also arise from loyalty to a particular brand or company. This is commonly observed among Android and iPhone users. For example, a long-time iPhone user may be biased when evaluating a new iPhone simply because it is from Apple.

One final problem with five-star reviews is that many are often fake, written solely to increase sales, with companies or manufacturers giving users incentives in exchange for a positive review.

Problem with 1 star reviews

When a product does not meet buyers’ expectations, they tend to get emotional and write excessively negative reviews. Such reviews do not mention any benefits the product may have and portray the product in a more negative light than it deserves.

These low-star reviews are often outliers related to unusual issues such as slow shipping or damaged packaging. Although these are real problems, they are less likely to occur and are not directly related to the product.

We also cannot ignore that a one-star rating may be an attempt to tarnish the image of a company or product.

Why 3-star reviews lead to better purchasing decisions

For starters, fewer people rate a product with two, three or four stars compared to the more common five and one stars. And since five-star reviews are often overly optimistic or bogus, and one-star reviews often focus on issues unrelated to the product and mention no positives, three-star reviews are the sweet spot for a balanced view.

You’ll also find detailed three-star reviews that highlight both the pros and cons of the product, with phrases like “I’m removing a star for XYZ” providing a more neutral and realistic assessment of the product. the product and explain what problems the user faced while using the product and what they liked about it. This comparison helps to make better purchasing decisions. You can read about the cons of the product while making sure it has the features you are looking for.

Finally, three-star reviews are the least likely to be fake. If one wants to manipulate a product’s rating, five and one star reviews are the most obvious choice as they have the biggest impact on the overall score. For these reasons, it’s important not to get carried away by star ratings. There are always good and bad sides to a product, and a neutral review should mention both.

You can see this idea implemented in services like YouTube and Netflix, where they have moved from star ratings to thumbs up and thumbs down buttons, with YouTube going further and hiding the number of dislikes. With star ratings, interpretations of what individual stars mean to them vary, often resulting in extreme ratings. With likes and dislikes, biased ratings are reduced and it’s completely simple. You either like the product or you don’t.