Customer Review Section is Useless - Can we have Amazon Verified Purchases please?

On other Amazons, like Amazon.com, Amazon checks to see if someone writing a product review has actually bought it through Amazon, and if so allows them to apply a Amazon Verified Purchase tag. This tag is very helpful as it enables you to quickly identify the reviews that matter from what, in some cases, can be pages of irrelevant ones. In the case of Blu-Rays, for example, this is especially important as many have been digitally remastered in someway, and the category seems to be a magnet for people posting 1 or 5 star reviews based on other versions, or from what they remember of watching it on TV 10 years ago.

Imho, it would make the customer review section semi-useful again if Amazon implemented the Amazon Verified Purchase tag on this side of the pond as well. Anyone else agree?

Not necessarily, what about just having a system that ties more to ISBN numbers? That would solve the problem as well right? A lot of what I review I purchase from local shops in an effort to support independent retailers, using verified purchase just seems to a bit over the top in my opinion, and wouldn't help the customer as much as proper ISBN separation.

I'm inclined to disagree as ISBN separation won't stop someone from posting a review of a product they do not actually own, or posting a review of the wrong version. Amazon Verified Purchases removes these problems from the buyers point of view as the reviewer has no control over the tag - they are either posting the review in the right place and the tag is available, or they are posting it in the wrong place/have not bought the product through Amazon in which case the tag is unavailable.

Some people may post helpful reviews of products they own but have not bought through Amazon, however, the benefits of posters like yourself is often lost in a deluge of reviews from people who have never owned the product for sale and have no intention of buying it.

Nah! Strongly disagree with the opening question... Poor reviews have nothing to do with where you bought your products from.
In the case of the problems with DVD extras and Blu rays etc, I think the cross posting is more of a problem.

Also, what's to say the people posting good reviews on Amazon aren't the ones buying the bulk of their goods elsewhere - and the people writing the crap reviews, might still be buying their products from Amazon... so you'd be left with only poor reviews.
I understand your frustration (but I don't really think poor reviews are a problem - just ignore them) but your idea's flawed I think...

The Amazon Verified Purchase tag fixes the problem of cross posting as the tag is not available on cross posts as the reviewer has not purchased the product, and, in fact, after reading your posts it sounds like we actually agree more than disagree. I am basically saying that the customer review 'section' can now be useless because a lot of the reviews are not based on customer experience of the actual products displayed. Obviously the Amazon Verified Purchase tag does not prevent people posting a bad review (I am sure I have at some point), but it does tell you that the review is for the product in question. The tag also does not prevent people from posting reviews, it is simply a badge that says this reviewer has definitely bought the product they are reviewing.

No doubt other people have noticed this already, but being that I've only just started to look at Blu Rays as opposed to DVDs I've just noticed that there is a function for searching reviews for keywords.

The Road [Blu-ray]

Going onto The Road's page, if you look underneath the 'most recent reviews' sidebar, there is a search bar where I typed in blu ray and immediately all the reviews that contained that keyword appeared. Meaning that I could find the reviews I wanted quickly and easily (as I've seen and even reviewed the film, just wanted a blu ray quality review).

I think people should be able to write reviews of the products even if they haven't purchased it from Amazon. Some reviews can be way off topic and shouldn't be allowed. People started reviewing the BD's of The Lord of the Rings before they were released giving low marks because they were the Theatrical Cuts only. If it isn't out you shouldn't have reviews for a product. The LOTR Blu's would have a lower mark in my opinion because the bonus material is on a DVD which is a rip-off if you ask me. The same thing with Robin Hood SD DVD extra's disc. A lot of reviews are for the wrong format or region so the products can vary in quality. If Amazon sent a damaged product I wouldn't necessarally point it out unless it happened again with the same product.

Blu-ray reviews on Amazon are generally very poor and disappointing, for many of the reasons outlined above but mainly (in my opinion) because they so often fail to provide what the reader expects to find - a review of just how good the Blu-ray version is (in comparison with other versions, where they exist).

Amazon, for some reason, seems unwilling to address this problem, so what we frequently get is reams of "Reviews" of new Blu-rays (almost always rated as 5-star, and even quoting buying-popularity statistics) long before the actual product is available to buy. That to me is just a marketing ploy I'm afraid.

At the very least I believe that Amazon needs to include a facility to rate the Blu-ray quality (video and audio) independently from the content - which in most cases is common to previous DVD versions anyway. Blu-ray Reviews could then become more valid and meaningful.

On the US site there's a petition to get Amazon to remove all dvd reviews from listings for the blu ray version, and I think we need that; Amazon should make sure that the review is relevant to the product being sold, and that includes not opening reviews till the product is legally available in the UK. But I have reviewed blu rays I have rented, so the verified thing would prevent me from passing on information I have obtained from watching the actual blu ray - or from reviewing any I have bought elsewhere.

Chinatown Blue wrote:- ...But I have reviewed blu rays I have rented, so the verified thing would prevent me from passing on information I have obtained from watching the actual blu ray - or from reviewing any I have bought elsewhere.

Fair point, but if not reviewing the actual Amazon BD how could we be sure the versions are identical? Reading comments in these threads it seems there can be several different versions of any BD at any time, depending on the production source, and some of them apparently can be quite inferior products.

Chinatown Blue should be able to post his review of a BD he's rented as long as he reviews the film itself otherwise the rental version may be different from home versions. Amazon often display reviews for DVD's and Blu-rays from different regions and that can confuse potential customers. It's fine to post a review and say the region 1/A disc is better than it's UK counterpart but if it confuses people it should be made clear that the review isn't for the product you're looking at. Amazon should let people post reviews if they haven't purchased the product from them just have a red tick or something indicating that they haven't. Their opinions are just as valid.

I think that there is a good reason for the "verified " label, although I would not limit reviewers to Amazon purchasers.

I do some independent writing for several publications and my name comes up in multiple listings in a Google search. As a result, someone looked up some of my Amazon reviews and offered me payment to write favorable reviews of their books/movies. I rejected this out of hand; however, it is unlikely that I am the only person who has been given such an offer. When a reviewer falls all over himself, I tend to think that it might be a "paid review." No certainty -- but "verified purchase" goes some way toward dispelling suspicion.

Hi,
Have a look at bluray.highdefdigest.com or uk.bluray.com for reviews of Picture and Sound quality etc.

Good points. The verified purchase logo does inspire a bit more confidence in the review, because you at least have some assurance that the reviewer physically owns what he or she is talking about, but it's no guarantee of anything more than that.

The trouble with Blu-ray reviews, in particular, is that what people are really looking for is hard factual information about the transfer, with the aim of trying to work out whether it's a quality disc that warrants an upgrade, or whether it's a shoddy half-arsed release that's best ignored.

It's a much more specific kind of information that people are looking for, and - verified purchase or not - Joe Public saying "it looks great to me!" isn't going to cut it. People want to know about grain levels, edge enhancement, bit-rates, print damage, the audio specs, and so on: real nitty-gritty stuff that reveals whether the studio took real care with the release or not.

That's probably why there aren't so many amateur reviewers willing to step up and review Blu-rays - for fear some technophile will tear them apart on some detail or other - and that's probably why Amazon tends to flood Blu-ray pages with reviews carried over from DVD versions.

I guess Blu-ray reviews really are best left to the professionals, as Sapien suggested...

I've seen some pretty bad 'professional' reviews. I've seen an expert slate the Ghostbusters BD because it's 'noisy' when they should have commended it's video for authentic transfer of film grain. At the end of the day it's going to be down to personal taste on a lot of Blu-rays. Take Predator for example of a title which polarises opinion. A lot of people love the BD with heavy DNR they think the video is fantastic and the set contains great special features. On the other side of the coin we have people who prefer the grainy authentic style of the original release even though it lacks extras and the video is at a far lower bit-rate than the UHE version. It's apples and oranges. I've seen a lot of complimentary reviews of Close Encounters of a Third Kind while other people have mentioned it just looks like the DVD, I think there's merit in both opinions while the is zero to complain about with the transfer the detail (to me) just isn't there compared to newer titles but I wouldn't and shouldn't expect it to be. Buyers want Avatar levels of perfection with every title when buying a BD and that just isn't going to happen and that may leave people disappointed. I think people need to judge titles on their own merit and put each film into context.

[Deleted by Amazon on 12 Apr 2011 16:02:21 BDT]

It would at least be a start to have only the review which relates to the item itself on the page, like a blu ray or DVD rather than all mixed up.

[Deleted by Amazon on 12 Apr 2011 16:02:22 BDT]

Well said Lottigee. I've read customer reviews on a product page only to find out that Amazon has jumbled all the comments together so that many are not reviewing the actual advertised version of a dvd/blu-ray. Bonkers.

The mixing up of reviews on products is annoying and slighty misleading. Reviews should be kept for the specific items being reviewed.

That said, i dont think a person needs to have seen the product to review it so long as they mention the fact in their review. Ie if a DVD/Blu ray looks worth pre-ordering or not. I do however think they need to seperate these reviews from some of the crazier and more irelevant postings that crop up.

Vampire Circus [Blu-ray] [1972] [US Import]

Check the above out, specifically thomas 'boyd' walters as a prime example of the kind of 'review' that needs deleting, its pointless tells me nothing and the idiot didn't even mention anywhere that he hadn't seen the disc in question...***edit: note, he does say he'd watched the dvd of this but follow the argument in the comments section he admits it was the old carlton release****

At the end of the day, so long as the review is clear, and for the product its ment for then its ok by me.