Amazon considers doing away with product reviews and ratings in search

The news: Amazon is testing a version of search that eliminates product ratings and reviews to make its ecommerce experience more convenient for shoppers, per Fortune.

• Rather than showing an item’s star rating, the new search experience shows consumers the number of units sold in the past month, in addition to tags for best sellers, Amazon’s picks, and popular brand picks.
• The test affects a small selection of products; ratings and reviews will continue to live on individual product pages.

An unusual decision: The move to deprioritize customer feedback is interesting given the important role reviews play in influencing purchase decisions—not to mention the fact that the retailer pioneered the use of online reviews.

• While an Amazon spokesperson told Fortune that the company is testing “more compact” search results “so customers can quickly and easily browse a range of product options,” the change is likely to create rather than reduce friction.
• Where shoppers were previously able to compare products by rating or number of reviews from the search page, they now have to click into each individual product page—a potentially aggravating and time-consuming process.
• The change also does little to address genuine frustrations with customer reviews, including concerns over fake or misleading testimonials, which have become all the more urgent in the wake of the FTC’s recent ban on them.

The big takeaway: Customers rely heavily on ratings and reviews to combat the decision paralysis that comes when faced with the vast selection of products available on sites like Amazon.

Taking that away—or just making it harder to access—could cause more shoppers to begin their online shopping journey on platforms other than Amazon, which in turn could affect the retailer’s outsize hold on retail media dollars and open the door to competitors like Walmart to make a meaningful play for ecommerce market share.

Go further: Read our latest report on the Path to Purchase 2024.