+86 15546883080 (China mainland) +852 6554 1700 (Hong Kong)  [email protected]

Amazon rating system developers ended up being too protective of it

According to the former Amazon executive, the online ratings and reviews model was a good solution at first, but the team ended up being too protective of it.

Dan Lewis spent many years at Amazon before founding his own company. Among the biggest projects he worked on was helping to build an online ratings and reviews model.

It was a big problem from the online retail giant in its early days.

“The original problem we were trying to solve at Amazon was customer confidence. You can’t touch, see, smell — how do you get confidence to buy?” Lewis explained at the recent CNBC Technology Executive Council summit in New York City.

Peer reviews, with a rating of one to five stars, solved the original customer confidence problem. But in that success, Lewis says he learned a key lesson about setting oneself up for failure. In a nutshell: falling in love with solutions rather than never-ending problems.

“Oftentimes you protect the thing you built versus remembering the existential problem you are trying to solve”.

“We didn’t name the group that works on the problem the ‘customer confidence team.’ We named it the ratings and reviews team,” Lewis said.

Amazon employees like Lewis who worked on the original solution became convinced their job was to make ratings and reviews better, instead of thinking of other solutions, and newer technologies, that could solve the problem better.

More Amazon news

What is Amazon FBA New Selection program?

What is Amazon FBA New Selection program?

A no-risk program for new sellers on Amazon Amazon is now offering free storage, free removals, and free return processing for a limited time for new-to-FBA ASINs. On top of that, if you’ve never sold a product using Amazon’s fulfillment services, you can qualify for...

read more
Chinese government is going after Alibaba

Chinese government is going after Alibaba

China hits Alibaba with record $2.8 billion fine China slapped a record $2.8 billion fine on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. after an anti-monopoly probe found it abused its market dominance. The Chinese government launched an investigation into Alibaba in December to...

read more
What is fuelling the rise of Chinese sellers on Amazon?

What is fuelling the rise of Chinese sellers on Amazon?

75% of new sellers on Amazon are from China China-based sellers represent 75% of new sellers on Amazon in 2021, according to a report by Marketplace Pulse. This marks a significant increase from 47% in the previous year. While this hasn’t yet impacted the GMV (gross...

read more