Are you sure that negative reviews are more reliable?

Nowadays, we find reviews or opinions on products or commercial services both on e-commerce sites and in sites specializing in reviews. Of course, these reviews can be very useful for online shopping, but are negative reviews more reliable than positive ones?


It is always advisable to read more reviews especially when there is indecision between two products or maybe you are not sure that they have the characteristics we need.

A phenomenon that is developing, even in our country, is that of believing that negative reviews are more reliable and in general certainly not written for the purpose of sponsoring a product or service.

It is now statistically proven that in general purchasing decisions are more influenced by negative reviews than by positive ones.

Many customers immediately read the most negative reviews, but are you sure that the negative reviews are more reliable than others? Some studies in the United States, home of e-commerce, claim to be very careful and to follow some rules in reading the reviews.

University research on online reviews

Several online shopping marketing researches claim that most online reviews are positive. MIT Boston, in 2014, revealed that among the purchase reviews verified on Amazon, only 4.8 percent have a single star, compared to 59 percent by five, which is the maximum.

Because negative reviews are rarer, it makes them stand out more, and that means we have to pay more attention and then judge them more "objective" than compliments. In fact, the more negative ones seem to us to be more reliable because they are fundamentally more "honest".

Another psychological mechanism is that we think that negative reviews provide more information because they point out product defects, but in reality they are often not accurate analyses.

Are you sure that negative reviews are more reliable?

The reliability of negative online reviews, even those that are true and honestly written, were questioned in a 2016 study published in the Journal of Consumer Research. Comparing some products, with some very bad and negative judgments and online reviews with impartial tests carried out by Consumer Reports, an independent consumer protection body like Altroconsumo in Italy, big differences of opinion emerged. All this happens because reviews are always very subjective and specific, in fact the single person who reviews a product is very different from the average person in general.

Some studies carried out in the United States have also established that many negative reviews occur with these characteristics: objects of unusual sizes, users who often return products purchased independently, do not perceive the right value of an object on its functionality, have little experience in using the object itself, and above all, it should be remembered that they write reviews only 1.5 percent of all users who buy things online.

A negative review can be written by a person completely different from us

When you read an online review you should ask yourself if the person who comments negatively is similar to us and if the problems might be common to ours. For example, a wireless router could be very easy to set up, but a never-ending hell for those with 0 experience. Even a defect could be an extremely positive note for us: a hard mattress for others, it could be a panacea for someone else.

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We must also consider the mood of the writer at that moment. It's no mystery that out of 1,000 purchases of a product, 95% of those who got along well will never do a positive review (they are satisfied that everything is fine), while maybe 5% of the disappointed are likely to have a much, much higher negative review rate (even 50%).

Another defect of users who issue negative reviews is personal pride: being severe critics makes us appear, to the reader, as much more professional and "technical" users of the object in question.

This is no coincidence, for example on TripAdvisor, where the average rating of the reviews of "Super Reviewers", authors of more than 50 reviews, is undoubtedly lower than the general average.

Practical advice on interpreting reviews

One of the first tips is to read especially the reviews with 3 stars. We are human beings and tend to judge everything, often unconsciously. So often we are attracted only by those who give very positive or very negative ratings.

Generally, the 3-star reviews, take the example of Amazon, tend to be more moderate, even detailed, less emotional and more one  emotional and more honest. Obviously it is not easy to decide by following the less biased judgements (both positive and negative), but we could really find some useful information.

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The summary of the stars may be untrue

Always read the comment carefully, often the simple indication of the stars is not true from what you will find written. Some people do not understand the importance of the summary vote well and it even happens that the assigned stars do not correspond to the related review. In addition, each review always includes some clues as to whether a review is false or overly negative.

Are you in doubt about the veracity of a comment? Have a look at the reviewer's profile: on Amazon some people are paid to give positive reviews and generally use different profiles with few reviews.

These are general suggestions, of course if you find a product with an exaggerated number of negative reviews it is very likely that the product is not suitable for purchase. The essence of this article is to objectively check negative reviews in products that don't have many.