I’m hoping someone has a definitive answer for what causes the phenomenon, but educated guesses are cool too.

Lately I’ve been trying more generic products to try saving some money, and despite my dislike for the company, Walmart generally has the cheapest prices around me for groceries. But trying to read product reviews to get an idea of what to expect it seems like the vast majority of comments don’t talk about the product’s qualities at all but just Walmart related service problems.

“This item was missing from my order!”
“It’s expired, I want a refund!”
“The can was dented.”
“Delivery driver put the chips under the milk!”
etc.

My question is: are these just confused users that are intentionally leaving these pointless messages on specific products they order instead of contacting support, or (my current suspicion) that Walmart is somehow presenting them with some kind of post-purchase rating request that is easily confused as something intended for customer service?

And regardless of the cause of it, why doesn’t Walmart do anything to filter them out? They don’t help prospective shoppers decide on an item, and usually only serve to make the employees/company look bad.

I don’t place orders on their site so I don’t know what the typical web order flow looks like to the end user so I’m hoping someone has an idea what’s causing it.

  • @einlander
    link
    72 days ago

    It happens on Amazon too. They will email you a link asking you to answer some questions. You click it and it takes you to a page that asks a specific question such as how do you like the product. Or in amazing case it has you answer other users questions. To filter that stuff out requires money and manpower.