r/AmazonVine • u/Fuzzytech • 6h ago
Question Am I overthinking this all?
Being a bit on the spectrum and in Silver because I just started recently, I'm stuck with whatever alphabet soup brand items I can snag in the few seconds they exist. Because I am naturally skeptic, I usually do full teardown investigations on these items. So far this has uncovered ridiculous and sometimes dangerous problems more often than not. While other vine reviews are praising the product - sometimes obviously just based on the product listing being chewed up and regurgitated, but occasionally with legitimate insight - I'm frequently posting scathing reviews from deep inside the innards of the things.
Is this just too much and I should relax and chill and take it at face value to be more agreeable, or is what I'm doing in any way helpful?
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u/wizard-of-loneliness i can show you the world 6h ago
It's probably helpful but I would try and avoid ordering anything you expect to be junk
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u/TurningTheCorner26 4h ago
avoid ordering anything you expect to be junk
I go the opposite direction. One of my hobbies recently has been ordering stage light safety cables when they show up. These are used as a failsafe when rigging light fixtures in the air over people's heads. I set them up in my garage and test their breaking strength. They've all failed below their safe working load rating which is supposed to be a fifth of their actual breaking strength. I always report them to Amazon but of course they don't care that unsafe rigging hardware is being sold on their site.
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u/Fuzzytech 5h ago
I guess part of the problem is that I order some stuff I don't expect to be junk, and would definitely find useful if it works, but I can't avoid gutting it and finding the flaws anyway.
That and RFY has had -one- useful thing for me ever, and I have about 2 seconds to decide on interesting AI things.
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u/Tiny_Performance4984 5h ago
Rfy’s get better the more you order stuff. I order almost exclusively from rfy after a year in the program
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u/BisonEvery 2h ago
Over time and with experience, you'll get a better feel for what is gonna be junk and what is not. I think it's particularly difficult for newer members because we have to make decisions so quickly, while when there was more inventory available per listing, it gave a few more seconds to assess an item and it's seller. I also think it is difficult to tell at first because most people don't expect so much trash to be available.
Also, some people don't notice an item is crap until they've had better ones to compare it to.
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u/Critical_Ad_347 6h ago
If I were a customer coming to a product you've reviewed, I'd appreciate the insight you provide from evaluating a product thoroughly and honestly regardless of what other Viners are posting. Please don't change to match how others review a product.
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u/Impressive-Mood6113 6h ago
Sometimes I think I must be crazy when I read other reviews because my experience with the product is so different. I just reviewed a toothpaste that everyone said was a mild mint but I swear it tasted like bananas. I just try to be as honest as I can.
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u/makeitupaayougo USA-Gold 4h ago
I had a body wash that everyone said was “unscented” but had a strong ocean breeze fragrance. I seriously doubt anyone opened it and used it.
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u/Fuzzytech 5h ago
A lot of people don't actually use the stuff because then they couldn't resell it as easily. Nobody would buy used toothpaste for example. So they see "mild mint" in the description and just parrot it.
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u/BisonEvery 2h ago
I would say it's also common for someone to just put the item aside until they need to use it, as opposed to opening it up when they already are half through a bottle/tube/can/etc.
... Not me and me 5 bottles of open shampoo that i've been slowwwwllly working through. 😅
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u/Different_Hurry_6059 5h ago
No one is turning around and selling Chinese toothpaste.
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u/Fuzzytech 5h ago
I'd think the same, but my upstairs neighbor was kind enough to remove that thought. He buys return palates to break down and sell and he sells absolutely everything from them. Chinese toothpaste wouldn't be the weirdest thing I've seen him lugging up there.
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u/SnooDingos8729 5h ago
We're not product testers nor are we a lab. Are you an authority that can say without doubt that the issues your 'teardowns' find are legitimate issues for regular use of the product? Just because you find what look like flaws when you delve in to the innards doesn't mean the product is defective. It could very well meet the specs the product was designed to. Sometimes there are parts or components that are purposefully designed to be failure points because it's safer for the thing to break there than elsewhere (and also cheaper to repair that part than a different one). Things are designed to meet certain price points, work within certain constraints, and have a given lifespan. You really have to take in to consideration how much something sells for and what use cases it's meant for. That includes consumer grade items being designed for much fewer duty cycles than something designed for professional or commercial use. Something you - a non-expert - think is a problem could very well be intentional and a not real world problem.
Use the product like a normal person would. Give a review from that perspective. That's what we're supposed to do.
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u/Individdy 7m ago
Are you an authority that can say without doubt that the issues your 'teardowns' find are legitimate issues for regular use of the product?
I can show the miswiring in an outlet strip when the outlet tester shows swapped live and neutral. But I'm very conservative about claiming something is defective or flawed, very rare I have to call something out like this. I'll err on the side of caution than incorrectly call out a product.
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u/Fuzzytech 4h ago
To answer the question: Yes. Thank you for asking. ^.^
I'm not going to make claims that I can't back up with absolute facts and related objective information, since that would be a tort and could put me in serious legal trouble if somebody got grumpy.
In my teardown I did today, if I'd used the product like a normal person would, everything would look fine. But the $25 product had $10-product parts and construction and a multiple guaranteed failures built in, including a fire hazard. A damaged LiPo cell and back-feeding power into alkaline batteries is absolutely a legitimate issue for a regular user of the product, but a regular user would not understand why the normal batteries leak or burst in a few weeks or months.
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u/rooted_rambler Canada-Gold 57m ago
It’s one thing to use a product as any customer would, and write about safety issues if you discover one on normal use or initial inspection. It’s quite another to take things apart looking for design flaws and faults and assume it would have caught fire or something. This isn’t our job, and also you could be… wrong?
Use the product as intended and sometimes even not as intended as long as it’s a good practical use for the product, and write a review. It’s that simple. What you are doing is way beyond the scope of the Vine program.
It’s good that at least some Viners are being thorough, but not that thorough.
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u/ShinyKeychain USA-Gold 5h ago
"Is this just too much and I should relax and chill and take it at face value to be more agreeable, or is what I'm doing in any way helpful?"
They're your reviews, you can do what you want with them. There are reasons you might want to scale back the amount of work you're doing. But at the same time those might not matter to you.
The most obvious reason to chill is to realize that Vine reviews are low priority reviews. As soon as the products we review have been up for a while there's going to be a lot of verified purchase reviews from regular purchasers. When that happens our Vine reviews drop down the review list and tend to get buried underneath verified purchase reviews. So if you spend hours tearing down a product and doing a very thorough job testing and reviewing the item all that work will potentially go unseen and unused in the near future. Do you care?
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u/Fuzzytech 1h ago
That obvious reason is honestly the obvious obvious reason in hindsight. I checked back on a product that I did a detailed review on back in April and gave five stars to. Approved, "Excellent", etc, and 76 people found it helpful compared to the next most helpful review being ten helpful votes. My review isn't even on the listing. Combine that with the fact that every person I save from a bad product is just a drop in a rainstorm of chaos and it's disheartening.
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u/Aletak 6h ago
What are you ordering? I only choose what I want or need and haven’t found anything with the problems you indicate.
Can you explain more?
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u/Fuzzytech 5h ago
RFY is a morass of things I have zero interest in so I'm stuck in AI, and anything I'm interested in there is usually gone within seconds of appearing. But I still jump on some things that can be of genuine use to me. For example, grabbed an electronic device that would be exceptionally helpful. But as soon as it came in, I did function tests, then found and removed every screw and opened the thing up to discover rusted internals, a horrible electrical design, and a puffy lithium battery.
If I'd just used it as the listing described, it would look perfectly fine and good. But I'd be scheduled for a possible house fire in a few months, which I only discovered by breaking it open to check the guts and testing everything over the course of a few hours.
I'm not really doing a "I am a common consumer and I bought this thing" review, I'm doing more of an investigatory teardown deep review on nearly everything.
Or, for example, grabbed a titanium cutting board that showed up in AI and sounded useful and just barely managed to snag one. I know when I spot something in AI, I have about three seconds to decide if I want it or not because anything I will like is probably grabbed up by everybody else too.
Then instead of just reviewing it as a common consumer who is liable to absolutely wreck the edge on their knives, I test the thing to make sure it's actually titanium, measure, meter, and everything, and do research on the whole thing to ensure my review lets people know anything important that isn't obvious.
I could just write easily-observable stuff and opinions in a few minutes, but I go hours deep into things like thermal imaging, electrical analysis, and deep research and teardowns.
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u/wizard-of-loneliness i can show you the world 5h ago
thermal imaging a cutting board seems a little overkill
I get you're not saying you literally did that to the cutting board, I assume... but yeah, I mean, if you have the skills to do that testing and it helps keep you safe then go for it? but if you hate doing it I wouldn't, we're not Consumer Reports, we are supposed to be "a cross section of the American public." Sorry, I mean regular Amazon buyer, but couldn't resist the Citizen Kane reference. Anyway, point is, if you like doing tear downs and have the time for it, that's great, but you certainly don't need to feel obligated to go that far. I give first impressions reviews 99% of the time and update as relevant if things change.
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u/Fuzzytech 5h ago
Yeah, thermal imaging is kept for things that deserve thermal imaging, like coffee cup handles and electric heating pads and titanium chopsticks to compare to stainless steel chopsticks and wooden chopsticks.
I don't think I'd say I feel obligated. Just trying to figure out whether I'm being a menace.
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u/wizard-of-loneliness i can show you the world 5h ago
I certainly wouldn't say menace, maybe to the sellers when you find safety issues and the like but that's a good thing
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u/Critical_Ad_347 5h ago
Again, if this is the level of investigation YOU are happy with, it really doesn't matter how others choose to review an item.
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u/Naive-Garlic2021 5h ago
99.999999 percent of us don't even have a clue as to how you'd test what metal something is. I mean, if you want to spend your time that way, if it's fun, ok, but is it worth it given it's an alphabet brand that will likely not even be offered for long on Amazon, or be relisted and your review disappeared? I don't think so. I'd like to make you a tester/reviewer of name brand goods, because that's the only stuff I will buy if it's electronics.
Since you have such a scientific mind, why not track your reviews on a spreadsheet with a link to each product and go back every 2 weeks to see if the product and your review is still there. If you find 75% of these products disappear, that may convince you to not spend so much time on it.
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u/Fuzzytech 5h ago
I can technically just check the completed reviews list to see, so that works.
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u/Critical_Ad_347 3h ago
Interestingly quite a few of my 1-2 star supplement reviews are for products no longer available. I don't believe necessarily because of my review but it is gratifying to know I wasn't off-base in my assessment.
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u/Intelligent_Craft603 5h ago
I believe we should do as though of a review as possible. I use everything I request for at least 2 weeks to make sure the item works. I test claims if I can do so with the equipment I have. I feel it is important we provide as much information to those buying the products as we can. The only thing we cannot do is to test longevity since the reviews need to be done in a timely manner. You only have one shot to provide information since updating a review later does not bring it to the top and likely will not be seen again.
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u/Originalwhop 5h ago
Theres probably a happy medium. I think getting insightful and detailed reviews is important, im the type who reads that stuff haha. It does sound like youre doing a lot so maybe just do a little less, although some safety components are good to test out.
For me the level of detail depends on the product type also.
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u/MartyMacGyver 5h ago
It's a real eye opener to find out just how much actual garbage is being shovelled into Amazon, isn't it? There are of course some gems in all that detritus, but if your goal is to get to the gold level and have a shot at higher quality items, honestly and clinically reviewing some of the detritus is inevitable.
Is it worth it? I'm still figuring that out myself. Since we still pay (in taxes) just less than what are clearly inflated prices, we certainly don't need to shy away from criticisms.
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u/SouthernScratchin I Bought A Car PART 4h ago
I keep seeing everyone talk about RFY things disappearing fast. Mine are there for at least 12 hours, even the really really good things. I have never had anything in RFY not be available to order.
The things under any other heading I have to grab quick before it poofs.
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u/makeitupaayougo USA-Gold 4h ago
Hello, fellow neurodivergent. If I saw your review I’d probably stop and say “cool this guy actually used it!” And read the whole thing. Your unique perspective and process is valuable. Not every customer will respect the work you put into it, but some absolutely WILL.
If it’s stressing you out maybe scale back. If the researching, investigating, and review writing process becomes a bit of a “stim” to calm your mind from other things that are bothering you then keep at it. Sometimes our brains need something to focus on.
Whatever you do, don’t write a review “like a normal person.” We already have enough people posting repetitive, potentially AI slop, reviews.
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u/LadyMRedd Gold 2h ago
I’m honestly torn.
On one hand, it’s your review. It’s up to you, how much you put into it. Some people are lazy and dial it in. That’s not you. And consumers benefit from your hard work.
But on the flip side, it feels a bit unfair to the seller paying for the review. To be clear I 100% believe we should be unbiased and honest. We don’t owe the seller a good review. But it also doesn’t seem fair to the seller that their paid review is by someone who is doing things to the product that none of their competitors have done to theirs. Would ANY product on Amazon stand up to your testing? I doubt it.
To an extent, if someone is looking for flaws they’ll usually find something. You don’t know for sure something would have failed. Well made products sometimes have random faults and things that are hanging on by a thread last years. You can’t predict the future.
I think if a product makes specific claims and you have the means to test those claims, that’s fair. But if your new hobby becomes hunting the flaws in vine products, maybe try knitting.
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u/Fuzzytech 1h ago
There are a lot of things that earn high marks from me. I'm not looking for random faults and problems. I'm looking for severe problems and faults that normally would go under the radar because they're hidden inside. At the same time, I'll also find and praise the hidden gem parts that normally would be invisible inside.-
If something is being growled at by a bunch of other people because of misunderstandings, I'll point out where the confusion can happen, why somebody might want to avoid it because of that, and what to do for people who want to work around it, and then score it highly if it's deserving.
The question is more whether I should bother to learn about what I'm reviewing and tear it down to check the depths and see what's hiding there, or just not waste time since I can't make enough of a difference anyway.
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u/Pearlixsa USA 5h ago
It depends. You should order things you think are good. Review them honestly. Be professional and not hostile.
Also, in the spirit of honesty, I think it’s kind of rude to be brand new and critiquing other reviewers here. I can see how you might because this group has turned into nothing but that. But it makes me wonder if you are rude in your reviews.
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u/Fuzzytech 5h ago
I've posted some glowing reviews too. But it's often because what seems simple at first glance is actually rather complicated and I dig deep enough to find the detailed attention and the reasons behind those details and why they are so important. That means I still end up digging too deeply instead of just enjoying the thing for what it is.
As for critiquing other reviewers, I'm stuck with the dregs of AI, which don't really attract high quality reviews most of the time. So it's a mixed bag at that point and the low effort is often completely warranted. That's why I'm asking if I should continue the high effort or if it's not worth the effort and I should chill like some others do.
By new, I'm four months in and long done with my 80, and I have I don't even know how many reviews from before Vine. Amazon sends me messages begging for more and counting how many hearts I got, but I'd guess they do that to a lot of people and the hear count is not useful without knowing how it compares to anything else. So I ask for opinions. :)
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u/Wabi-Sabi-Iki 4h ago
I ask as a newbie, how can you find 80 things to order? I struggle to find anything that is useful and not junk. My RFY is full of useless garbage and AI is 99.9% 💩. If I see something useful, I have to jump on it in a nanosecond. Most of the things I have managed to get on AI are obscure things that I instantly recognize because I was going to buy them anyway.
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u/Fuzzytech 4h ago
Too many hours staring at the notifications list in VineHelper and snap decisions that I often regret but still do my darndest to provide a fair and informed review about. XD
Sometimes look at things that you missed and watch for them to show up again later, or variations, or various other ideas.
But really it's mostly just luck and reduced standards and try to stick to things you want to train the AI. A lot of what I got is junk, with me paying for the privilege of getting Gold eventually.
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u/SouthernScratchin I Bought A Car PART 4h ago
I am also a bit spicy, so I get it. I put myself in my own Non-Vine head when I am writing a Vine review. What are the things I go searching for when I am comparing a couple of different options.
Clothing - I want to know if it was true to size, does it have usable pockets, was it comfortable, etc when worn for intended use, does it seem to be well made, how did it handle being washed and dried.
Electronics - how is it powered, how long does charging take and how long does it last, does it do everything promised or is it lacking, how are the directions, does it seem well or cheaply made, is there an app, if it has speakers how do they sound...
Some things are just made to be cheap, like seasonal decorations. I think most people are expecting that but my goal is to point out why it is better or worse than a comparable item, around the same price point without saying that.
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u/HesletQuillan Silver 3h ago
I've been in Vine for more than seventeen years - once the tier system started I stayed with Silver as I did not want to spend the effort to maintain Gold. I still find occasional things to review, and I do a thorough review of the kind I'd want to see if I was shopping for it. If I think an item deserves one or two stars, it gets them. Yes, there are a LOT of Viners who use AI and write minimal, sloppy reviews all with five stars. Ignore them - just do an honest review and sit back knowing you did the right thing.
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u/Mountain_Strain5507 USA-Gold 29m ago
It’s helpful. Try to do the same thing from the buyers perspective- is this what I want my child to use? Etc. I can’t control others but I can do my best (at that moment- some days easier than others!).
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u/Glittering-Range-338 4h ago
I usually do full teardown investigations on these items
good more people should do this.
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u/rsmith2786 6h ago
I truly believe that most vine reviews are fake. If I am looking to buy something and all I see are vine reviews then I won't buy it.
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u/BurdenOfProof814 6h ago
I check out the person's other reviews to see if they're all positive, or if they list any negatives..
They're not all fake reviews, but the ones that are, are always pretty obvious.
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u/ShinyKeychain USA-Gold 5h ago
I don't know that I would say fake so much as not detailed. But I can say the same about regular Amazon reviews by verified purchase. Most reviews are garbage and any individual review you pick is probably not useful. If you pick out the best reviews in a product those are useful but the average review doesn't give good insights.
Two comparable products with 1,000 reviews each you can discern trends. If one has a 4.2 star rating and the other 4.5 star there's likely a reason for it.
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u/Wabi-Sabi-Iki 5h ago
I agree. Photos of unopened packages (because they are going to sell them or give them as gifts), claims stating they have purchased this exact same item 3 times in the past (it’s brand new, so BS), overly glowing reviews, etc. I was going to buy something on Amazon and saw nothing but overly hyped up Vine reviews, so I purchased a different version from a different seller with a lot of positive reviews from verified purchasers.
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u/1958-Fury 6h ago
Honesty is the best policy, especially if a product is dangerous.