Amazon.com – Customer Reviews of DVDs not always displayed? (1 Viewer)

[Jay Taylor]

It appears that Amazon.com doesn’t always display the customer reviews on the new DVDs that they are selling.

Is this a change in policy or am I not selecting something correctly?

I’d hate to lose this “valuable” information. I could always rely on them before making a purchase.

You just have to understand the code:

5-Stars = The movie has a 50% chance of being okay
4-Stars = The movie has a slight chance of being okay
3-Stars = The movie sucks big time
2-Stars = The movie is used by the military to break down prisoners prior to interrogation
1-Star = The movie is lethal to watch

 

[David Von Pein]

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[Dave Farley]

I've seen what Jay is talking about. The new Gangster collection box set has an average customer review of 5 Stars, yet the reviews are nowhere to be found. I ran into this on a few others tonight. It's not a big deal as I don't pay a lot of attention to the Amazon reviews.

 

[David Von Pein]

Sometimes Amazon has glitches like that, with all the reviews suddenly disappearing for no apparent reason. They always re-appear in a short time, though.

 

[Jon Martin]

Actually, you can rate something without writing a review. That is what figures into some of the average star ratings.

 

[Jaime_Weinman]

Their new policy is not to display the customer reviews until the release date.

 

[Jay Taylor]

Thanks Jaime, that could explain it.

The reviews might also be hidden for re-releases. For example, Kill Bill Volume 2 was released on August 10th, 2004, has a 4-star rating and I believe they previously displayed its customer reviews.

Now it’s on Amazon’s list of new releases for January 25th, 2005 and there are no customer reviews today (January 22nd). We'll see if they magically reappear after Tuesday.

 

[Lars Vermundsberget]

Actually, I think Jon explained it.

I have rated quite a number of DVDs on amazon, but I don't think I've ever written a review.

 

[Jay Taylor]

Thanks for your inputs Jon & Lars.

I believe that Jaime hit the nail on the head by mentioning that Amazon’s new policy is not to display the customer reviews until the release date.

I came up with a test for this explanation.

Go to Amazon’s DVD page, scroll down to the bottom of the “Cool DVDs on the Horizon” section and click on the “More Hot Future Releases” link.

A list of release dates & DVDs will be displayed. If you click on any of the DVDs released before today they will have customer reviews. If you click on any of the DVDs released after today they won’t. In the past, DVDs that haven't been released yet had customer reviews also. I believe this proves Jaime’s statement to be true.

 

[Keith Paynter]

Likely necessary for all the "when the hell is (Title X) coming to DVD?!!" posts...