Amazon offers a rating system that aims to help buyers make intelligent purchase decisions. The e-tailer is now set to bring some changes to this rating system. The e-commerce giant is testing a new way to show product ratings. The Times of India-Gadgets Now independently checked this and found that some team members have got the new rating system on Android app and on the web.

Ratings and reviews on Amazon
A general practice while purchasing a product from any e-commerce platform, including Amazon, is that users check the rating (on a scale of 1-5), number of people that have submitted that rating and the reviews that a product has received.

Amazon provides a breakdown of ratings based on the star count and an average of the total ratings of the product.
“To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyses reviews to verify trustworthiness,” Amazon says on how it calculates the ratings.
For example, in a favourable scenario, if there are five 4-star ratings and five 1-star ratings on a product, Amazon generally provides an average 2-star rating based on 10 reviews.

The company is now changing the way it presents the rating on the website and app. First spotted by Android Police, the multi-star average rating is said to be replaced by a single yellow star accompanied by a mention of the percentage of five-star ratings a product has received.
When using the same example as above, a product with five 4-star ratings and five 1-star ratings will have a search page rating of “50% 4-star,” with the average 2-star rating next to it.
How it may affect users
This system may clean up the UI but could be confusing for some buyers. Some customers may see it as flawed because it essentially highlights high ratings (4+ or 5 star) and not paints the full picture on how many lower ratings as well as total number of ratings a product has got.
It could be possible that sellers can adopt malicious ways to obtain a high number of 5-star ratings to counter negative ones.
How to check detailed ratings on Amazon
In order to find the breakup of ratings and the total number of people who have rated the product, you can: