rotten bananas

Ben over at Instigator Blog noticed some funny business on Home Depot’s (Canadian) website. It appears as if a biased party has submitted comments on a couple items that he was investigating (in this case, rugs). The comments were very similar for 3 different rugs, but from different users. I’ll not steal his limelight and let you go check out the specifics at his website. He asked his readers what they think.

While I think these actions aren’t necessarily above the company (or any, really), I don’t think this was the work of Home Depot, and I’ll tell you why:

• They’re relatively small-ticket items. Why waste the time beefing up a rug that costs $200 when Home Depot sells many much more expensive items that would be better targets for this sort of practice.
• The reviews don’t really say anything worth hearing. They tell me that the rug is in their budget. They tell me what the rug looks like (I’d be much quicker to trust the picture on this than some random comment). They also tell me that it’s inexpensively priced for its size. I am able to see both the price and the size on the same page, so why bother telling me this? Perhaps if I saw something about the quality, I’d be more likely to buy it. But none of this information will sway me one way or the other.
• It’s a shoddy job. If Home Depot was gonna try to scam people with false comment building, don’t you think they’d put a little more effort into it? Two of the comments are actually identical. If they’re gonna do something wrong, they’re gonna do it right to maximize the benefit and prevent getting caught.

Now, this leaves a couple options. Firstly, it could be the manufacturers, but as Ben pointed out, they’re different. I did a little digging, and it looks like the companies aren’t related either. The last option is that there’s a real crazed rug fan out there that doesn’t bother personalizing their comments for different rugs.

I really don’t think that Home Depot is behind these posts. My best guess it that it’s actually someone that purchased them all and really did like them. Unfortunately, regardless of how it happened, Home Depot will look bad for it. I’m not sure that this exposure will show on their quarterly financial statement, but a few people are aware of it now and will be a bit hesitant when reading other comments on their website.

Interactivity on product sites is a great feature. I frequently turn to user comments when looking for a product that I’m unfamiliar with. But, like any user submitted content, it needs to be moderated.