Smart Reviews platform launched to help root out drop-shipped “burner brands”

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A reviews platform has been launched to support consumers in identifying and avoiding fraudulent or untrustworthy eCommerce websites. Smart Reviews uses AI, machine learning, and web scraping to collect any available information on the brand, regardless of its age. This provides a quick overview of the credibility of the retailer.

In a time where dropshipped sites are popping up and aggressively advertising on social media, many consumers don’t know if what they see is a trustworthy brand. Meanwhile, from the merchant’s perspective, eCommerce site owners often feel the effects of negative reviews, even if they are resolved or unfounded. Ecommerce entrepreneur Edward Peterson saw this discrepancy and decided to fill the void with Smart Reviews.

Global consumption patterns are shifting online, and due to the global pandemic, this is happening at an accelerating speed, forcing customers to adapt to online shopping. They become easy targets for unfair businesses. Many scam websites appear every day and it’s hard to spot the difference between fair and unfair vendors. Smart Reviews hopes to help them get prompt answers.

Edward Peterson, co-founder of Smart Reviews

Smart Reviews offers a collection of tools to support both buyers and sellers for smarter reviews. AI and machine learning automatically populate the site with new eCommerce websites, and it also crawls the reviews to assign grades to specific elements of the review – shipping, product quality, customer service, etc. This gives customers easily-accessible information for making smart purchases and allows merchants to protect themselves from fraudulent claims, competitor unfair practices, or so-called blackmailing reviews.

Merchants are able to claim their site and are provided with the tools necessary to interact with bad reviews to rectify the situation, along with the review, at a friendlier price than the competitors. Thus, they are better able to control the reputation of the brand online, which leads to increased online sales.

Meanwhile, the AI ascertains the quality and authenticity of reviews, protecting the merchants from trolling. The platform also provides additional tools, advice, guides, and techniques to improve online business reputations.

Smart Reviews is founded by Edward Peterson and Maria Peterson. Edward is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor based in Latvia, and among his businesses is Inch 2, a successful luxury footwear brand. After Covid-19-related disruption in the production chain, his brand experienced a few negative reviews, which have since impacted brand sales.

“Current review sites are very primitive in only providing customer reviews. They are often long reads airing grievances about a specific negative experience and one issue that isn’t necessarily relevant to the reader. And if there are thousands of reviews, it’s near impossible to get a straight answer to any specific questions, such as product quality, shipping, customer service, or more.

We aim to bring clarity to more questions. Like, how reliable media coverage has been, how large the social media community is, which countries the brand is present in most, which reviews are potentially falsified, and which are genuine, how long the business has been in operation, etc. This will bring more transparency and give more agency to potential buyers.”

The platform currently has over 1 million eCommerce websites logged and continues to grow natively, expecting to reach 50 million within three years. With 95% of sales expected to be conducted online by 2040, combined with shoppers’ increased trust in peer opinions, offering informative and reliable reviews will be an increasingly important aspect of eCommerce.