For those who do not know what brushing is, Brushing refers to a deceptive practice where sellers or vendors create fake orders for their own products and then ship those products to real customers. Stating that you get a reward for making a good review on the website to brush up on their products. The motive behind brushing is however often used to manipulate ratings and reviews on e-commerce platforms.
Here’s how brushing typically works:
- Creating Fake Orders: The seller or vendor places fake orders using fake accounts or identities they control. These orders appear legitimate within the e-commerce platform’s system.
- Shipping Products: The seller ships the ordered products to real addresses, often randomly chosen or controlled by the seller. ( This happened a lot on Amazon)
- Generating Fake Reviews: Once the products are delivered, the seller can leave positive reviews using the fake accounts they control. By doing so, they boost the product’s ratings and create a false impression of popularity and customer satisfaction.
- Manipulating Rankings: Higher ratings and positive reviews can lead to improved visibility and rankings within the e-commerce platform. This can potentially attract more genuine customers and increase sales.
- Social media streamers: Even in some cases, a game being announced or promoted massively on the social media platforms, while all the promoters are under the partnership wing of that specific development company.
Brushing is considered unethical and can be a form of fraud because it deceives both the e-commerce platform and its users. It can distort market dynamics by artificially inflating the perceived popularity and quality of certain products. E-commerce platforms typically have measures in place to detect and prevent brushing, such as monitoring suspicious order patterns and reviewing user feedback.
