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How essy is it to do?
A very well known toy brand has decided that it wants to lose 40% of its stockists even though it made £200 million last year.
These shops have had a generic non addressed letter telling them that they no longer mstch this company's vision. Not that any of the shops were visited.
Anyway this has upset the shops as well as the toy collectors so this weekend there has been a barrage of negative reviews.
Suddenly all reviews have been suspended.
How much clout would you have to do that?
If you could demonstrate your were being unfairly targeted then not too hard I would imagine.
A sternly worded letter from a top (i.e. expensive) London law firm would probably do it.
Money buys recourse.
Money buys recourse.
And £200m profit can buy a lot of it. Welcome to "How The World Really Works" season one.
And it's only going to get worse a human population puts greater and greater pressure on finite resources.
As i understand it, charging companies to remove bad reviews is basically Trust Pilot's business model.
would that be certain workshop for gaming? if so having a net worth circa 5 billion certainly would allow them to move to more online presence and consistent pricing and then control the narrative and spin as they want
would that be certain workshop for gaming? if so having a net worth circa 5 billion certainly would allow them to move to more online presence and consistent pricing and then control the narrative and spin as they want
I'd imagine it's Jellycat tbf, tbh, imo.
Companies have to pay to use Trustpilot so turning it off is pretty easy. They just turn it off.
I doubt they even have to ask in such circumstances. Businesses being unhappy with their supplier isn't exactly what Trustpilot is for
Interesting - my sister in law lost her contract as a freelance Jellycat sales rep earlier this year. Obviously part of the Jellycat plan.
Margin must be insane on their products. Moving to a wholly owned store model lets them control that much more.
I hope this marks their downfall – nothing but greed on their part.
Exquisite powers of deduction.
Not having been a parent of a small child I had to google.
Jellycat......most of the their toys are not either cats or made of jelly. AND shutting down user reviews - makes you think!
What happened to 'makes you think' guy? Honey something?.....he must be living his best life in the post covid, Trumpopian world we now live in. Or he's got collected up and dealt with by the deep state for his powers of deduction.
I think if there has been any sort of coordinated campaign it will have been the writers of the reviews who've effectively all acted to have the reviews taken down. Its not a legitimate use of the site and the Toy brand won't have had to somehow bribe of coerce the review site - they'd have just had to have pointed out the site was being misused. It's no different to astroturfing and undermines the validity of review site in the same way so Trust Pilot would obviously act because their intrigity is being threatened if they don't. If there was a large uptick or marked shift in the pattern of review Trust Pilot would probably have been able to work that out for themselves anyway.
You can't force someone to sell things to you, you can't force a supplier to provide you with stock if thats not how they want to distribute their product. Its absolutely up to the toy brand to decide what they sell and how and where they sell it
What happened to 'makes you think' guy? Honey something?
Turns out it was Prince Andrews log in. Makes you think
(I'm joking - I've met Prince Andrew's login - *WAVES*)
Jelly cat have made a commercial decision to change their sales and distribution model.
This has happened lots of times in lots of industries (motor retail is one that stands out in the last decade or so).
Complaining about commercial decisions (in which you have no direct interest) is not what Trustpilot is for really.
This really isn't evil empire stuff.
A sternly worded letter from a top (i.e. expensive) London law firm would probably do it.
Money buys recourse.
Not necessarily without proper grounds. There is something called SLAPP, which is specific regulatory guidance to solicitors about not abusing the power dynamic to prevent public discourse. Also I imagine Trustpilot probably also have not cheap lawyers so if this was a pattern of oppressive behaviour they'd be well tooled up to deal with it.
https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/guidance/slapps-warning-notice/
Weird post vanishing thing again...
Meant to add SLAPP might not be the exact right bit of guidance but there's a lot of equivalent stuff around frivolous threats in other areas too.
Online reviews are utterly broken. It's pretty trivial to get reviews removed if you're a big enough company. Amazon reviews are equally garbage.
I'm sure they're aware of Beanie Babies and just trying to maximize their profit margin in their dying days before it all collapses. Just move onto selling whatever next years fad is, Tamagotchi, fidget spinners, orbeez, yo-yo's, fart putty.......
Jellycat......most of the their toys are not either cats or made of jelly.
You must be very confused with Richard Branson's empire!
You must be very confused with Richard Branson's empire!
He might not make pickle, but he is a bit of a dick.
I think if there has been any sort of coordinated campaign it will have been the writers of the reviews who've effectively all acted to have the reviews taken down. Its not a legitimate use of the site and the Toy brand won't have had to somehow bribe of coerce the review site - they'd have just had to have pointed out the site was being misused. It's no different to astroturfing and undermines the validity of review site in the same way so Trust Pilot would obviously act because their intrigity is being threatened if they don't. If there was a large uptick or marked shift in the pattern of review Trust Pilot would probably have been able to work that out for themselves anyway.
Exactly - I can't imagine trustpilot was being swamped with reviews for Jelly cat before, 1 a day would probably have been "busy". If overnight they get 100 reviews you'd expect that to trigger some sort of "alert" and get a bit of an investigation, possibly suspended in the meantime.
You can't force someone to sell things to you, you can't force a supplier to provide you with stock if thats not how they want to distribute their product. Its absolutely up to the toy brand to decide what they sell and how and where they sell it
100% - but if the disgruntled independent retailers really wanted to fight back they wouldn't waste their time on Jellycat and trust pilot - they'd organise themselves into a collective that made it really easy for an alternative supplier to engage with them. One of the headaches for any new product is how do you get it into enough shops quickly without either paying loads of middlemen or having a hefty sales force. If they really know and understand their customer base, they could even coordinate to influence product design or have a product made specifically for them.
Lets face it, nobody was going to base their decision on buying a Jellycat on the Trustpilot reviews anyway. I would almost guarantee that a post like this on your local facebook page has more impact than Trustpilot anyway:
"As many of our customers probably know we've enjoyed selling the Jellycat range of products for the last X years. Sadly Jellycat have decided to change their business model and no longer work with small retailers like us. Its a shame because [small, child friendly, collectable] products like this have been popular with our customers, especially around Christmas. But every turn in the road of running a small business opens new opportunities, so we would like to hear from customers if there are products that would be good for us to stock within that space in the shop. We'd also be really interested to hear from any local suppliers who have products that would fill the niche of [£xxx-xxx, gift or collectable, child safe, regularly evolving product lines]."
Might have to google who Jelly Cat are ?