It certainly makes it more difficult to compare products. These third-party sellers aren&#x27;t doing themselves any favours. I recently wanted to purchase a simple phone case (Samsung S7 Edge, so relatively new). ALL of the cases had 4-5 stars, which makes reviews useless during research mode. It was pretty easy to spot patterns in reviews that were essentially paid-for but very annoying.<p>In the end, I ordered a case (after checking YouTube video reviews) and was contacted by the seller to review their product on Amazon in exchange for 10% off my next purchase with the same seller. BUT not if I was going to give them less than 5 stars; in _that_ case they wanted me to contact them directly.<p>&#x2F;end anecdote