🧑🏼 Create a product influencer from scratch

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🧩 SHOW 4 or FEWER VARIATIONS (or group 5+)

Humans can feel choice overload on variations on Amazon.

Too many options? We give up.

But how many is too many?

4 options / variations is the threshold.

Look at these squares:

You see 4 items. But your brain doesn't need to count them. It knows that 4 items exist immediately. It's called parallel individuation.

Humans possess this ability up to 4 items, but it collapses with 5 items:

Five items are a critical threshold in which options feel like "a lot" – an unknown quantity that is large enough to require counting (or move on to easier tasks).

Therefore, choices feel difficult with 5+ options and suppress conversion.

What if you need to show 5+ options?

Just group them into subgroups of 4 or less.

🦹🏼‍♀️ RETURN FRAUD is a RAMPANT PROBLEM

Return fraud has become a significant challenge for e-commerce retailers, with incidents like "Tuna-gate" highlighting the bizarre and frustrating experiences that can result.

In this particular case, a shopper ordered a luxury ashtray from Saks Fifth Avenue, only to receive a can of tuna instead. This mishap led her to share her experience on TikTok, joining a growing number of users who have posted about receiving incorrect or counterfeit items.

Such incidents underscore the broader issue of return fraud, which encompasses a range of deceptive practices, including the return of used, stolen or counterfeit items.

In 2023, return fraud accounted for $101 billion in losses, with luxury items being particularly targeted due to their high value.

Other shoppers have shared similar stories of receiving counterfeit goods on Amazon, indicating a troubling trend of scammers exploiting e-commerce returns and exchanges.

Paul Baron and his wife Rachelle sell swim diapers for kids on Amazon. Check out this review they got when someone returned one of their products to Amazon in its original sealed packaging. Amazon then added it back to stock and resent it to another customer as new.

Amazon doesn’t check all order returns due to the sheer number of orders the retailer handles daily. Hence, the retailer focuses on reviewing products from buyers with a shady return profile or products that require a thorough inspection before further action is taken.

Between 2017 and 2020, Christian Wink, 27, of La Valle, Wisconsin, defrauded Amazon by ordering expensive items and returning cheaper or broken ones, resulting in refunds while keeping the original item. This lead to 3,485 fraudulent transactions and caused Amazon losses of approximately $372,359.07.

Ting Hong Yeung, 40, a third-party seller on Amazon perpetrated his fraud over the course of roughly seven years, collecting more than $1.3 million.

Instead of shipping purchased items to the customers, Yeung provided Amazon with bogus tracking numbers. When customers complained about not receiving their purchases, Yeung delayed customer refund requests long enough to ensure that Amazon would disburse funds into his business bank account.

As a result, Yeung collected payment for items that were never shipped and relied on Amazon to issue refunds to his disgruntled customers under its “A-to-z Guarantee.”