[bambax]

You're right, but that would be easy to fix for Amazon: don't let new vendors commingle.

New vendors should have a probation period of, say, a year, where they can only sell their own inventory (through FBA if they so choose, of course); then the reviews would reflect their real quality.

Amazon is extremely strict on vendor identity: you can't have multiple accounts tied to the same business or bank account or credit card -- but they don't mind if you sell utter crap or counterfeit goods. That's strange.

[erichurkman]

You still run into vendors selling a legit product (or high quality product) during the initial period, only to drop to crap quality after they've gotten plenty of reviews.

I bought a set of wire cooking racks that were highly rated, and the product used by America's Test Kitchen (highly rated there, too). I should have sorted reviews by 'recent', as every recent review was 1 star. The racks completely rusted over after a single use. The manufacturer had changed the metal or stopped coating the racks, presumably to make a cheaper product, and coast by on a 4+ star review from the 100s of prior, but old, ratings.