Amazon Displaying Segmented User Ratings

Pioneering online retailer Amazon is tweaking its product pages to display user ratings by segment for some users, apparently hoping to encourage people to purchase when they see that others with similar characteristics rated a product favorably.

The new display, which aggregates and displays ratings by Amazon Mom members for other Amazon Mom members, was spotted on a single Amazon-branded product this week. Spot checks of multiple other pages failed to turn up additional examples.

The company didn’t respond to an inquiry about the new display.

Amazon Mom, a subset of Amazon Prime, is a program run by the online retailer that gives caregivers of young children discounts and coupons on certain products aimed at that particular audience — such as diapers or items in their baby registries. Of course it also allows the company to target offers and communications to that particular group of people and their needs.

Besides Amazon Mom, the company also aggregates customers into Amazon Student, a similar program that offers discounts to users who prove they are attending classes at a college or university. One could imagine the e-tailer aggregating and displaying ratings for Amazon Student members, as well as creating other groups tailored to particular customer segments.

The display is a part of Amazon’s effort to utilize social signals within its interface to help customers come to purchase decisions. Called “Shop With The Help Of Your Friends,” the feature allows users who have linked their Amazon and Facebook accounts to opt-in to seeing (and sharing their own) likes, reviews and wishlists for people who are their friends on Facebook.

The display of ratings from Amazon Mom members adds a new source of social information — from other Amazon Prime members with similar characteristics — to this Amazon effort. In this case, however, users are opted-in to the display by default, though they may opt out.

The small number of Amazon Mom members shown in the single instance we’ve seen could indicate that the company is waiting to show such segmented ratings until it receives a critical mass of ratings from people who are members of a particular program.