On Thursday 2/7, ResellerRatings updated how it calculates and displays merchant ratings. The main goal for the change was to improve accuracy for consumers, and to simplify the user experience to avoid confusion.

In terms of the algorithm itself, a merchant’s rating has long been calculated as the simple average of reviews received from customers. More specifically, we average together customer responses to our “overall satisfaction” survey question. In the past, this was based upon a six-month trailing average. If you received 50 reviews in the past 6 months, we averaged those survey responses together. If you received zero reviews in six months, then you had no rating at all (even if you had older reviews).

The new algorithm favors recency, and its goal is to grab a statistically relevant sample set of reviews from as recently as possible to average together, rather than simply looking at all reviews over a long set period of time. If you have a lot of reviews coming in on a regular basis, your rating is more likely to be based on a more recent set of reviews than if you, say, have a low volume of reviews coming in over time.

In terms of the visual display, here’s the old:

And here’s the new:

How Ratings Changed:

• For Non Merchant Members, the rating score has increased by an average 36%.
• For Merchant Members, the rating score has increased by an average 26%.
• 14,000 additional merchants (which previously had no ratings within the past six months) are now rated.

Main effects:

• If you run into a short-lived problem with order fulfillment or another issue that causes wide-spread customer issues, instead of dealing with a rating hit from this for 6 months, you’ll see a much shorter duration impact. Recent reviews will enable you to recover more quickly.
• The exit survey is more important than ever. Use it to generate a maximum number of reviews since the more quickly you can generate reviews, the larger the sample set we have available from recent times to average together to generate your rating.
• You may see slightly higher volatility in your rating score.

As always, we welcome your feedback!

The secret’s out: ResellerRatings.com has been redesigned! Just in time for the holidays, too. Our team has been working day and night over the past year to overhaul the entire site. New design. New backend. New star rating. New survey form. New navigation. New search features. The Beta version was released today, by invitation only. Next week, we will be making The New ResellerRatings accessible to everyone!

We are committed to quality and integrity. Our goal is to provide THE BEST:

• Software. A brand-spanking-new platform that’s better, faster, stronger…and scalable.
• Content. We’re still the leading source of verified consumer stories, with a fresher face.
• Experience. Integration with Google Products, Bing Shopping, Tjoos, Facebook & more.
• Community. Increased visibility and social interaction with fellow users and engaged merchants.