Directive 2019/2161 of the European Parliament and of the Council, known as the Omnibus Directive, concerns unfair business practices by traders against consumers. The document modernizes the principle of protecting consumer rights through strengthened enforcement measures and increased transparency requirements. The new regulations address, among others: transparency in price reductions of goods during sales and special offers, as well as consumer reviews and recommendations.
Numerous studies have repeatedly confirmed that many consumers rely on reviews when making purchasing decisions. Unfortunately, dishonest traders take advantage of this fact by creating or buying fake positive reviews of their products, or negative comments about competitors. On top of this, there are many other violations, such as removal of negative comments or displaying only positive ones on the website. Clearly, these are practices that can have a significant impact on purchasing decisions, thus in order to protect consumers, EU member states are required to implement the Omnibus Directive in their own laws.
The fact that a company’s good reputation has to be earned has been known for a long time. Of course, the best evidence of a business’s reputation is consumer feedback. However, some prefer to take shortcuts and instead of patiently collecting reviews, analyzing them and drawing conclusions to become a better company – they prefer to commission or self-publish false reviews. Unfortunately, the detection of fake reviews is not at all that easy. Their authors tend to stylize the language of reviews to resemble real consumer reviews.
However, the provisions of the Omnibus Directive impose an obligation on entrepreneurs displaying reviews on websites to inform whether the reviews are verified. In addition, if a company declares that it verifies reviews, it should provide information on how it conducts verification and clearly communicate how reviews are processed.
According to the new obligations, companies providing consumer reviews on their website should inform potential customers whether all reviews are published, where they are drawn from (e.g. from which platforms), how the average rating is calculated and whether it is affected by sponsored reviews. Undoubtedly, this is a very big step towards combating fake reviews.
Given that consumer choices are so often the result of checking the ratings and reviews posted on the Internet about a given product or service, this is a sign to every retailer that it is worthwhile to take care not only of sourcing reviews, but also of their quality. Moreover, in order to avoid false reviews on own website (e.g., through unfair actions by competitors), technological solutions should be implemented.
The Omnibus Directive does not propose specific methods, but one of the more effective ones will be to allow only logged-in users to give reviews. You can also add a mandatory field to the review form, where the order or reservation number should be entered. This will allow you to match the review to the consumer in question. Another very effective option is to send invitations to consumers to rate goods and services with a link to allow them to leave a review. Such a solution is offered by Rating Captain – you can use emails, text messages or QR codes in the application.
However, when it comes to displaying ratings and reviews on the website, it is important for the trader to fulfill its duty of information. The seller must, in the place where it presents reviews of, for example, a particular product, inform potential customers whether the reviews are verified, and if so, how. In Rating Captain you can enable widgets that will present reviews on your site in a way that complies with the directive. Underneath the widgets, there is a message stating that the reviews are verified and come only from your customers. In addition, you can add a link to the message that directs to the terms and conditions or a dedicated tab that indicates which platforms the reviews come from, how their average is calculated and whether all reviews are displayed in the widgets.
In case of a possible inspection by the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, the entrepreneur will have to prove that the reviews come from real customers of the company. Of course, non-compliance with the EU Omnibus Directive and the amendments implemented in the Polish legal order will be subject to fines. Currently in Poland, there is a financial fine of up to 10% of turnover for creating, soliciting and posting false reviews online. That is why the mere information about reviewing feedback is not enough, the process of controlling and processing consumer reviews is still important.
The Omnibus Directive introduces changes to the law that will help increase the transparency of actions taken by traders, as well as eliminate or significantly reduce the occurrence of unfair trade practices that violate the collective interests of consumers.