Review Integrity

Our Commitment to Honest Reviews

Customer reviews are one of the most important trust signals on any marketplace. Buyers rely on them to make confident purchasing decisions, and sellers depend on them to build reputation. Kogan Store is committed to ensuring that every review published on our platform reflects a real, genuine experience.

We do not publish fabricated reviews. We do not manufacture aggregate ratings. We do not use star ratings in structured data unless a verified and eligible review system supports them. Our review practices are designed to be transparent, accurate, and honest.

Verified Purchase Principle

A verified purchase review is one that is linked to a real, completed transaction on the Kogan Store platform. To qualify as a verified review, the following conditions must be met:

• The buyer must have placed and paid for an order containing the reviewed product.
• The order must have been fulfilled or marked as delivered.
• The review must be submitted by the authenticated account that placed the order.
• The review must not have been submitted within a suspiciously short window after purchase that would not allow for product use.

Reviews that cannot be linked to a qualifying transaction may be submitted as unverified feedback, which is clearly labelled as such.

What Reviews Must Contain

To be published, a review must:

• Reflect the reviewer's honest personal experience with the product.
• Be written in clear, readable language.
• Not contain personal attacks, hate speech, or abusive language directed at sellers or other users.
• Not include personally identifiable information such as names, phone numbers, or addresses of third parties.
• Not contain promotional language, affiliate links, or advertisements.
• Not include content unrelated to the product or purchasing experience.

Prohibited Review Practices

The following practices are strictly prohibited on Kogan Store and may result in review removal, account restriction, or permanent suspension:

• Fake reviews: Submitting reviews for products you have not purchased or used.
• Incentivised reviews: Offering or accepting discounts, gifts, refunds, or other benefits in exchange for positive reviews.
• Review manipulation: Attempting to inflate or suppress review scores through coordinated campaigns.
• Purchased reviews: Buying or selling reviews through any channel.
• Competitor attacks: Submitting negative reviews on competitor products without a genuine purchase.
• Self-reviews: Sellers submitting reviews on their own products, directly or through associates.
• Duplicate submissions: Submitting the same or substantially similar review multiple times for the same product.

Review Moderation

Kogan Store moderates submitted reviews before or after publication depending on the nature of the content. Our moderation process includes:

• Automated screening for spam patterns, prohibited language, and duplicate content.
• Manual review of flagged content by marketplace operations staff.
• Review of reports submitted by buyers, sellers, and platform users.

Moderation decisions are logged with a status, reason, and reviewer role. Genuine negative reviews are not removed solely because they reflect unfavourably on a seller. Negative reviews that meet our content standards will remain published.

Seller Rights and Responsibilities

Sellers may report reviews they believe violate this policy using the seller dashboard. Reports are reviewed by marketplace operations staff. Sellers may not:

• Demand removal of negative reviews that are genuine and policy-compliant.
• Threaten, harass, or offer incentives to buyers to modify or remove reviews.
• Contact buyers outside of the platform to influence reviews.

Sellers who violate these responsibilities may face listing restrictions, account suspension, or permanent removal from the marketplace.

Aggregate Ratings and Structured Data

Kogan Store does not publish aggregate star ratings in structured data (JSON-LD schema markup) unless a verified, active review system with eligible published reviews supports those ratings. We do not fabricate or estimate aggregate ratings for SEO purposes.

When aggregate ratings are displayed, they are calculated from real verified reviews only and accurately reflect the current state of published feedback. Displaying ratings that do not match visible, accessible reviews is a practice we consider misleading and we do not engage in it.

Reporting a Review Integrity Concern

If you believe a review on Kogan Store is fake, manipulated, or in violation of this policy, you can report it through our support channel. Please provide as much detail as possible, including the product page, the review in question, and the reason for your concern. All reports are investigated by our marketplace operations team.

Related Policies

This policy should be read alongside our Trust & Safety, Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy. Together these documents describe how Kogan Store operates a safe, honest, and transparent marketplace.