Two table sauce challengers have come to blows over a series of suspicious looking five-star reviews posted to Ocado.
Sauce Shop co-founder James Digva called out rival Dr Will’s in a LinkedIn post earlier this week, drawing his followers’ attention to a series of five-star reviews all posted to Ocado by the same account.
The reviewer (alias stuartownend) had posted five-star reviews for nine of Dr Will’s’ table sauces to Ocado yesterday (12 November).
Some reviews were suspiciously on-message. For example, Dr Will’s’ Classic Mayo 170g had a “pretty decent ingredients deck”, while its Barbecue Sauce 250g was “UPF free”.
Dr Will’s’ Buffalo Hot Sauce 155g, meanwhile was “better than the Sauce Shop one I normally get in Sainsbury’s”, according to the reviewer.
“What are the chances of this?!” Digva wrote on LinkedIn, attaching a screenshot of the reviews in question.
“A reviewer on Ocado Retail has written 9 reviews, all of them giving Dr. Will’s products 5 stars, this person has written no other reviews before, no other products reviewed this time, just those 9.”
Dr Will’s CEO Liam White commented on the post, explaining that he was “sorry to see” the comparison to Sauce Shop.
“We asked friends & family to give a review push if they buy our products,” White admitted.
“Disappointed they’ve called out another brand so have messaged on a couple of groups to ask them to remove if it was them,” he wrote.
However, Digva didn’t appear to accept the apology, replying that “surely reviews should come from genuine purchasers!”
“Absolutely they should,” countered White. “We ask people who buy our products to review (as I’m sure we all do!)”
Over 100 people had reacted to the post by the time of writing, and it had gained more than 40 comments from industry insiders weighing in on the debacle.
“Rule 101 of writing reviews for your own brand, make sure you scatter others in there too,” commented Ruth Fittock, managing partner of marketing consultancy Tomorrow Brands.
Meanwhile, 2 Sisters NPD manager Jade Coleman-Nicholls claimed: “Consumers do not write reviews commenting on UPFs!”
When approached by The Grocer, White said he was “disappointed that another brand has been mentioned negatively in the comments”.
“This is not something I like to see, particularly when challenger brands we respect are doing a really good job to create better quality products for consumers.”
“I always say that I’m happy to see people buying better quality sauces, whether from the likes of Sauce Shop, Hunter & Gather or Dr Will’s,” White added.
A spokeswoman for Ocado said the retailer had “looked into this case and removed reviews in breach of our T&Cs for example, where the reviewer hasn’t purchased the product.”
Sauce Shop declined to comment further.
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