How Reviews Work Here: Only Delivered Orders Count

Product reviews online have a credibility problem, and everyone knows it. Five-star walls appear overnight, the wording rhymes suspiciously across sellers, and the one honest three-star review sits at the bottom of page four. So it is worth saying plainly how reviews work on Midmart, and what that does and does not guarantee.

The rule: a delivered order, or no review

Only a buyer whose order was actually delivered can leave a review on that product and that shop. There is no open comment box for a passer-by, no review from a cancelled order, and no way to buy a batch of ratings, because there is no route into the review table that does not start with a real order and a real delivery.

The consequence is that review counts here are smaller than on platforms where anyone can post. That is the trade, and it is the right way round: a shop with 40 reviews from 40 delivered orders is telling you more than a shop with 4,000 from nowhere in particular.

What gets moderated, and what does not

A critical review is not removed for being critical. What our team acts on is abuse, personal information, content that is not about the purchase, and coordinated fakery. A seller cannot delete a review they dislike — they can reply to it, and the reply sits publicly beside it, which is usually more informative than either alone.

Reporting a review

Buyers and sellers can both report a review from the page it appears on. Reports go into a queue that a person works through, and the outcomes are limited but real: the review stands, the review is removed, or the shop behind a pattern of them is suspended.

How to read a rating properly

• Read the count first, then the score. 5.0 from three orders is barely evidence; 4.5 from three hundred is a track record.
• Read the three-star reviews. The mixed ones carry the specifics — sizing, packaging, delivery time — that the extremes leave out.
• Look for patterns, not incidents. One bad delivery week happens to everyone. The same complaint five times is information.
• Check whether the seller replies. How a shop answers its worst review tells you what it will be like when something goes wrong for you.
• Weight recency. A shop's last twenty orders describe it better than its first twenty.

What a good rating does not promise

It does not make Midmart responsible for the parcel or the payment. We host the record; the shop makes and keeps the promise. A strong rating means many buyers had a good experience and said so honestly — which is exactly as much, and as little, as it sounds. That is still the most useful thing on the page.

If you have bought something, write one

Reviews on a young marketplace are a public good. Say what you bought, whether it matched the listing, how long delivery took and how the packaging held up. Three specific sentences help the next buyer more than five stars and no words.