The lifetime star average on a vendor page is a smoothed number that hides recent decline. The last twenty reviews are the real signal.
Why lifetime average is misleading
A vendor with 4.9 stars overall could have earned those stars over a year of good service, then dropped their supply source in the past month and started sending inconsistent product. The lifetime average is still 4.7 because the past twenty reviews cannot pull down a thousand older ones. But the reviews you should actually read (the recent ones) tell a different story.
What to look for
Scroll to the bottom of the review feed. Read the last twenty reviews individually. Not the star ratings, the text.
Consistent complaint patterns are the red flag. "Package arrived open" once is a fluke. "Package arrived open" three times in the last twenty reviews is a structural problem with the vendor's stealth.
Consistent praise patterns are the green flag. "Great communication" across many recent reviews means the vendor is responsive on the message system, which matters if you ever need to dispute.
The fake-review pattern
A cluster of glowing five-star reviews with generic wording ("fast shipping quality product", "A+ vendor will buy again") is often a vendor buying fake reviews to bury a real bad one. Look at the neighbouring reviews. If a genuine bad review sits between a burst of generic five-stars, treat the vendor with caution.
The timing pattern
If a vendor has 300 orders and 250 of them cluster in the same four days, that is not a vendor. That is someone spinning up a profile for a scam. Real order flow spreads across weeks and months.