Dataset Overview
Complete statistical portrait of the Patio Lawn & Garden review data, powered by Amazon Reviews'23
Dataset Overview
The Patio, Lawn & Garden category is the second-largest in the Amazon Reviews'23 dataset, containing 500,000 reviews spanning over 15 years (1996–2023). This page presents a comprehensive statistical portrait of the data powering this site.
Data Source: Amazon Reviews'23 by McAuley Lab, UC San Diego.
Raw file: Patio_Lawn_and_Garden.jsonl
Rating Distribution
Figure: Distribution of star ratings across all Patio, Lawn & Garden reviews.
Amazon reviews skew heavily positive — this is a well-known platform bias.
| Rating | Count | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 5 ★ | 332,740 | 66.5% |
| 4 ★ | 63,680 | 12.7% |
| 3 ★ | 34,923 | 7.0% |
| 2 ★ | 23,011 | 4.6% |
| 1 ★ | 45,646 | 9.1% |
Average Rating: 4.23 / 5.00
Why This Matters
Over 83% of reviews are 4–5 stars. This means:
- Raw star ratings are a weak signal for product comparison — most products cluster near 4.5
- Negative reviews (1–2 stars) are disproportionately valuable for identifying product defects
- Review text is more informative than ratings for making purchase decisions
Review Authenticity
| Metric | Count | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Verified Purchases | 456,118 | 91.2% |
| Unverified | 43,882 | 8.8% |
About 8.8% of reviews come from unverified sources (Vine reviewers, review swaps, direct reviews without purchase). The verified subset is generally more trustworthy.
Review Helpfulness
Amazon users can upvote reviews as “helpful.” This signal helps surface the most informative content.
Figure: Log-scale distribution of helpful votes. Note the extreme skew — most reviews receive 0 votes.
| Helpful Votes | Review Count | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 0 votes | 363,825 | 72.8% |
| ≥ 1 vote | 136,175 | 27.2% |
| ≥ 5 votes | 26,440 | 5.3% |
| ≥ 10 votes | 12,201 | 2.4% |
| ≥ 50 votes | 1,624 | 0.3% |
Average helpful votes per review: 1.39 Most helpful review: 3598 votes
“Okay, I read all these reviews, and expected some problems because of the 1-3 star users. But I really can’t deal with the mess and unpredictable results of spring traps, or the unwelcomed surprise o…”
Insight
Only 27.2% of reviews receive any helpful vote. This means:
- Reviews with 5+ helpful votes are rare signals of genuine insight
- About 1,624 reviews (0.3%) carry 50+ votes — these are gold for content curation
Review Length Distribution
Figure: Review length at key percentiles. The dashed red line marks the average.
| Percentile | Characters |
|---|---|
| 25th | 51 |
| 50th (median) | 124 |
| 75th | 270 |
| 90th | 514 |
Average length: 224 characters
Half of all reviews are under 124 characters — roughly 1–2 sentences. Only 10% exceed 514 characters. Long, detailed reviews are scarce and valuable.
User-Submitted Images
| Metric | Count | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews with photos | 34,393 | 6.9% |
| Text-only reviews | 465,607 | 93.1% |
Only 6.9% of reviews include user photos — but these are the most trusted by shoppers.
Reviews Over Time
Figure: Review volume (bars) and average rating (line) per year.
| Year | Reviews | 5★ % | Verified % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 4 | 50.0% | 25.0% |
| 2001 | 6 | 66.7% | 50.0% |
| 2002 | 5 | 80.0% | 40.0% |
| 2003 | 14 | 71.4% | 14.3% |
| 2004 | 14 | 71.4% | 50.0% |
| 2005 | 38 | 42.1% | 63.2% |
| 2006 | 67 | 56.7% | 71.6% |
| 2007 | 183 | 57.4% | 71.6% |
| 2008 | 253 | 54.2% | 66.8% |
| 2009 | 447 | 52.6% | 66.4% |
| 2010 | 945 | 58.5% | 79.0% |
| 2011 | 1,798 | 54.0% | 80.0% |
| 2012 | 3,489 | 58.2% | 86.0% |
| 2013 | 10,264 | 59.1% | 91.9% |
| 2014 | 19,129 | 63.2% | 88.1% |
| 2015 | 31,383 | 65.6% | 93.6% |
| 2016 | 40,320 | 66.7% | 92.2% |
| 2017 | 41,966 | 66.4% | 93.6% |
| 2018 | 44,808 | 66.3% | 95.0% |
| 2019 | 60,384 | 71.1% | 94.5% |
| 2020 | 69,655 | 67.6% | 92.9% |
| 2021 | 82,002 | 66.5% | 90.9% |
| 2022 | 80,148 | 65.2% | 86.5% |
| 2023 | 12,678 | 68.1% | 78.4% |
Statistics computed from the raw dataset. Based on a random sample of 500,000 reviews. Use --full for a complete scan.