Dare to Share

The great thing about the web is that people are always willing to help each other, for nothing - it’s part of human nature - and that’s useful when you’re wanting to buy something. By looking at the dedicated review sites and a few shopping sites you’ll be able to make an informed decision on whether that thing you’re wanting to buy is actually any good. Forget what the manufacturer claims - see what real people think. So where do you start?

Well, here’s how I do it. It largely depends on the product you’re wanting to buy. Don’t expect hundreds of customer reviews for an obscure product - but for the vast majority of items you should be able to find at least a few reviews to help you on your way.

1. Although Amazon is a shopping site it was also one of the first to add user reviews to all of it’s products. There’s more reviews for books and dvd’s than other stuff but it’s definitely worth a look. Also check out the US version of Amazon (www.amazon.com).
2. Play.com is another shopping site but is also building up a community feel where people are happy to share their views.
3. Review Centre is a UK based review site that’s incredibly easy to find what you’re looking for using one of its various search filters. They also make it easy to compare different products in the same category. Filtering by features, price brackets etc is useful when you’re unsure of the exact model you want, but instead require a general look at what’s available for any given market. A clear ratings overview for each product, based on user ratings, makes everything easy to find, at-a-glance.
4. Reevoo is a dedicated product review site and as all it’s efforts are focused on providing unbiased opinions it can concentrate on how to show those reviews off in the best way. It does so by providing a summary, listing the positive and negative aspects of each product, based on customer reviews. Users are asked to give marks out of ten for certain aspects of the product i.e. design, features, value for money etc, which are then displayed, similar to that of the Review Centre site.
5. Google: If you still can’t find any reviews after checking these sites then perform a simple search in Google for “your product” and “user reviews” and you should find something to help you.

If you know of any others that you use regularly then please leave a comment.

Tips

Don’t just take one person’s view on a product however extensive their review may be - you need to get a handful of opinions to make an informed decision.

Don’t just look at the positive reviews. To make an informed decision you need to look at the positives and negatives - it may be that the vast majority are positive and there’s only a couple of negatives - but what are they?

Along with customers reviews it’s also worth doing a simple Google search for “your product” and “review” to see what other sites think about it - they’ll often be a lot of extensive reviews but don’t solely rely on these . They may have only been using that product for a few hours and won’t have lived with it, like real people have.