If you go online to buy a product or look for a restaurant or select a movie, odds are you read the reviews. Maybe not every one, but you likely glance at those at the top, scroll down a bit to see what's buried in the list, and maybe punch to the next page to see if the sentiment holds. Russians not withstanding, it's almost like judging an Olympic figure skating competition: you throw out the high and the low, and average those remaining to get a sense of how good or bad something is.
Taken together, those reviews give you a reasonable sense of what you're looking at. After all, they are truly random: they can come from any place, person, age, gender or race. Sure, there are shills in there from friends, employees, paid endorsers or even reviewing "mills" in Asia. But the sheer number in and of itself can be a defense against fraud. For the top-rated items in question, an awful lot of people weigh in with their opinions and experiences, meaning it takes a lot of fakes to overwhelm the legit ones. Looking for pots and pans? Amazon's featured set has over 1700 reviews. Need running shoes? The best selling ones on Zappos have about 2500 positive and negative impressions. Want to see the latest superhero saga? "Justice League" garnered over 114,000 posts on Rotten Tomatoes. Spoiler alert: it was mostly splats.
But for many products, the sample size can be surprisingly small. That's because there are so many products and outlets, fragmenting the consumer universe. After all, once you get off the well-worn path of 50" flat screen TV's at Best Buy, the possibilities are basically limitless. The result is that the top rated bread maker at Buy.com has just 90 reviews. A top rated coffee maker at Bed Bath And Beyond clocks in with just 61 reviews. And maybe it's just that Santa hasn't made his rounds yet, but even at Walmart the Barbie Fashionistas Style So Sweet Petite Body Doll, as of this writing, has just 3 reviews. Now is Ken's chance.
All of that means that your opinion of a less trafficked item can really count for something. Take something as pedestrian and unsexy as a name badge. For many of the events I deal with there are a lot of people swirling about, both staff and guests. It's not uncommon to for the client to provide some variation of a "Hello My Name Is" placard. But often we're on site and busy working long before the name badge machine shows up. And so I wanted a generic one to throw in my bag should the need arise.
A quick scan online brought me to Better Badges, a small company in California. For less than eight bucks delivered, I could have a pair (one to use, one as a spare) of a basic engraved plastic plate with my name. I filled out the order form, typed in my credit card info and hit send. A few days later, a small package showed up. I opened it to find my badges: simple, clean, just want I needed. Packed alongside was a note thanking me for my order, and asking me to leave a positive review, or to contact them if I couldn't.
Well, I couldn't. While the physical quality of the product was fine, the spacing on the printing was not. There was slightly more space between some letters than others. So I wrote them a note, saying that it was not the "5-star quality" they promised. They quickly wrote back and said they would remake and resend. A week or so later I got 4 replacements with a note apologizing for the error, asking me not to mention the first screw-up, and to leave a positive review this time around.
All this for a minuscule order where the postage and replacements probably cost more than the total sale. But with such a small pool of customers, every opinion carries a lot of weight. I could be a giant maker, or a giant killer (badge division). I thought about what to write so as not to be misleading to another buyer. I settled on "Good price, good service." All true. I just hope their next customer has that exact experience, only the first time around.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford usually doesn't write reviews, he just reads them. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Taken together, those reviews give you a reasonable sense of what you're looking at. After all, they are truly random: they can come from any place, person, age, gender or race. Sure, there are shills in there from friends, employees, paid endorsers or even reviewing "mills" in Asia. But the sheer number in and of itself can be a defense against fraud. For the top-rated items in question, an awful lot of people weigh in with their opinions and experiences, meaning it takes a lot of fakes to overwhelm the legit ones. Looking for pots and pans? Amazon's featured set has over 1700 reviews. Need running shoes? The best selling ones on Zappos have about 2500 positive and negative impressions. Want to see the latest superhero saga? "Justice League" garnered over 114,000 posts on Rotten Tomatoes. Spoiler alert: it was mostly splats.
But for many products, the sample size can be surprisingly small. That's because there are so many products and outlets, fragmenting the consumer universe. After all, once you get off the well-worn path of 50" flat screen TV's at Best Buy, the possibilities are basically limitless. The result is that the top rated bread maker at Buy.com has just 90 reviews. A top rated coffee maker at Bed Bath And Beyond clocks in with just 61 reviews. And maybe it's just that Santa hasn't made his rounds yet, but even at Walmart the Barbie Fashionistas Style So Sweet Petite Body Doll, as of this writing, has just 3 reviews. Now is Ken's chance.
All of that means that your opinion of a less trafficked item can really count for something. Take something as pedestrian and unsexy as a name badge. For many of the events I deal with there are a lot of people swirling about, both staff and guests. It's not uncommon to for the client to provide some variation of a "Hello My Name Is" placard. But often we're on site and busy working long before the name badge machine shows up. And so I wanted a generic one to throw in my bag should the need arise.
A quick scan online brought me to Better Badges, a small company in California. For less than eight bucks delivered, I could have a pair (one to use, one as a spare) of a basic engraved plastic plate with my name. I filled out the order form, typed in my credit card info and hit send. A few days later, a small package showed up. I opened it to find my badges: simple, clean, just want I needed. Packed alongside was a note thanking me for my order, and asking me to leave a positive review, or to contact them if I couldn't.
Well, I couldn't. While the physical quality of the product was fine, the spacing on the printing was not. There was slightly more space between some letters than others. So I wrote them a note, saying that it was not the "5-star quality" they promised. They quickly wrote back and said they would remake and resend. A week or so later I got 4 replacements with a note apologizing for the error, asking me not to mention the first screw-up, and to leave a positive review this time around.
All this for a minuscule order where the postage and replacements probably cost more than the total sale. But with such a small pool of customers, every opinion carries a lot of weight. I could be a giant maker, or a giant killer (badge division). I thought about what to write so as not to be misleading to another buyer. I settled on "Good price, good service." All true. I just hope their next customer has that exact experience, only the first time around.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford usually doesn't write reviews, he just reads them. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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