Why You Should Always Read Customer Reviews before Buying Any Product
Online shopping has displayed exponential growth in the past decade. It’s hard to remember how we used to shop before! More and more shops are creating websites for online shopping, especially after the COVID pandemic. With more people staying at home, different businesses have adopted door-to-door delivery options as people are forced to go on quarantine.
Customer reviews are a big part of shopping. When you think about reviews before the growing trend of online shopping, the choices were limited. You mostly had to ask friends or colleagues at work if they tried a certain brand or product. Word of mouth was the ultimate customer review before the invention of the internet. Nowadays, you can find customer reviews on most websites that sell a product or a service. Businesses encourage these reviews as they’re an excellent way to make people aware of their brand. However, we’re here to talk about your experience as a shopper. Here are a few reasons why you should read customer reviews before making a purchase.
Decision Making
You might find yourself browsing website after website in search of a particular product and have no idea what you’re looking for or how to find it. Sometimes you’ll be confused between two or more items that look perfectly fine to you and have trouble making your decision. That’s when customer reviews become the deciding factor.
Some websites offer you the option to filter your product choices according to the best reviews. This helps you with your decision-making process when it comes to buying a new face cream, coffee machine, or kitchen tools, and even when looking for movie or series recommendations. Star ratings are found on most products where customers get to rate their experience. You can use that to narrow down your search, but make sure to read the customer’s reviews to find out what people liked about it. If the comments match your requirements, then it’s time to make your purchase.
Finding Reputable Brands
It’s smart to read the customer reviews about certain brands to give you an idea about whether or not you can trust them. If you can’t find customer reviews on a new brand, you can post a question on your social media platforms. Now more than ever, most people are excited to give their honest product reviews to give their insight whether they had a good or bad experience. In both cases, you want to know the pros and cons of a business’s products, customer service, delivery speed, and other factors. The advantage of posting a question on social media is that you get to talk to customers and make sure that they actually tried the product and are not part of the business’s marketing team.
Value versus Price
This is another important point that you need to know before buying a product. Let’s say you’ve found a trusted brand and have your eye on a product but it turns out it’s a little out of your budget. Now, you’re hesitating because you don’t know whether or not it’s worth it. Reading customer reviews can help you figure out if the advantages of having that particular item are worth a month’s salary. This comes in handy when you’re buying expensive electronic appliances like a smartphone or a dishwasher. Try to read customers' reviews from different sources and don’t just stick to the reviews section on the company’s website. You can do a Google or Facebook search with the name of the product and read what people are saying about that certain product.
Reviews over Ad Campaigns
Companies spend millions of dollars on ad campaigns, so it’s their job to present their product as the best in the market and even convince you that you can’t live without it. However, no matter how appealing ad campaigns are, people don’t trust them over customers’ reviews. Even if you trust a certain brand, not all their products are worth your money. Many YouTube influencers make a living from trying out new products. Make a habit of waiting a month or two after a product is launched so that people can write a review or make a video about it. You can also buy reviews that have an authentic feel. This is especially useful when you want to buy expensive items like electronic devices.
Make sure to read the negative reviews before the positive ones. People are different and care about various things in products, so find out if you can live with the things that people didn’t like about it. In the end, people’s opinions are widely different but you can still benefit a lot from reading customers' reviews before you spend your money on a particular product.
