1.3 Billion Consumers Report

Online shopping has completely revolutionized the way that retailers market and deliver their products to consumers. Previously the only way to purchase something was usually to take the item in person to the checkout line in the store (mail-order brides being the main exception). Now millions of products can be purchased in seconds from anywhere. Access to items located thousands of miles away is now simpler than driving down the street, but with the tradeoff of no physical inspection of the item. For this reason it can be extremely important to gather some sort of information about a new product before it is purchased.

Traditionally, buyers have made new purchasing decisions based on word of mouth from contacts or from media reviews like Consumer Reports. This magazine, which is now online as well, is still considered one of the best unbiased review sources around. However if you do not subscribe to it, or if the magazine along with your contacts provide you no information about a product, you are making a blind decision. Going into a store and taping a piece of paper onto a purchased item describing your feelings about it I assume is taboo, but now many online stores or review sites let you do just that. One of my favorite sites, Zappos.com sells mainly shoes, but now clothing and accessories as well. Are you shopping for that special shorty in your life and don’t know whether to get her the boots with the fur or the Reeboks with the straps? Well the boots have a 5-star average in all categories from 122 ratings and run slightly large, whereas the Reeboks have the same score over 60 reviews and Anonymous from Virginia loves how they support her “bad ankle with steel rods in it”. This site provides especially useful info beyond just a 1-5 rating. Each review allows the user to write a review and rate 1-5 the overall rating, comfort, and look, along with how the shoe measures up in size, width, and arch. This is legitimately useful information for a prospective buyer provided by a complete stranger who happened to purchase the shoe.

Hilarious

In addition to user ratings provided on the actual purchasing sites, there are many examples of rating sites that have large audiences. Carrying over the shoe theme, I quickly found Athletic Shoes Adviser and believe that there are plenty other sites out there just like it. RateItAll.com (“The Opinion Network”), has ratings on… well… all, and BizRate.com aggregates many products along with the accompanying user ratings for each store. Although ratings for most items can be found in abundance quite easily, there are also drawbacks. It is extremely easy to post fake reviews that carry just as much weight as legitimate ones. I personally know people who inflate their CitySearch or eBay scores and this practice obviously occurs on numerous sites. You are also more apt to get a harshly negative review as these burned customers feel the need to speak out in ways that a happily satisfied customer would not. The abundance of information has its drawbacks, but overall it allows online shoppers to make more informed decisions that they would without the user reviews. This is a clear embodiment of “The Information Age”, and it is allowed by the underlying technology and the opinions and efforts of the masses.

-Michael Wurz

Tags: CS 292, Web 2.0, Shopping, Zappos, Consumer Reports, BizRate, RateItAll

~ by mikewurz on April 11, 2008.