Buying things on-line - decision strategies

[Oaktree]

Why go inside and risk being run down by kids with shopping carts? If I didn't know which or what i need the people working in store wouldn't be any help. The wife order's 90% of groceries online for parking lot pick up.

Not me, if I'm buying locally I like to look at the merchandise before I buy it. I don't want some 20 year old kid grabbing a bunch of 2x4s at random for me. Likewise for groceries, especially perishables. Plus I like to browse the markdown/date-code-expires-today display. At least this way if I get the wrong item I have no one else to blame.

Amazon itself said it caught and removed 10 billion listings last year that had fake products. They use some sort of AI to flag the fakes.

And the vast majority of the fakes were not designer stuff but rather everyday staples like soap brands and razors.

Don't think I've run into any "fakes", but you do have to be careful with a lot of items where a brand name product is shown, but the actual product is some off-brand. Specialty batteries (such as for a UPS or laptop) require particular attention...the listing will show a Dell battery, but in the fine print you'll find it's really a Batteries-R-Us one. Not necessarily a deal killer...the name brand ones are quite pricey and sometimes the off brand ones are good enough, but it's still deceptive.

2) If there is a particularly good or bad review and I want to determine if the review is more likely to be valid, I check out that person's other posted reviews. There you can see if they have posted reviews with a variety of ratings and for a variety of products. By reading some of those reviews you can get an idea if the review about the product you are interested in is legit.

Thanks for the idea, didn't know you could do that.

 

[beowulf]

Oaktree: Just above a review on Amazon you will see the name of the person writing that review. Click on that name and all of that person's reviews will appear - products reviewed, ratings and comments. Now, I have found a very few where their reviews do not appear - so I am suspicious of those.

 

[Locoweed]

I start with the negative reviews & read them with a discerning eye. Works for me.
A few years ago I was shopping for a water heater & I was amazed by the number of 5 reviews that mentioned looks. Who cares about the looks of a water heater? Millennials I guess?

 

[ning]

I start with the negative reviews & read them with a discerning eye. Works for me.
A few years ago I was shopping for a water heater & I was amazed by the number of 5 reviews that mentioned looks. Who cares about the looks of a water heater? Millennials I guess?

Most millenials are not in the market for a water heater (avocado toast makes too big a hole in the down payment budget! jk).
I blame generic shill review templates; someone probably has a review generator that mentions shipping time, how nicely the $thing is packaged and how it looks now that it was so easy to set up etc

 

[Oaktree]

I read the text of the reviews. Reviews that make it clear they bought and use the product that I'm looking at are the ones I pay attention to. I mean the multiple paragraph ones where they really get into it. "5 stars works great" is useless even if it is a real review, and it's often not.

But some items there's not a lot else to say.

Dunno about other sellers, but Amazon will sometimes reject reviews for odd reasons. For example, a couple years ago I bought a couple of DVD sets from a third-party vendor. Merchandise was as presented, but I was charged separate shipping for each set even though they all came in the same package. I commented about this in my review, but it was rejected as not appropriate. ??? As a potential customer, something like that would be good to know.