How to Use Online Reviews Like a Super Shopper

Opinion Spam

According to various polls and studies it has been estimated that anywhere from 10-30% of online reviews are “opinion spam” — inappropriate or fraudulent reviews. We can't stop this but we can be knowledgeable, safe, and aware online shoppers. One way to be a savvy shopper is to know how to best use and interpret online reviews in your research for products or services. You probably already use reviews. In a polling report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in 2010, 78% of all respondents who use the Internet to research a product or service said that they do so at least occasionally. Not only that but the Internet users in the 50+ age group were “more likely than their young-adult counterparts to have researched potential purchases online." Most of us put a lot of trust in these reviews too. Amy Dusto writes that “online reviews from customers win the trust of 70% of global consumers in the new Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising Survey." You also expect to find reviews and if you don’t then you will probably go looking for them. It is important to find reviews for your purchases and to know how to use them and how to identify the ones that you can trust.