New research reveals that we may be a bit too reliant on online user reviews, even though they don't always reflect the quality of the product.
A new study has found we are overly reliant on star ratings when deciding what to buy online from websites like Amazon.
Research into 300,000 ratings of 1,300 products on Amazon in the US found a “substantial disconnect” between the actual quality of an item and the number of stars it had received.
Our reviews are far from objective, according to the study, which was published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Reviewers are more likely to give a positive review to more expensive products and brands they know regardless of the quality.
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Do we still listen to the experts?
When the researchers compared Amazon reviews with expert reviews by Consumer Reports – the US equivalent of Which? – almost half the time the two disagreed about which item in a random pair was better.
“The combined influence of price and brand image on the average rating is much larger than the effect of objective quality, as measured by Consumer Reports, explaining more than four times as much variance,” says the report.
We’ve also become so dependent on reviews we will let them sway our decision even if there are only a handful of reviews that don’t represent the experiences of most shoppers.
“Consumers fail to moderate their reliance on the average user rating when the sample size is insufficient. Averages based on small samples are treated the same as averages based on large samples.”
If you are making a big purchase, such as a television or household appliance, you should read independent expert reviews such as Which? in order to make an informed decision.
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