Nielsen: Consumers Trust Online Opinions

[Swede]

I'm not sure what to make of this.



LONDON When it comes to trust, personal recommendations and consumer opinions posted online are most valued by consumers worldwide.

So says the latest twice-yearly Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, which gauged opinions from 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries.

In fact, 90 percent of the respondents said they trust recommendations from people they know, while 70 percent said they trusted consumer opinions posted online.


http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/e3i0a5fa05df2f2bdcfe08f71da7df1e37a?imw=Y

[lindisfarne]

1. More evidence that most Americans are uneducated idiots?n/t

[pscot]

3. If 50 buyers review a product on Amazon

and 30 of them cite the same defect, would you buy it despite the warnings?

[lindisfarne]

6. It wouldn't be the only factor in my decision. If I knew the manufacturer to be good, had heard good

opinions from people around me, saw good ratings elsewhere by reliable organizations like Consumer Reports, no, I wouldn't put much weight on the Amazon ratings.

Online ratings can be easily manipulated by anyone, including employees at companies selling a similar product.

[Kahuna]

11. I wouldn't. Also would you buy from an ebay seller with a poor feedback

profile? I doubt it. So all these people saying people are idiots for trusting strangers are being idiots themselves. I do shop online and I do read the reviews of other customers. If the reviews are consistently bad, I do take that into consideration.

[customerserviceguy]

5. That's unfair

Many sites are set up specifically to allow people to warn others. When I go to a city I've not been to before (or am being offered a too-good-to-be-true deal in a place I usually have a regular motel) I check out Trip Advisor. I've looked at some places after I've stayed there, and I had wished I'd seen TA first.

If you Google up "fill-in-the-blank sucks" you will find all kinds of ways to beware of the tricks that places pull. People saying that they find Internet information reliable is not the same as saying they believe the crap that pops up at the top of a search engine.

[lindisfarne]

10. If it had said they include online ratings as one factor in the decision, I'd agree with you.Instead

they said they are "reliable".
They're not. They're easily manipulated, even by employees of rival companies.

Personal recommendations by friends aren't always great, either. I had a friend who loved her dentist. He was a very personable guy. But he also missed obvious decay that was clear in my X-rays and should have been treated (several dentists (supervisors at a dental school) confirmed this). I had another friend who recommended a former pastor turned financial advisor. Turns out the former pastor failed to tell clients that products outside his company's line might serve their needs better (he was following a corporate policy, but that didn't absolve him of his responsibility to give accurate financial advice).

I can imagine this is true with many professions.

[anigbrowl]

12. Untrue

It's not quoted as people saying they're 'reliable' in the article or upthread. what the article says is that 70% have some degree of trust' in consumer opinions posted online.

You are not the only person capable of weighting an anonymous opinion; including online opinions in a buying decision does not make someone an idiot, as you suggest.

[lindisfarne]

14. "reliable" vs. "trust" - are you really quibbling over that? "70 percent said they trusted consumer

opinions posted online"

[anigbrowl]

15. No, I'm quibbling over the degree of trust

you are arguing as if 70% of people asserted total trust in online opinions. In fact, the result refers to the total of people who fully trust them and those who somewhat trust them. Obviously some people are gullible and overly-trusting, just as some other people are paranoid and incapable of trust.Frankly, I think your whole post was just an excuse to publicly congratulate yourself for your superiority to the general public, although I'm sure you won't trust my opinion on that particular topic.

[lindisfarne]

17. "70 percent said they trusted consumer opinion posted online". Seems my point is upheld.

"More evidence that most Americans are uneducated idiots?". Seems "most" is not inconsistent with 70%.

[anigbrowl]

19. Read the graph caption, and the footnote.

[lindisfarne]

20. I have. I still think most are idiots. "Somewhat trust" an online review site that can easily be

manipulated? Consumer Reports - yes, I put some stock in them, but very often, not a lot, either (they're not good, for example, at assessing life expectancy of most products). I also carefully look at what aspects of a product they evaluate before I put any trust in the recommendations they give me.

Online sites - don't tell you much. Negative reviews can be as misleading as positive. If I have 10 friends who bought a product and haven't had any reliability issues, I'll trust them, not 30 out of 50 negative recommendations online. People are overall more likely to complain than they are to praise.

I also know that some corporations pay subcontractors to go out and manipulate online ratings (both in favor of their products & against products of competitors).

I won't be replying further. You're entitled to your opinion as I am to mine. (By the way, this isn't the only thing that makes me believe about 70-80% of Americans fail to think critically on most occasions.)

[anigbrowl]

21. Believe it or not, you are not the only person with a bullshit detector

You are welcome to continue rejecting all opinions posted online while relying on your preferred sources of information. Personally, I have not run into any significant problems from considering anonymous opinions before making a commitment of money or time.

[polichick]

2. They're better than the paid opinions you get from critics and salespeople. nt

[Hello_Kitty]

4. I would tend to trust criticisms more than glowing endorsements.

Not because I'm negative but because I know that people are paid to write recommendations on websites so I always take them with a grain of salt.

[NashVegas]

9. I Would Trust Detailed Ones

Trip Advisor used to be great for opinion-getting, but it's become swamped with proprietors giving their establishments glowing fluff, and their competitors a world of grief. On the bright side, most of these are 75% recognizable to discerning readers.

[Deja Q]

7. No, Leslie, not all of us do.

I know what to look for. And it sure as hell isn't a popularity contest.

[WeDidIt]

8. I trust something posted on a travel site

one hell of a lot more than so-called "experts" who might take kcik backs from hotels to give good reviews.

And I don't do it in a vacuum. I seek out multiple reviews of the same hotel. If there were five bad reviews out of ten in the past month, I'll find a different hotel.

It makes good sense.

Angie's List is way cool, too.

[SoCalDem]

13. Why not? "Consumers" have been groomed by the ad-men for more than half a century

The herd is quite compliant these days, and many are not old enough to know there was a time before the public was "owned" .

[anigbrowl]

16. But not you, you jedi you.

[PretzelWarrior]

18. CAVEAT on that!!! I actually agree with this methodology

You should try reading "Wisdom of Crowds" some time. Fascinating about collectively a group coming up with good decisions and it may explain why Democracies are more successful at raising standards in a country.

I think Angie's list is an interesting site for reviews of products...but what I really like is tripadvisor. I have to throw out the really positive and really negative reviews because some are just way too optimistic or pessimistic and don't deal in objective fact or even subjective fact.

I have had some nice times at places I've stayed in Mexican resorts and hotels here in the states because of Tripadvisor. I think I've avoided some real dogs of places on personal and business trips because the "look" of the place was good, but reviews were horrible.

Same with ratemyprofessor.com