I found one of my reviews in an unexpected place..
I got an e-mail from Amazon, asking if I could answer a question posed by a potential customer on one of the items I'd reviewed. A gnocchi board. "Is this made in America?" I had no idea, so I decided to try to find out. I looked up "V581 Gnocchi Board" and found a bunch of links to eBay. Each eBay auction had the same board, sold by different people, with the exact same description and wording, but no information on where it was made. The next few links were to places that compare store prices for you and take you to the store you want to buy from. A bunch of gnocchi boards but only Amazon has the exact one I want. Next up is Sears, which has it for $20 more than Amazon. For a gnocchi board?? Yeowtch! But I'm not buying the board, I just want information. Nope. Sears doesn't list it.
Finally I found another place. Depot.com. So I clicked the link and when the page loaded, this place that was not Amazon, I found they had reviews for it. The first of which was the review I wrote for Amazon. Not quite sure how I feel about that.
Writing a product review is kind of like supporting a business. You're saying I want people to read this review when they look at this item on your website. I want them to know that they can come to your website and see what other people think of the things you sell. To be able to choose what they buy based upon what other customers think. I want them to think about your website when they consider buying something. I do that with Amazon.com. I trust them, and whenever I've had a problem, they've taken care of it for me. I like the quality of the company.
But here's this company I've never heard of, taking reviews people have written for Amazon.com and putting them on their own web site. Like people have gone to Depot.com and written the reviews for them. "Depot is a good company. They have lots of customers. You can tell by how many people write item reviews for them." I don't like that. The more I think about it, the less I like it. I'd like people to be able to see what others think of the item they're considering for purchase, to be able to tell if the item is any good or not, wherever they consider buying it. But don't steal your reviews for someone else. Put up the option for people to write reviews on your website instead of using another company's reviews. That just makes me think less of you as a potential place to buy something.
Finally I found another place. Depot.com. So I clicked the link and when the page loaded, this place that was not Amazon, I found they had reviews for it. The first of which was the review I wrote for Amazon. Not quite sure how I feel about that.
Writing a product review is kind of like supporting a business. You're saying I want people to read this review when they look at this item on your website. I want them to know that they can come to your website and see what other people think of the things you sell. To be able to choose what they buy based upon what other customers think. I want them to think about your website when they consider buying something. I do that with Amazon.com. I trust them, and whenever I've had a problem, they've taken care of it for me. I like the quality of the company.
But here's this company I've never heard of, taking reviews people have written for Amazon.com and putting them on their own web site. Like people have gone to Depot.com and written the reviews for them. "Depot is a good company. They have lots of customers. You can tell by how many people write item reviews for them." I don't like that. The more I think about it, the less I like it. I'd like people to be able to see what others think of the item they're considering for purchase, to be able to tell if the item is any good or not, wherever they consider buying it. But don't steal your reviews for someone else. Put up the option for people to write reviews on your website instead of using another company's reviews. That just makes me think less of you as a potential place to buy something.