In online reviews we trust? Study shows that might be a bad idea when buying products

Be sure to exhibit caution when looking at reviews if you’re holiday shopping online

People who like to exhibit caution when buying online products by checking the reviews need to be even more cautious when it comes to the reviews themselves, according to a recent study.

Reviews are also clearly important, given 70% of people would pay more money for products or services with higher review ratings, according to BestSEOCompanies using FakeSpot data.

In an analysis of 2.7 million online reviews of products, it was found that 39% of them were fake and unreliable.

Other findings included the following:

· 24% of all online products analyzed found that more than 50% of those products had unreliable reviews.

· The product category with the most fake reviews were electronics. There were 195,000 electronic products that had unreliable reviews, or 42% of products analyzed.

· Home decor products had 183,000 unreliable reviews (45.6% of those analyzed), while there were 165,000 unreliable reviews (46.2%) in the apparel category.

· “Toys, kids and baby items” was the product category with the lowest number of unreliable reviews at 38,000 (32.9%).

· Of those who responded, 88% of people said they wrote an online review for a product or service in the past year.

· Only 35.8% of respondents said they would purchase a product or service with no online review.

So, what exactly is a fake review online and what are ways to spot them? Click here for 10 suggestions.


About the Author:

Keith is a member of Graham Media Group's Digital Content Team, which produces content for all the company's news websites.