The Value of Product Reviews -Helpful or Deceptive?

Most of us shop online these days, in varying degrees. For larger purchases, like appliances and furniture, I will flick through product reviews to ensure I am not sold a ‘lemon.’

Some of us conduct diligent research online checking product reviews on websites for any purchase. Naturally, they want to save money and purchase a reputable brand.

Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

Companies Seek Customer Feedback

What’s more, companies follow up purchases, seeking out customers’ opinions – feedback is important to them. With varying degrees, our inbox might fill with invitations to respond to customer surveys like,

“So, how did we do?”

“How can we serve you better?

“Let us know what you thought of your purchase?”

Every company wants 5 stars, and to maintain that stellar rating and I am mighty conscious how even a random 1 star review can damage a brand, particularly a small business.

So, imagine my surprise when I was invited to review a purchase of shoes, and upon submitting a 4 star review with accompanying positive-worded tip to improve store/website service, I received this reply:

Our staff has read your review and values your contribution even though it did not meet all our website guidelines.
Thanks for sharing, and we hope to publish next time!

What good is a product review if the company only publishes 5-star reviews?

The Backstory

I had chosen a ‘click and collect delivery for my order. It was filled promptly and my daughter collected the shoes from the store. (We were soon to leave for Japan and had run out of time to get to the shops). When we opened the box, later that evening, the shoes were the wrong size, ( one size smaller), but there was no time to return them to the store, before our trip.

The store’s website detailed a sizing table which converted AUS, US and EURO sizes, but nowhere did the order page indicate which regional sizing you were actually selecting when you clicked “add to shopping cart.”

The store was closed when I sent in the order, I was unable to clarify this via telephone.

But I live in Australia and it is an Aussie store, so I was pretty confident the website would indicate if it was using anything other than Australian sizing.

Wrong! We had received the US sizing – (one size down from Australian sizes)!

Therefore, my 4 star review suggested politely that customers should call the store to check sizing of shoes prior to ordering, as the website doesn’t indicate which sizing is used.

It seems they valued my contribution but it was deemed not to meet store guidelines.

“Try again,” the email glibly suggested.

Pfft! I then supposed that their guidelines must direct publication of reviews if they are only positive and give the store 5-stars?

I wonder if this is store-wide or just a managerial decision? Perhaps Blogger Keith might share his wisdom with me in this regard?

Questions to Bloggers

Do you check product reviews?

Do you find them helpful?

Has this ever happened to you?

A Food Tour in Japan

I have been offline, for a month or so, on a Japanese adventure.

When an old friend suggested I attend a food tour whilst visiting one of Japan’s largest cities, I didn’t need to accept. Thanks to a family member, who has been to Japan no less than five times, I was treated to a culinary tour of authentic Japanese meals.

Most people are familiar with Udon or Ramen – the main stay foods in Japanese cuisine, with regional variations.

Stir Fry Dishes in Japan

A regular favourite was a stir-fry with Chicken, Lotus Root and Vegetables in Black Vinegar Sauce featuring high in Hiroshima and Tokyo restaurants. I was delighted to enjoy the Lotus Root, for the first time. I liked its satisfying texture and its taste that promised an aubergine-like flavour, minus the alkalinity. Adding to the appeal, I discovered that Black Vinegar Sauce has a variety of benefits – including weight loss!

“the warming nature of black vinegar can help improve overall blood flow and circulation as well as counteract high blood pressure. ….for disinfecting cuts, insect bites or as a skin dressing. Black vinegar has few calories and if you want to lose weight, consume one to three teaspoons of vinegar daily. This vinegar maintains the health of the immune system, is anti-inflammatory, and helps to improve the body’s metabolism. It contains considerably higher amounts of amino acids, polyphenols, trace minerals, and organic acids than other vinegars including balsamic and ACV.” [ww.livestrong.com/article/280498-what-are-the-benefits-of-black-vinegar/]

And lose weight I did – although I am confident that walking over 15 km each day certainly played a key role. One that was potentially more significant than Black Vinegar sauce.

Robot Wait Staff in Japan

Bettybot needed to do perform some hijinks around the lineup at the payment counter at the front of the store, to avoid clashing with the queue of customers. Amusing to watch… arigato gozaimashita, her only response.

The real adventure in Japanese cuisine is not always found in a restaurant, where your meal may be served to you by a robot, but on the street with a plethora of food choices, small family businesses with just a handful of chairs, and also, surprisingly, in the convenience stores [gasp].

Japanese Convenience Store Food

The food in the convenience stores – i.e. Lawson, Family Mart, Seven-11 and Seicomart, is ridiculously above average. The range, quality, freshness and price stand-out from the crowd. From sandwiches to Sashimi, from Ramen eggs to ice cream or pancakes, the convenience stores have it all, even alcoholic drinks.

The stores also offer foreigner-friendly ATMs, public toilets, free charging points, and somewhere to sit and eat – (which is not so easy to find with a massive population and extremely limited street seating/green spaces). Plus, culturally it is considered rude to eat while you are walking around the streets. In this case seek out one of the convenience stores, (such as Hot Chef in Hokkaido), that stock free wet wipes and hot water plus a range of tasty, very fresh affordable food.

I will talk more about Convenience food in another post. [There is lots to discuss].

But first, the iconic Japanese food – Ramen

Ramen

It is the soup broth that the Ramen soaks in that makes the Japanese ramen so tasty. Each restaurant and region has this individual way of making it and is essentially the store’s brand. Its a long process over several days to create the unique combination of pork, vegetables and seasonings that go into the soup.

It is truly delicious and you can watch the chefs prepare your meals. This is Ippudo, the Ramen from there is reputed to be the best. This Ramen restaurant is in Susukino Ramen Alley. We had to arrive early to secure a chair.

Ramen Eggs

These come complimentary with certain meals. The eggs are marinated in soy sauce. A tip – ordering a soft poached egg as a side dish in a restaurant does not mean it will be hot. More likely it will be served COLD. I found that challenging to eat.

Ramen Eggs (Ajitsuke Tamago)

Besides Ramen, there are other marvellously unique foods I tried that I will talk about in coming posts. They include:

1. Takoyaki – Fried Octopus Balls
2. King, Snow and Hairy Crab – from Siberian waters
3. Red bean Pancakes
4. Algae
5. Pumpkin ice cream and Sakura (cherry blossom) soft serve
6. Unagi – (Freshwater eel)
7. Katsuobushi / Bonito flakes
8. Gyudon
9. Katsugen and Hokkaido dairy
10. Mushroom biscuits (cookies)

And for those who are partial to vanilla or Napoleon slices, check this custard pastry variant out:

How Christmas Shopping is Changing

While Scandinavia observes the time-honoured rituals and traditions of Advent and selecting a live fir tree, Australian shoppers prepare for their Christmas experience by visiting Westfield shopping centres and erecting plastic Christmas trees.

Perhaps you call them malls or something else, but these concrete Westfield centres pay homage to Western greed and indulgence. They are places where every possible gift or want could be exchanged for money. But visiting these venues at Christmas is not just about purchasing gifts, it is also an endurance experience.

It is cut-throat and dog-eat-dog – believe me.

For instance, it is not uncommon to experience a minor verbal brawl over the last free car parking space at Westfield at Christmastime.

Once the Christmas shopping is complete, arms laden with bags brimming with gifts, Aussie consumers dodge and weave the line-up of vehicles circumnavigating the Westfield car parks, like participants in the old video game: ‘frogger.’

Woe betide any shopper arriving late to the shopping party (i.e. after 10 in the morning) as this automatically marshals you into a ‘hunt.’ To snag a spare car park after 10 am at Westfield is like winning the lottery. Any human carrying shopping bags in the car park precinct is stalked and followed in the desperate hope the ‘prey’ will vacate their car park and not just offload their gift cache and return to the shops for a second ‘run’ through the Christmas crowds.

Every man must fend for himself in this retail frenzy.

Thinking Outside the Box

I know of one homeowner who capitalised on Xmas, finding a silver lining in the chaos. Compensating for the proximity of his home to a Westfield shopping centre, he made a small fortune in tax-free cash, renting out his yard as an impromptu car park to desperate shoppers in the days leading up to and after Xmas.

Good on him. There has to be some compensation for tolerating the bastion of consumerism at your back door.

However, Westfield’s days seem to be limited – the pandemic has changed the consumer landscape forever.

Shopping online, or choosing to ‘click and collect’, saves most consumers time and stress. Modern youth embraces it – despite issues with delivery (tell me about it) and the fact that buying online produces more fossil fuels in transport and the manufacture of the necessary plastic packaging. This includes black plastic packaging, which can’t be recycled at all due to carbon black pigments.

So, I ask: what is the future for the behemoths of consumerism and the acres of asphalt that constitute the car parks?

Will the ‘Christmas Shopping phenomenon, the ruthless haggling over car park spots, and the bustling Westfield Xmas chaos relegate the concrete monoliths to a slow decay, unwanted and unable to adapt?

Is there still a place for the in-store shopping experience?

What do you think?

Is Buying Vegan Better?

I ‘m the type of girl who’s rarely without some kind of handbag, or tote. I have many. My so-named ‘bag-robe,’ consists of various D.I.Y. constructions, which have either been recycled, or have recycled fabric or zips incorporated into them. Many I’ve hand-made or hand-painted. There’s one exception to this and it’s that one exception that had me fooled, big time.

Tending to look for environmentally savvy choices when making purchases, I try hard not to add to plastic pollution, in the environment. This time, however, I confess to failing miserably – buying a Vegan leather bag a year or two ago. 

I was seduced by the bag’s clever design with many hidden pockets and versatile zippered pouches. The price was more than I’d ever paid for a bag; yet I justified the purchase because it was Australian made and knowing it costs far more to produce things in our affluent Australian society. People do need high wages to live here. 

But instead of buying something unsustainable and avoiding plastics, I now realize I’ve inadvertently done just that.  Most mainstream vegan leather is made from PU or polyurethane leather, which is really a thermoplastic polymer and not terribly sustainable – at all. 

Is vegan leather any better for the planet? 

Whilst vegan leather may be good news for the bovines of the world, vegan PU leather is impossible to recycle. So it is definitely not sustainable, or environmentally friendly, at all.

Despite this, PU leather is increasingly used in the manufacture of lounges and home leather furnishings. Being 100% animal product free earns a tick of approval from the animal welfare lobby, but a PU product is not sustainable and what is worse – it is just another form of plastic! Buying a second hand leather bag would have been a better choice.

To be honest, it was the style of this bag itself that garnered my attention – it was eminently practical and had a great shoulder strap. The straps are durable, but of course, now I know why! They are plastic and won’t decompose.

And the price wasn’t cheap. I almost had to mortgage my schnauzer to pay for it. It certainly didn’t reflect that I was buying a piece of plastic!

Next time, I will not be fooled by the label.

At least it WAS made in Australia… 

Have you been sucked into a purchase by the style or label? 

    

REKO – Covid safe drive through food

By the time the humble spud or apple reaches your supermarket shelf from its trek from the farm, it could be up to three weeks old, due to storage times: days waiting for freighting in trucks, sitting in the open air at wholesale markets, transportation to distribution centres and then to individual supermarkets. Then, there is the shelf time waiting until the customer selects it, for purchase.

It doesn’t help the consumer or the farmer.

We have come to expect produce to be available year-round, but this comes at a cost in terms of nutritional content and quality. Some fruits that grow naturally in warmer/colder climates have been genetically modified to lengthen their growing season. In the 1970-‘s, a range of foods were genetically modified to ensure they had a longer shelf life or to make fresh crops more resistant to pesticide attack in the non-optimal growing months. Food quality has changed.

As we all know fresh is best, how can the fresh food supply chain be compressed, so that produce reaches us sooner and in better condition?

Alternatives to the Supermarket

A farmer-led online co-operative company called Food Connect was one way I sourced fresh produce sooner than the tired offerings at my supermarket. This company guaranteed to get fruit and veg to your point of collection from the farm within three days.

The range is limited to seasonal produce, (which is the way it should be), so the boxes had a set selection of products. Customized boxes cost the customer a lot more and were supply dependent.

But now there is another alternative.

What is REKO?

Reko is an online farmers market where the supply chain involves the farmer or producers selling directly to the customer with zero wastage and minimal delays in the transportation of goods.

This concept originated in Scandinavia, by a Finnish gentleman and has now grown to more than 500 local groups in Scandinavia, Canada and North America.

The reach and success of online farmers markets, such as the Reko model, have been made possible by technology. A positive is that Covid has helped this model flourish. Plus it supports your local growers!

The Reko model means more time available to farmers tend and develop farm animals/produce – a job that is always 7 days a week.

How Reko Online Farmers Markets work

Customers read the Reko Facebook group posts for their area, each week on social media to see what each farmer or supplier is offering.

If there is something that appeals, the customer orders by posting a comment, indicating the quantities they’d like, send through the payment via direct bank deposit, (ie no credit card fees), and collects the produce at the nominated time and pick up point. Voila!

Straight from the farm to your fridge all within 24 hours.

Reko offers more than just fruit and vegetables.

A home gardener who has excess produce may sell via the REKO group and if you are selling cakes or prepared meals, you must have a commercial-style kitchen. When we grew zucchinis in our home garden, we planted so many plants we could have fed an army, so REKO would have been a way to share our products and make a little money to be able to buy more seeds! If only it had been possible back then.

Advantages of Online Vegetable and Produce Ordering

• A way to stay Covid safe in a variant outbreak!
• Pick up from your car appeals too!
• Local growers supporting local community
• Hand made or home grown sold by person growing it
• A supply chain model that makes food or products available as fresh as is humanly possible
• Farmers get cash directly and there is no excess wastage of product

Less wastage = lower prices + a better environmental outcome.

Costs are reduced as farmers don’t need to spend time away from their farm, spending hours in the hot sun/cold rain setting up and sitting at an outdoor market, or selling to wholesale distributors, or fiddling with cash and change. There’s less wastage as they don’t take more product to sell than is required, as the grower in the youtube video explains.

Why is it different from a farmers market?

• No sitting out in the rain
• Farmers only harvest as much as has been ordered
• Less transport time and fossil fuel emissions
• No signage, change, Point of sale machine, tent or tables needed as pick up is direct from the farmers car boot or truck
• Farmer received the money directly – keeping costs down and cash flow is instant
• Supports local growers
• Minimal effort to source

Are You Ready Yet? How We Shop

“Are you ready yet?”

My other half, aka the ‘Moth,’ called out – anxious to leave for another shopping expedition. Meanwhile, I tapped away on the keyboard writing yet another blog post.

“I won’t be long,” I distractedly shouted back down the hall.

But time then slowed for me; I was engrossed in getting my thoughts down from the jumble of words that regularly spin about in my head.

I dislike shopping for food or groceries as it is such a mind-numbingly, repetitive, ‘rinse-repeat-rinse,’ kind of task that my other half likes to do, almost weekly. For him, it’s like a contemporary equivalent of an old religious ritual. And each time we do it, I have to grit my teeth.

Before the move to the Home by the Sea, the prelude to a shopping trip would be a visit to a delightful Italian cafe or Pasticceria and, in this way, I’d come to believe shopping could be enjoyable especially when it comes with a cup of hot chocolate as well!

The Pasticceria Cafe was run by an Italian man from Venice, with a rich and deep baritone voice, named Aladdino, who made the very best Italian hot chocolate! If you imagine a cup of blancmange-like, soupy thick, steaming dark chocolate milk, that you almost have to spoon into your mouth, you’d have the general idea.

Aladdino could often be quite intimidating, or so I found one day when I reminded him I liked the hot chocolate made really thick and soupy.

“You Australians,” he bellowed at me in a tone that would impress Pavarotti. “It’s not a pudding, you know!“

“It is a pudding for me,” I quip back. And my bribery comfort food, I think to myself; as it is some consolation for the ‘battle’ ahead.

Grocery shopping can be a suburban battlefield.

The stainless steel shopping trolleys are our ‘cavalry steeds’ and the supermarket aisles, a place where a cavalry-style charge might occur, if only during a red light special!

Not me, or the MotH! But a photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Each week, I notice the faces of shoppers at the supermarket. Stereotypes are always well represented.

There’s the elderly gentleman trying in vain to find Bi-Carb Soda, the fatigued mothers with crying babies insitu or children wanting popcorn, the bogan with a shirt-busting beer gut in a rush to get to the pub, the well-heeled Hampton fan searching for gourmet cheese and others who try to emulate TV reality show Chefs in an effort to tantalize their family’s tastebuds, while still balancing the budget.

The battlefield is exhausting!

The Rise of Generic and Convenience Food

Food prices continue to spiral upwards, coercing us to buy more of the less expensive generically branded items. Many seem to be quality degraded items from dubious overseas manufacturers, where one imagines working conditions to be almost medieval. I am lucky enough to pass them by if I can. The appearance of more and more convenience/ready-made meals is also worrisome.

Convenience food options seem to multiply each week taking up more and more shelf space.

I nearly lost the plot and caused a public scene last month, when I found they were selling shredded iceberg lettuce and grated carrot, in a bag!

So, now the working family has no time at all to grate a carrot, or perhaps the problem is they don’t own a grater? Will children grow up not knowing how to grate a carrot for a humble salad sandwich?

This leads my runaway mind to think of a future where only the elderly remember what a virgin vegetable actually looks like prior to peeling, slicing, dicing and wrapped in plastic bags lined with preservatives!

But we all have to eat, or face a riot on the home front, particularly if there are any remaining adolescent children lurking in the bedrooms!

“How much longer are you going to be?”

The disembodied voice filters down the hallway suddenly dragging me back to reality. It has happened again:  I have become engrossed in another blog post.

Has your supermarket changed?

Do you enjoy convenience food options?

When Marketing Gets It Wrong

Do you read Product Reviews before buying a product?

The content of product reviews are increasingly influential for the public, when it comes to future purchasing choices. The opinion of the majority, or, the ‘herd,‘ also known as ‘Group think,’ is seen as paramount, as we discussed in a previous post .

Marketing techniques that target this type of thought and purchasing pattern, could be seen as lazy and fundamentally flawed.

Post-Purchase Screening of Customers

Consumers are more often than not, badgered by, not one, but several automated, emails asking them to give up their free time to:

“Tell us about your purchase,” and follow up if you do not reply to the email with a friendly:

“It’s not too late to tell us your thoughts.‘

Sometimes it is a text message asking,

“How did we do?” in serving you and requesting your idea of a numeric rating.

All this in the name of improving customer service.

Do you like this level of attention after you have purchased a product?

Can you imagined if I badgered my readers like that?

Do you like my blog?

How often do you read the posts?

Do you want a daily update?

Are you sure?

It is not too late to subscribe!

Receiving a 5 star rating in a review might boost product sales more than any media advertisement and costs the company nothing. In short, shoppers are doing the marketing work for the company.

Canvassing Customers can be Risky Business

A product review can cut both ways. Badger a customer for a response and you might get a response, but not the the company likes.

A poor review might damage reputations, especially if it remains published. The veracity of the review itself is always at the mercy of customer competency and subjective biases.

Marketing Fail # 1

For example:

Recently I purchased a kitchen appliance for my new house that intermittently stopped working.

Frustrated, I wrote an online product review with a poor rating, whilst the ‘Moth’, (a.k.a. Man of the House), took it back to the store, asking for a replacement.

The product tested perfectly well in-store, but with an explanation that it was an intermittent fault, as we thought, the store replaced it without hassle.

Back home, the replacement product malfunctioned again!

So. Hmm.

Maybe, just maybe it wasn’t the product, after all, but a faulty power source? After all, ours was a new home, with newly installed power points.

To our horror, the appliance worked without fault in a different power point.

With a guilty feeling in our gut, we had to admit the appliance wasn’t faulty at all. Yet what damage had I done to that product’s reputation with my poor review, in the meantime?

Marketing /Product Review Fail # 2

I purchased a bra online through a popular department store and the automated email follow up I received after store pick up, is seen below.

I was asked to add photos, a video and location information!

In a young lady who purchased intimate apparel, this might be considered intrusive, but can you imagine photos, or video footage, of a 50 something lady, modelling a bra?

Probably not the content the store was after for their site. Aside from the fact they would surely filter out such content, it begs the question what else would, or could, they filter out?

As for the question of location – I can see the rationale to that question, but in the context of a bra purchase, it felt voyeuristic and slightly creepy.

Generic email and privacy filter arguments aside, this exemplifies how this style of marketing fails miserably and just serves to defeat its intended purpose!

Imagine if I had purchased underwear, or God forbid, a sex toy!

Post LockDown Possibilities for Retail Centres

Worst-case Scenario

I think we all are aware that brands and stores may not survive the financial hiatus resulting from the pandemic. Together with the shift in the popularity of online shopping, the enforced elimination of in-person appointments and alternative home delivery methods, what if shopping malls could become a relic of the past?

Already anchor shopping centre retailers, like Kmart and Myer are closing stores and looking at ways they can down-size their in-store presence.

Shopping malls might become ghost towns, abandoned places left to rack and ruin, post-Covid.

Might it be possible that abandoned locations such as those could undergo a phoenix-like transformation should the worst happen in a post-pandemic environment?

A Silver Lining

With a little alteration, abandoned malls could become emergency shelters or accommodation for the homeless or disadvantaged folks. The infrastructure exists – services such as lighting, electricity and plumbing etc could be re-connected.

Small stores might easily be converted to residential rooms and larger stores to dormitory or dining areas. The homeless or troublesome graffiti artistis will infiltrate abandoned places anyway!

There could be retraining and shelter facilities, hardware stores could become areas for learning trades or sheltered workshops.

Photo credit: Tweed News

Is it pessimistic to think that this might unfortunately come to pass, or that a rejuvenation in a humanitarian form even possible?

All is Not Lost

There are reports and discussions occurring about opening up society again and how our Government could gradually do it.

The process has started, with parks and playgrounds re-opening, as our Covid new case rate is relatively low, compared to some other countries. Travel between Australia and New Zealand might even be allowed in the coming months.

Mortgages in abeyance will still have to paid. If the employment is there, can they play catch up when income has been severely restricted or absent for several months? If not, then more emergency shelter accommodation will be needed.

Time will tell.

Hopefully, your shopping mall an small business will survive and rise to the challenges of online business.

Sunday Saying

Things are never so bad that they are not good for something.

Aldri så gale er godt for noko

Swedish Proverb

We look for the silver lining.