Purchasing big-ticket items, especially smartphones, requires research and thought as more than 80% of tech shoppers turn to multiple reviews before making a purchase. While most shoppers work to research the best product that will save them from buyer’s remorse, the internet is filled with a myriad of mixed reviews for almost every product, making it difficult to distinguish accurate product feedback.
From press reviews and articles to Amazon ratings and consumer feedback, there are thousands of shopper reviews across multiple eCommerce platforms, making it almost impossible to quickly navigate through all of the information.
Additionally, review reliability seems to be increasingly more questionable- it’s estimated that over half of reviews exhibit extreme bias or bots. Distinguishing genuine reviews and product insights from consumers is ever more important as more shoppers are turning to online platforms to purchase items such as smartphones. Wisely equips shoppers with reliable information that directs them to the correct smartphone for their needs.
No matter how savvy the shopper, differentiating good and bad reviews is time-consuming and often unreliable. Wisely is working to resolve this problem and help shoppers make better-informed decisions, avoiding buyer’s remorse.
Wisely is an extension shopping tool that aggregates millions of shopper’s opinions across the internet on consumer electronics and summarizes them into a single Wisely Score. How shoppers positively or negatively speak about various product features, use cases, and pricing value elements influences a product’s Wisely Score. The number of reviews and voices for each product review source are also factors. The Wisely system is built to continually expand within product categories of coverage and provide scores and insights for the newest products.
For consumers looking to purchase a new smartphone, this feature is extremely beneficial. Now with Wisely, smartphone shoppers don’t have to spend time reading product reviews scattered across the internet. Instead, Wisely offers users comprehensive scores that weigh factors of relevance, timeliness, and reliability and include review aspects such as smartphone product brand, design and style, ease of use, price and value, sound and audio, size and comfort. By democratizing all these elements into one centralized score, users are able to make smartphone purchasing decisions with hour’s worth of research knowledge in just minutes.
“Currently, top-scoring smartphones in the Wisely database include the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 as well as a lesser-known product here in the U.S., the Reno2 from Oppo,” reveals Joe Dieter, CEO of Wisely.
Market-timing is also important to address when reviewing products. While early reviews may positively impact your perception of purchase, they may not be indicative of what a product is actually like. For example, a new phone could be released and initially have great reviews, but then eventually have issues after a few months of usage. The initial five-star reviews may be misleading of what the long-term product is like. Smartphones are used every day, almost all day for many, so wear and tear and long-term usage ability must be taken into consideration when purchasing a new phone at top dollar.
“Regardless of a shopper’s pre-purchase research process, a shopper can’t currently identify how many biased, incentivized, bot-generated opinions are impacting their learnings,” states Dieter.
Reading a review that is short and involves no detail, such as “this phone sucks” isn’t going to be as helpful as a detailed review referencing new features, their benefits and other helpful opinions. Another benefit Wisely offers is the ability to distinguish these reviews and provide users with helpful information that is context-rich, so they can properly evaluate which products are a good fit for them.
As Wisely continues to grow and better inform shoppers, they plan to personalize the shopping experience by scoring products based on the individual’s buying criteria, such as preference in features, use cases, and other elements they care most about.
“We’re excited to constantly scale the breadth and depth of our product scores and insights,” offers Dieter. “Throughout the months ahead, our scores and insights will contain data from additional sources and weighting factors that help prioritize truly reliable and more informative product reviewers.”
The Wisely extension is now available for all to download and try on Google Chrome.
