Recently, a large debate has arisen in the world of ecommerce about the integrity and honesty of paying customer to write product reviews. Can you trust a product review that was written for some form of compensation? Many companies now offer free products, samples, or even cash in exchange for a product review. How do consumers know what information they can and can’t trust?
First, if a company is paying for reviews, that will most likely be stated somewhere on their website. After all, they are trying to solicit more customers to write reviews, so they’ve got to somehow notify people of what they’re offering in exchange for a review. So take a few minutes to peruse the website and see if you find anything like this.
Second, you should look at what the company is offering and what they are requesting. There’s a big difference between offering compensation for favorable reviews only, versus offering compensation for any review, whether it’s positive or negative.
Home Products ‘n’ More currently has a rebate program in place for product reviews. If you’ve purchased a product from our website and you come back and review it later, we’ll issue you a 5% rebate check for the price you paid for the reviewed item. We are very clear that the review does not have to be favorable in order to quality for a rebate. We want honest reviews of our products, whether the feedback is positive or negative. The only qualifications are that you must have purchased the item from us, have actually received it and used it, and the review must be at least one sentence long.
View Home Products ‘n’ More’s 5% Rebate Policy
