InsideOutdoor Magazine

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Editor’s Le tte r
Martin Vilaboy
Editor-in-Chief
Percy Zamora
Art Director
Ernest Shiwanov
Editor at Large
Berge Kaprelian
Group Publisher
Rene Galan
Account Executive
Jennifer Vilaboy
Production Director
Ryan Gurr
Digital Media
Ilissa Miller
Advertising Creative Director
Beka Publishing
Berge Kaprelian
President and CEO
Neil Ende
General Counsel
Jim Bankes
Business Accounting
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Up for Review
It’s not something many observers and commentators of retail markets would say,
but I am seriously questioning the value of online consumer reviews, at least those
of the anonymous variety. I know much has been made about the influence of online
reviews on purchasing and how important it is for retailers and brands to manage
the process, but in most cases, anonymous online reviews simply lack enough con-
text and creditability to hold value.
Think of some of the oldest forms of reviews: movie and book reviews. We’ve all been
to movies or read books that were highly recommended by a friend or acquaintance but
that left us rather flat. Most of us have narrowed down to a few select people or review-
ers in whom we are confident we can trust their literary or theatrical tastes.
Likewise, check the reviews of any mid-tier hotel, and you’ll find some people
who say it is “the best” and some who say it’s a flea bag. Upon visiting the hotel, you
find it’s really neither, but simply adequate or typical of the chain. Part of the prob-
lem here is that most people are incited to write a review only when they are thrilled
by a product or service or very dissatisfied, so the normalized middle ground is un-
derrepresented. There’s also the issue of the reviewer’s expectations.
Consider a recent study by , an online platform “where runners
and experts review running shoes.” After surveying more than 134,000 reviews of
391 running shoes from 24 brands, the folks at RunRepeat concluded that “expen-
sive running shoes are not better than more affordable ones,” mainly because “inex-
pensive running shoes are better rated than expensive ones.” According to study, the
10 most expensive running shoes (average list price $181) were rated 8.1 percent
worse than the 10 cheapest running shoes (average list $61). In fact, “The higher the
list price, the lower ratings the running shoes get,” said RunRepeat.
An obvious counter to this conclusion is that expectations are higher when buy-
ing higher-priced items, so reviewers are more easily disappointed. RunRepeat
briefly acknowledges this potential bias at the end of the study but quickly disre-
gards it. “If you spend more on a running shoe, you would logically expect to get a
better product,” said the study.
What can’t be forgotten, however, are the low expectations of people who paid
$60 for a pair of running shoes and are satisfied simply because the shoe didn’t
cause massive blisters or fall apart after one month. There’s also the possibility that
some reviewers didn’t see the value of higher-priced shoes because they weren’t seri-
ous enough runners to really require or appreciate the benefits built into a shoe that
drove the higher cost. There’s likewise nothing in the study that correlates reviews to
the experience level or running frequency of the reviewer.
In other words, without the context of experience, expectation, eventual use, mo-
tivation, among other factors, a review tells us very little. And negative consequences
can be greater for more-expensive, specialty brands. In the RunRepeat study, for
instance, specialty brand Hoka One One scored among the worst, likely due to the
brand having the highest average price. But when we turn to a survey of ultra-run-
ners who finished the most recent Western States 100-mile Endurance Race, whom
we can assume are high-experience, high-frequency runners, Hoka was far and away
the most popular brand for the second year in a row, both among all finishers (34.5
percent) and sub-24-hour finishers (35.7 percent). So who should we trust more: the
feet of elite runners or the opinions of anonymous posters?
One has to be suspicious of anything that counters the truism, “You get what you
pay for.” And when it comes to recommendations, we suggest you point your custom-
ers to well-trained staff members rather than some anonymous online musings.
–MV
Inside Outdoor | Fall 2015 6