Striking Infogold: Expert Advice
Sprinkled throughout Amazon.com are little informational gems — checklists, buying guides, articles, and so on — that’ll help you make smart buying deci- sions. These gems are extremely helpful and, unfortunately, a little bit hard to find. In some stores, they’re on the subcategory pages under the heading Expert Advice. Other stores put them all together in information centers. But right now, there is no centralized directory, though there are hundreds of guides, articles, and other helpful bits living on the site.
To find these informational gems, you have to happen upon them in the various stores. For example, the digital camera buying guide is on the digital camera page in the Camera and Photo section of the electronics store. But if you want information on buying a car seat for your child, all you have to do is go the resource center (Figure 8-6) in the Baby store — it’s a choice in the subnav.
Figure 8-6:
The Resource Center is an excellent place to get information on baby products.
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Here’s a quick list of the kinds of expert advice you’ll find at Amazon:
Buying Guides: Buying guides give you all the basic information you need if you’re going to buy a specific type of product (say, a digital camera).
Articles:These are often taken from magazines or other expert sources, and can be anything from a lifestyle piece to a step-by-step how-to project.
Checklists/Essentials:These quick lists show you everything-you-need- to-have or the-basics-you-need-to-have to tackle complicated undertak- ings. You’ll find lots of these in (for example) the Baby store.
Tips:Typically these take the form of a top-ten list of helpful hints.
Introduction to:These are exactly what they sound like — the shopping equivalent of a 101 class. Unlike buying guides, these aren’t product- driven. They’re hobby-driven!
Glossary of terms: Here’s your basic list of important terms and their definitions — handy for talking to salespeople or asking questions of the experts.
Table 8-2 gives you a quick look at which stores have these informational gems and where you’ll find them within the stores.
Table 8-2 Expert Advice at Amazon.com
Store Type of Info Where You’ll Find It
Baby Buying Guides, In the Baby Resource Center.
Checklists, Articles It’s a choice in the subnav in the Baby store.
Electronics: Buying Guides, Tips, There is actually a camera-
Camera & Photo Articles, Introduction and-photo info center that is home to To, Glossaries smaller info centers for digital cam-
eras, film cameras, and camcorders, but you can’t get there from the subnav. To access it, go to the cate- gory pages for digital cameras, film cameras, or camcorders and scroll down to the Expert Advice header — it should be on the right side of the page.
Kitchen & Buying Guides Galore! In the Kitchen & Housewares
Housewares info center. Again, not in the subnav,
but you can access it from most of the top-level category pages in Kitchen under the Expert Advice header.
Store Type of Info Where You’ll Find It
Outdoor Living Buying Guides, Again, not in the subnav, but Essentials, Articles you can access it from some of the
top-level category pages under the Expert Advice header (for example, try Backyard Birding). You can also access it from the Kitchen info center.
Tools & Hardware Buying Guides Galore! Again, not in the subnav, but you can access it from some of the top-level category pages under the Expert Advice header. You can also access it from the Kitchen info center.
Electronics Buying Guides, Tips, There isn’t a single, centrally located Articles, Introduction electronics info center, but you’ll find To, Glossary a lot of information sprinkled through- out the Electronics store. Keep your eye out for that Expert Advice header.
Music, Essentials Essentials is a choice in the subnav
Video, DVD for all three stores. For these particu-
lar stores, Essentials are the “must- haves” for specific genres or artists.
Some of these info centers are hard to find, and you can’t dig them up by using any of Amazon’s search tools. Amazon is always changing, and while the info centers aren’t going anywhere, there’s no guarantee that the path you took to get there the first time will be the same the next time. One way to find your way back is to bookmark any info center you visit.
Reviews
Reviews are one of the things that make Amazon Amazon. Without them, it’d be tough to buy online. You’ll find product reviews for many, but not all, prod- ucts at Amazon.com. They live on the detail page, usually below the fold (that’s the newspaper throwback term for content that you have to scroll to see) under the product information and other marketing stuff. There are a few different kinds of reviews at Amazon:
Amazon.com Review: This is written by an Amazon editor who has sam- pled the product (read the book, used the camera, listened to the CD, whatever). The significant difference between a review and a product description is that a review puts forth an opinion of a product. The description only describes its features or how it works. You’ll find reviews all over the store — they’re not product specific.
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Amazon.com Product Description:Product descriptions are detailed accounts of the product’s features, but no opinion. You’ll find descrip- tions all over Amazon.com, but particularly in the stores that sell products that can be described objectively — Electronics, Kitchen, Tools, and so on (but not so much in books, music, and DVD/video).
Customer Reviews:This is where you’ll get the account of any product that’s most free of manufacturer’s hype. Customers, of course, write cus- tomer reviews. Sometime they’re insightful and helpful and other times they aren’t. It’s a good idea to consider an item’s customer reviews as a whole. Because, let’s face it, not everyone is playing with a full deck, but just about anyone can write a customer review.
Industry Reviews:Occasionally, you’ll find an editorial snippet from a relevant publication or source (such as The New York Timesin the Books store). There doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason as to when these industry reviews show up, but they’re a good added voice when you’re making a buying decision — and, as you can imagine, they’re typically positive reviews.
Information from the source:Amazon often includes information that the manufacturer, publisher, label, or studio has provided. This is usually factual stuff — not just a professional opinion — but keep in mind that whoever made the item is in business to sellit, so you may not find out much about its shortcomings here. In fact, sometimes this information is a bit fluffy.
It’s in the Stars: Customer Reviews
Customer reviews live just below the editorial reviews on the detail page and they are an essential part of any Amazon shopping experience. I think that the best way to find out if a product is worth buying is to check out the customer reviews — carefully. Like I mentioned, customer reviews are almost always unbiased. These people aren’t trying to sell. They’re just putting their two cents in (and if you want to put in your own two cents, Chapter 12 tells you how); by and large, you can trust them. The key is knowing how to look at each individual review and how to consider the reviews as a whole.
Your standard customer review
Here’s a quick anatomy of the customer review (Figure 8-7):
Stars: Customers rate reviews on a five-star system, with zero as the worst and five as the best.
Title:This is the title given to the review by the reviewer. Often it’s a bite-sized version of what they thought of the product (but not always).
Date:Lets you know when the review was written. This is more impor- tant for products that may go out of date as new versions come on the market — electronics, computers, and so on.
Top Reviewer Icon:Occasionally, you’ll see an icon next to the reviewer information that says “Top (insert number here) Reviewer.” It means that this person has written lots of helpful reviews. You’ll notice that you have the option to vote on a review. Top Reviewers are chosen because their reviews are voted “most helpful most often.”
Reviewer Info:A name or an online alias, and where they’re from.
Review Helpfulness:You may see a statement just above the review that tells you how many people found it to be helpful. This is a part of the review voting system.
Review:This is the actual review — what they thought of the product.
Voting Option:Below the review is the question, “Was this review help- ful to you?” followed by a Yes button and a No button. If you want, you can choose one of the two and click. Your vote will be tabulated with the other votes for that review to contribute to the Review Helpfulness line and, maybe, that person’s Top Reviewer status.
Although customer reviews are relatively unbiased, it’s important to know whether the customer whose views you’re reading is someone you’d agree with. Fortunately, when you’re checking out an individual customer review, you can do more than just read it. You can also do the following:
Look at the reviewer’s status.If that customer is rated a Top Reviewer, the odds are better that the review is good info.
See whether other people found the review helpful.
Look at the reviewers’ Friends & Family bio. If there is one, it’s worth checking out. Who the heck are these people? What other things have they bought or reviewed? Do you have anything in common with them?
Figure 8-7:
Customer reviews are one of the best ways to find out whether something may be worth owning!
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You should also consider reviews as a whole. Here are a few guidelines:
Take note of how many reviews an item has. If an item has hundreds of reviews, it may or may not be great, but it’s definitely popular. And it’s got enough oomph that lots of people chose to write about it.
Look at the overall stars.This is, of course, an obvious thing to do, but I’m a control freak and I can’t help myself. I had to mention it.
Read the bad ones.Keep in mind that if an item has a handful of reviews — let’s say ten or fewer — a couple of bad reviews can bring its score down significantly. So scan the list for negative reviews. If you find just one or two, read them. Sometimes kooks get online and write reviews too. It’d be a shame to pass up a good product because of one or two grouchy reviews.
Spotlight Reviews
You may have noticed that the Customer Reviews section starts out with the Spotlight Reviewsheader (as in Figure 8-8). These reviews are chosen daily by Amazon’s editorial staff from the pool of reviews deemed most helpful by other customers. Spotlight Reviews are always shown first, above the other customer reviews, as long as there are enough really good reviews to qualify.
For items that have more than a few, Amazon doesn’t show all reviews on the detail page. To see them all, click the See all customer reviews link at the bottom of the list showing the reviews.
Figure 8-8:
Spotlight Reviews are the cream of the crop.