Are Consumer Reviews Reliable?

It makes good sense to check out fitness equipment ratings posted by consumers who have already experienced the product you are interested in purchasing. Consumers can offer valuable insights about effectiveness, service, and other product qualities you may not have even considered.

Fitness equipment ratings by users, however, may swing excessively high or low for reasons unrelated to the product itself. It helps to understand the human factors that could influence the reliability of consumer reviews and to know how to extract useful information before you buy.

The Under-raters

Consumers may rate a fitness product excessively low due to:

-Anger: Users who are truly dissatisfied seek to warn others about the perils of purchasing a fitness product. Their objectivity, perhaps tainted by anger, may cause them to post excessively harsh reviews as they air frustrations.

-Limited Experience: A new, inexperienced user may underrate a quality fitness product because they have not have exercised long enough to realize a training effect.

-The Promise of Fast Fitness: Users may be disappointed if they do not see immediate results because they bought into "fast fitness" marketing claims. Even the best exercise products will not produce rapid body transformations that exceed normal human capabilities for adapting to exercise.

The Over-raters
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Customers may rate fitness equipment too high due to:

Trick Advertising: You can usually spot a fake review when it's overly glowing and provides very little real information. Many companies hire fake reviewers to boost the ratings on their products.

Buyer Justification: Some people pay way too much for fitness equipment. In order to justify their purchase, some buyers will over sell the qualities of the piece they bought in order to rationalize their purchase. These reviews are hard to spot.

A genuine good review will come across naturally and won't use excessive praise. The reviewer will seem passionate about the product and will talk about how it affected them in their everyday life.