Think pet food reviews are legit? Think again.
In today’s fierce online marketplace, where your competition is a click away, businesses are buying good reviews. For as little as $2 a star, a retailer can get a 5-star review. Consumer reviews, once considered the Holy Grail of advertising, advice given by shoppers not companies, is now no longer the trusted source for authentic unbiased opinions it once was.
“Advertising disguised as editorial is an old problem, but it’s now presenting itself in different ways,” said Mary K. Engle, the Federal Trade Commission’s (F.T.C.) associate director for advertising practices “We’re very concerned”, she stated in an article exposing the issue in the New York Times.
In an increasingly competitive market where many consumers depend on reviews for what to buy and where to go, a lucrative and deceptive practice has emerged where advertisers game the system by planting 5-star reviews. Some reviews are planted by the sellers themselves by anonymously posting their own laudatory reviews, but wow there is another approach.
Sellers offer customers a refund for the product in exchange for a write-up. And as fast as their fingers can do the typing, consumers are cashing in on writing rave reviews. Retailers are only too happy to invest in good fake reviews, because top ratings are as valuable as gold dust in the savagely competitive online marketplace where a competitor’s product is just a click away.
Even though under F.T.C. rules when there is a connection between a merchant and someone promoting its product that affects the endorsement’s credibility, it must be fully disclosed. While it is a good law, it is one that is rarely enforced in a limitless landscape as vast as the internet.
How can consumers tell a legit thumbs up from a bogus endorsement? There are several things to consider when evaluating information. Here are several tips:
- Pay attention to the quality of the reviews: Are they lengthy, detailed, and varied or do they sound as if they are canned and scripted.
- Is there an extraordinary number of glowing and effusive reviews to negative reviews?
- Consider the source of the information: Are the reviews from consumers on online shopping sites?
- Or, are the reviews based on a thorough research by a credible journalist who has nothing to gain from a recommendation or an endorsement.
- Is the reviewer affiliated with the product in any way?
- Finally, you can always assume that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
Then there are the trolls, the perpetually disgruntled who work the competition by bashing them and their products. No one knows if they are paid for their work, but I suspect they happily do it just for the fun of it.
SOURCE: For $2 a Star, an Online Retailer Gets 5-Star Product Reviews
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14 Comments
Melissa
This may seem off the wall, but to me is a serious question. I have been a cat owner for six years personally. I grew up on a farm and we had “farm cats” grandpa would put out food and water daily, they ate it whenever they felt like it and life went on. When I got my first cat, (to be an inside cat for love and play) I started feeding him Purina Naturals dry food, and some fancy feast canned for treats. Because I loved him dearly. I recently have adopted 3 kittens, I was looked online at something kitten related, and accidentally ran across an article pertaining to cat food dangers. I was sick, SICK, the cat I have loved sooo much for years and the news ones I was quickly falling in love with, I found out I was poisoning them from the inside on accident by the food I was giving. So I started searching and investigating. Read things from no dry and all wet, to just raw, to even if you cant afford the high quality wet food atleast do an all midgrade wet food instead of dry. I started looking at the cost, and really felt bad. I had no idea it would be that much, and I just got new kitties. SO I went and got some wellness, innova, and friskies. Good and midgrade, and a bag of wellness core dry to help with the transition and thinking maybe I could at least start with half wet food diet to get use to the cost. That was 2 weeks ago, today, I run across Truthaboutpetfood.com :( read about the mess with wellness. After reading everything on their site, I found what they call a Petsumer Report for $17 and trying to find out if they are legit. I am not rich and cant afford to just waste money and always worried about creditcard fraud online….so question is….is Truthaboutpetfood.com ok and is this report a good thing to buy online from them. I really want to do right by my kitties, but I already have to make alot of changes to afford a different diet, I cant afford to be robbed too. Any help would be great, my email is the following mkmommyvskl@aol.com Thank you sooo much Melissa
Mollie Morrissette
Melissa,
I feel your pain.
You’ve come to the right place. We do the best we can with what we know and know you know about pet food. But know too, that not everyone in the biz is a crook. There are a few decent, honest and caring pet food companies.
You’re doing the right thing! Don’t feel bad. Congratulate yourself for, #1 caring enough to look up information, #2 making a change, #3 writing me, #4 asking for help! You are doing awesome! Your kitties are lucky to have such a caring and concerned Mommy!
Melissa
Thank you so much for the quick reply, I will be getting that report once this is through! I dont remember right off the first site I ran across, or the one linked to I found linked to that one, but it went from as I said the dry to all wet and then about the raw and how to transition from dry to wet, (with dry food addicts lol) SO for the past 2 weeks I have been using a few different wet foods with the better, supposedly, dry food for the transition. I bought a bit of food from several different brands. I was worried that most of the wet food that has no grains, soy, corn and such were all pate form and my kitties always had they chunky watery kind. So I got a bunch to test it out, while considering in the future raw feeding, but wanted to transition to all wet food first. Which by the way is going well I think, except for 2 cats lol… I got an friskies, wellness, innova, meow mix. I will say at first I was happy that when I read the lable of one of my meow mix food I used previously, it didnt contain by products or grains and such, but then I have found out from a million lables, the only wet food in chunks with no grains and such are the fish ones, which I had read and all fishy wet food can lead to some other problem in cats, that I dont readily remember the name of. So was sad again to see the other meow mixes without fish, all had grains and yuck lol. One of my cats likes the friskies, but not the innova or wellness, another hates friskies but likes the wellness and innova. By the way, I chose to try innova because the worst it seems to have is brown rice, and it seems to be the cheapest good wet food :( I even tried mixing the loved fishy meow mix to the wellness and innova for my rotten kitty, nope, there is something about those 2 brands he wont touch. So I knew I was going to have to try different brands this weekend while shopping. My cats HATE to be separated, they are spoiled and we I guess have a little pride going on, so I really need to find something they all like and will eat, that is also not causing harm. Did I mention I am a mother of 4 and finding and feeding healthy stuff to my family is alot easier than my precious kitties lol. I have all girls ( daughters) and to try and even out the house for daddy….we have all male kitties lol, and we have the energetic ( curiousity killed the cat) kind of cats, not scaredy cats lol so our house is VERY active with our children and our boys lol. If I may, and you have the time, we do not have a pet food place localy, just regular stores and a Petco which does carry holistic foods now, I dont want to order cases of something online not knowing if my cats will eat it, when you get some time can you look online at Petco and see if there are any wet foods by chance I could try, with some peace of mind lol. I would greatly appreciate it. I dont know what most of those ingredients are, im assuming those words are vitamins and minerals, but who know lol, and with just 2 weeks of learning….I am still far from my kitty food degree lol. My daughter wants to get a golden retriever or golden doodle next year, think once I get the kitty food down pat I will need to research dog food for a good year before getting another animal lol.. thank you so so much, my analitical side has now been lit and im going crazy trying to make a good decision lol Melissa
Sarah Morrissette
Dear Big Sis,
Another great post: funny and informative with fantastic illustrations (where do you find that great stuff?). I’ll be making my car donation personally when I get to Cal to visit you, but I hope your readers will respond by donating a few bucks–you need some wheels!
Sarah in Vienna
Mollie Morrissette
Thanks Lil Sis!
I know, isn’t the hover cat fab? I had to use photos that somehow related to fiction, fraud, marketing and cats – an art school student’s nightmare, eh?
Do you hear that readers? Mollie wants her car back! Sniff. Sniff.
sheila0405
So, how do you know which sites to trust when it comes to researching pet food?
Mollie Morrissette
Excellent question Sheila!
I’m so glad you asked, because as a researcher you have to cross check every bit of information with credible sources.
In a nutshell: I gather the data, interpret the data and draw conclusions based on that data. Primarily I depend on peer reviewed scientific journals and medical journals and university research. But even these sources can be contaminated by industry funding. One must view every piece of data with a critical and skeptical eye.
chissus
Great post! I agree with you. When I look at recommendations, I read the one star ones first. And then I never read the five star ones.
Mollie Morrissette
I thought people should know how bad it is.
Moll
Don’t get me wrong, I admire Susan greatly, but there is another one out there that is trustworthy. It’s here: http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/
Mollie Morrissette
You are so correct! I agree with you 100%, he does a fab job. At the time I was doing my research though, dogfoodadvisor.com didn’t yet exist. I confess, I have not spent a great deal of time there, mostly because I have all cats. But for you dog people, you’ve got another excellent resource for advice. Let us pray he doesn’t sell-out (as a few have) and start being sponsored by any one pet food company. Thanks for the reminder – I will peruse his site again.
Moll
I hear that Dr. Mike Sagman, who pens The Dog Food Advisor, is working on his Cat Food Advisor website. Should be up & running sometime this year. Until then, for all you cataholics, try this link for some cat food info.
http://petfoodtalk.com/catfoodreviews/before-grain/
Scroll down the right hand column and click on any of the many choices. I prefer Mike’s advise when it becomes available. It’ll be more complete…
Mollie Morrissette
Moll, while I appreciate the advice, I would never ever recommend PetFoodTalk.
I have one reason for thinking they suck (which they do) and that is this: They promote THE WORST pet food on the market by offering coupons to such garbage as: 9Lives, Fancy Feast, Felidae, Friskies, Meow Mix, Nutro Max, Purina, Special Kitty, Whiskas, Alpo, Diamond, Dog Chow, Kibbles N Bits, Beneful, Eukanuba, Mighty Dog, Science Diet, Bil Jac, Hills, Ol Roy, Iams, Pedigree and promoting such retailers as PetSmart.
Their tag line reads Save Money. Happy Dog. A more accurate tag line would be Save Money. Dead Dog.
Danelle
I have 11 indoor cats ranging from 5 months to 2 1/2 yrs old, and have been looking for a good quality food that doesn’t break the bank.They are currently eating 4Health made by Tractor Supply Co.