Negative Reviews Worse Than No Reviews in E-commerce World

By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Aug 11, 2008

Inspired by Jeff Atwood's "Invest In A Quality Programming Chair" blog post, I set out last week to purchase a new chair. I chose to buy a Herman Miller Mirra chair based on Jeff's and several other people's reviews. Since I couldn't find a local dealer, I opted to buy online. What I didn't know is that finding a reputable would prove quite a challenge, but it would demonstrate perfectly one of the most important tips I've  been giving our e-commerce clients for years.

My research yielded the following facts about the Herman Miller Mirra chair retailers:

• Many online retailers claim to have the chair in stock, but often don't, so customers wait weeks for their chair to arrive after ordering
• Some retailers sell refurbished or knock-off chairs as legitimate, new Mirra chairs. In other words, they lie.
• Most retailers make returning a chair difficult, even if it arrives damaged, and charge between a 10% and 25% restocking fee
• Herman Miller enforces standard pricing on the Mirra chair, so all authorized dealers sell it at the same price

Since finding the lowest price wasn't an issue, my primary concern was finding a reputable dealer who actually had a legitimate, new Mirra chair in stock and ready to ship. My first Google search yielded three primary retailers who showed up both in organic search results and also in Google Adwords ads. All three dealers claimed to have legitimate Mirra chairs in stock and ready to ship, so this should've been an easy decision.

Since I wasn't sure which dealer to choose, I decided that I'd base my decision on return policies and shipping speed, as determined both by their stated policies, but also on customer's reviews of the stores. All three retailers claimed to allow returns, but of course charged a restocking fee. Also, all three claimed to ship within 24 hours of receiving an order. So at this point, all three retailers are still even.

My next step was to search for reviews of the retailers, so I turned to site's like www.resellerratings.com and www.epinions.com, as well as Google to search for posts on individual blogs. This is where I was reminded of the importance a critical tip that I hammer into all of my e-commerce client's heads -- be fanatical about listening to what your customers say about you online, and take the time to respond swiftly, directly and humbly. I was literally a click away from placing my order with one retailer when I saw these reviews:

No love from these customers

There were 16 reviews all telling the same story about this retailer, but not a single response from the retailer. Assuming that this pattern continues, each new customer this site wins actually makes their marketing efforts more challenging and expensive. How much more money do they have to spend, both in advertising and discounts, to convince customers to buy from them when they have 25 or 50 or 500 negative reviews plastered across the web? Wouldn't it be cheaper to address the problems with their service, delight their customers and in turn convert their negative reviewers into positive, vocal evangelists?

The other two retailers had similar strings of negative reviews scattered across the web, but in plain view for anyone searching for them. I was back to square one...I needed a chair but hadn't yet found a dealer with a scores of positive reviews.

I continued to pound Google looking for authorized Herman Miller dealers who sold Mirra chairs and had them in stock. Finally, on about the sixth page of search results, I found this blog post: http://modernsnobbery.blogspot.com/2008/06/herman-miller-sale.html

All three of the sites mentioned in that blog post conveyed credibility through their site's design, as well as the clear, personal tone of the content. One of the sites did not offer online purchase, or if they did, it wasn't immediately obvious, so I narrowed my candidates to HighBrowFurniture.com and DWR.com. DWR offered a reasonable return policy, but did not make it obvious whether the Mirra chair was in stock and whether it would ship right away. In contrast, HighBrowFurniture.com made their return policy very clear:

What's not to love about this policy?

They also make sure that customers know which products are in stock and how quickly they will ship:

It's clear, these products are ready to ship.

I did not find a single review for HighBrowFurniture.com, but frankly, I didn't look very long either. The overall quality of their message and their site convinced me that buying from them was a low risk proposition. I'll bet also that they take complaints seriously and do whatever they reasonably can to turn a grumpy customer into an elated fan.

I ordered my chair on Friday afternoon and it arrived on Monday morning. After one day of use, I can definitely recommend the Herman Miller Mirra chair, and I highly recommend www.highbrowfurniture.com