▶ Your Answer :
There might be some people who believe that recommendation from friends and information from magazines are important when they are buying new products. However, I personally think that review from online magazine is the most important factor for purchasing products for following two reasons. First, recommendation from friends and information from magazines are less reliable than review from online communities. Second, referring to reviews from online communities is very convenient and systematic.
To begin with, review from online communities is very reliable factor when people make a purchasing decision. While magazine and friends’ opinion are biased and subjective, in the online communities, there is a bunch of information about products written by diverse purchasers, which is quite objective. Let me bring up my personal story as an example. I once had bought a DVD player refer to electronics magazine, however the player malfunctioned frequently. Surprisingly, the magazine was for an electronics company. I have rapidly refunded the DVD player, and repurchased another DVD player after searching the internet and referring to online reviews. Without them, I could not have been satisfied with my purchasing.
Second, it is very convenient and systematic that referring to reviews from online communities. Thanks to development of the internet, people can easily access to other people’s opinions and write their practical reviews anytime and anywhere. Even some people upload product’s pictures they bought. Moreover, there is systematic rating system such as Star Rating System, which has many kinds of categories (e.g. weight, color, and texture) to explain their opinion about products by coloring stars. According to statistics done by National Consumer Institute, over 80% of consumers have referred to online reviews to make purchasing plan. This clearly shows that reviews from online communities have had a great impact on purchasing.
In conclusion, review from online communities not only is reliable information in terms of its objectiveness but also convenient and systematic. In this regard, I firmly believe that online reviews have the greatest impact on people’s major purchase.
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