I'm building buyforlife.com, a platform to overcome cheap products and keep corporations accountable - the Rotten Tomatoes for products.
Have you ever been annoyed about an Amazon review saying "Package arrived flawless after one day, 5 stars"?
I want to change the way people review products. I'm now introducing "Recurring Reviews". After every year, the reviewer will receive an automatic reminder to assess the condition of the product and if the reviewer is still happy with it. This is how we can follow the whole lifecycle of a product.
I can guarantee you that the customers who actually care about quality are the ones you'll lose first.
We're in general interested in items that are built-to-last, not in being annoyed for each purchase on an annual basis. If you would like to make an impact in the "buy for life" arena, I suggest you carefully select your vendors to actually produce items that are worthy of that label. Quality builds a reputation over time via word of mouth, not via online reviews.
(This might still be a workable approach if you can give trusted reviewers a platform to highlight what they consider the best & most reliable, but you'll still need to vet those reviewers carefully)
That's what I plan to do :) Although I realised that creating a meaningful "score" from all the different sources is quite hard. Have you ever started working on your "Metacritic for products" idea?
What about things that are intentionally built (in a good way) not to last for life?
e.g. clothing built with more sustainable and/or more performant materials may not be 'buy it for life', but to some may be a better item.
How do those get reviewed over time? For example I have a few different wool sweaters - my favorite one I've bought twice and yet falls apart more rapidly than others.
Wonderful idea! As others have pointed out already it’s getting more difficult to find items that are still available for purchase. When they are still available they might not be built to the same specifications as before. I’ll swing over to the site and upload a few products I’ve been happy with that are still built to the same specifications. There is a thread somewhere over in the mrmoneymustache forums where you can likely attract some interest if the mods allow you to post. Best of luck!
Congratulations on your launch! I like this idea a lot.
On your about page you say:
>> Part of our solution is the automatic scraping and aggregation of data from all over the web.
In addition, we are partnering with different organizations that provide us with verified sustainability data.
I don't understand how scraping the web is useful to you. Can you explain?
I also don't understand how partnering with orgs will provide you with verified sustainability data. What type of organizations are these?
With your edit, at least to me, you've made this even more interesting. Feel free to disregard these questions because at this point I feel I'm prying.
>> We want to help you finding products and brand that reflect your values. That's why we collect a lot of information about a brand, i.e his manufacturing practices, certifications, warranty or repair service.
How do you suppose you'll match a user to a brand (or to a collection of brands)?
>> We are not in a position to assess such data, so we are partnering with different companies and standardisation bodies that assess sustainable production standards.
That sounds like a deliciously hard problem to solve. Are you hiring? Or are you looking for tech partners?
I really like this idea. How do you stop it descending into the cesspit that is Amazon reviews? I trust my opinion on things, but less so random internet strangers.
In the Uk I use Which? to get an idea of what’s good and what’s not.
Funnily enough on your homepage I saw the Miele vacuum that I have had for 12 years. Just yesterday I was marvelling at it as it wound up the cord flawlessly after all these years, 6 house moves and zero maintenance.
We are working hard to prevent spam and fake reviews (as discussed in another comment). I might write a blog post about this challenge soon.
By the way: I would love to read a Buy For Life review about your loved Miele vacuum :)
I follow r/buyitforlife on Reddit. Is this related to that, in spirit if not in direct affiliation?
One problem I have with BIFL is that the people who post are usually posting an older version of the product that has survived through time. However, many times manufacturers will change up the product to be worse such that if you bought the same product today, it would not last as long as the older version did. In other words, people posting on BIFL are exhibiting survivorship bias. Is this something that can be solved here?
Buyforlife.com was inspired by the subreddit and it's where I posted my very first prototype :)
The problem with this subreddit and part of the reason why I started my website was summarized pretty accurately by another user:
"I joined this sub for the purpose of buying stuff like lifetime warranty backpacks, tools, camp gear, kitchen wear ect. Yet this sub has basically became an Instagram for the old shit people find in they're grandparents house which offers no benefit to me now. I'm not going to buy, nor could I even find a kitchen aid mixer you grandma still uses from the 70s. Most stuff back then was made to last, we know that. I want stuff thats still made today with quality."
> "I joined this sub for the purpose of buying stuff like lifetime warranty backpacks, tools, camp gear, kitchen wear ect. Yet this sub has basically became an Instagram for the old shit people find in they're grandparents house which offers no benefit to me now. I'm not going to buy, nor could I even find a kitchen aid mixer you grandma still uses from the 70s. Most stuff back then was made to last, we know that. I want stuff thats still made today with quality."
So that's the problem, I don't want to buy old stuff, I want to know what to buy today that will last.
But seriously, one way to leverage survivorship bias is to buy the old thing that survived.
When I was a kid I would buy tons (probably literally) of discarded computers from warehouse sales. Most stuff wouldn't work, but the few parts that survived being thrown into piles and shoved around by forklifts tended to be rock freaking solid and last for years.
To go along with this specific "Recurring Review" feature, I recently purchased major new household appliances: washer, dryer, fridge, oven, dishwasher, and microwave.
I've only had these for a few months, so I'm not ready to state definitively any review on its durability. All I can say now is that they've performed well for the first few months.
Should I add them as a product so I can be updated for a recurring review now or wait a year to add them?
On the other hand, I wonder how quickly it'll become annoying. If you have more than a few of these products, getting badgered to update your review every year for each of them might get tedious. Perhaps gamification and/or some other sort of incentive could help, but I'm not sure.
Also, if I've had something for 5 years and it's still going strong, I doubt I'll be able to add much new info at year 6 - unless it broke down of course. So perhaps decreasing the frequency of reviews slowly over time would be useful. Perhaps something Fibonacci based, so you'd review after year 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13,...
I try to go camping quite a bit. If you've ever been into any outdoor store. Everything is always changing. Yet I've got all my stuff and I haven't died yet because my pack is a few years old. The only thing killing me is envy.
I think an unexpected side benefit to this sort of system is a reminder that you've got stuff. Why have more. Or to make you value quality. Like buying good quality tools.
Great feedback, thanks! You are right, we must be careful not to make the review cumbersome. Letting the user setting the frequency makes sense since it will vary between product categories.
In addition, if the user has nothing to add, a simple click on a button "Condition unchanged" should be enough. That's definitely something I will discuss with the UX designer.
Just a thought, but rather than a 'condition unchanged' link, randomly pick one of your review metrics and give the user a single click option to rate on that instead.
Another option might be to invite them to reply to the email with any follow-up thoughts on the product to add to their review.
Oh come on, you don't need the user to set anything. Just do a once a year checkup 'hey there, here's all the stuff you said you own, did anything break or deteriorate?'
I'll be happy to help you if it's two minutes once a year, and I think that's all the info you need.
That is also a good idea because people are motivated more to act when something goes wrong; and a close second is when they are excited to share a good discovery. The DefaultReviews [1] gist may offer some guidance:
"...rating by default is the equivalent of saying "everything is okay". That rating is made without you having to lift a finger. You only have to lift a finger to change it to "awesome" or to "sucks" or to add a elaboration for others to read."
Also, the final section of DefaultReviews [1] may also help solve your inevitable problem with faked reviews. Pull requests welcome.
Great! I have done some user research for a similar problem, and what users look for in reviews is mainly a list of potential problems, so that they can decide if they can deal with them or if they are dealbreakers.
Great idea on the surface (I really like the idea of cost per use) but wait until spams and scams take over the system. Amazon still hasn't been able to solve the fake and paid/biased reviews.
I strongly believe the "review & rating" model itself, for influencing purchasing impulses, is the broken part!
I've bought a few things with AMAZING reviews only to be super disappointed and had to escalate the issue to credit card company to get my money back. I've also tried to put honest reviews only for them to be deleted and my account being blocked.
Fake reviews are certainly a big challenge. Don't you think that a creditility system similar to Reddit's Karma, up-/downvote buttons, and moderators could keep the quality high?
For example: On Reddit or Stackoverflow, spam and low-quality conent gets removed/downvoted super fast.
To me, the biggest problem with reviews is that the reviewers don't know how to review products. People run speed tests on Wifi routers, and don't notice that the buffering that improves speed test scores kills interactive latency. Consumer reports apparently reviews dishwasher detergent without following the dishwasher manufacturer's recommendation to put detergent in the "pre wash" cup. That's the biggest problem I have with reviews; not shill reviews, but people trying to do a good job and flat-out failing.
> Consumer reports apparently reviews dishwasher detergent without following the dishwasher manufacturer's recommendation to put detergent in the "pre wash" cup.
Wow, I never would've guessed (and doubt I've bothered to read) - I'm already living on the edge (in the UK) by pouring it in the drawer instead of putting the cap directly in the drum anyway - I'll check that later...
Love this idea. It hits pretty close to home with an area I've been thinking about for a while.
Here's my biggest concern (given that I've considered building in this almost exact space before): how do you get people to overcome the extra cognitive friction in using your product versus just whatever they can find with Google? Is there basically a cold start break point you get past where the product has enough product review detail that originates on your platform that it becomes an authority and destination?
I like that a lot. As you can tell, I'm already personally sold on the need for the product based on the shoddy and compromised quality of product reviews on major channels like Amazon. I think it's a big problem. I just don't know what the big fix is going to be.
Some ideas to take it further (maybe on the blog):
- Products for which there is no good bifl version, and advice on what to aim for instead. (E.g. the ecologically least-bad disposable one?)
- Other purchases with longer time horizons and tradeoffs. (E.g. roofing material, cars)
Also, do you have a plan to wrestle with the complexity of a product's revision over time? For example I heard Vasque boots got way worse when production went overseas. Pyrex glass types, etc. One thing I'd hope to glean from your site is how to identify the good version of a thing, and to know whether I can still find a new one or need to look for a used one.
Love your ideas!
- We will certainly add educational blog posts about what to look for when researching a durable/sustainable product.
- Once it the platform gets bigger, we will add other categories of products (E.g. roofing material, cars).
- Products revisions are certainly a challenge. We are working on a feature for tracking brand deterioration where we try to tackle this issue.
Great idea, I hope it won't get swarmed by fake reviews.
Small nitpick: site navigation is a bit clunky on desktop (Firefox) , it is not possible to open categories in new tab, scroll wheel click doesn't work as well.
Agreed. I was thoroughly confused after reading the linked page. I assumed it was a new review product (the concept of which does sound good) but was confused with the lack of a call to action on that page.
Only clicking through to the home page did I realise that this “review system” is not a product in its own right but a new feature of an underlying platform.
Totally agree with you that this would have been better served as a call out to the wider platform, which I might add, does look great.
On the topic of improving reviews, I wish I could get reviews from people I know. That way I could trust the reviews as much as I trust the person.
If the person gave a good review to a bad product then I could contact them directly and say "Why'd you say that product was good?!" and/or remove them from my "trusted reviewers".
It's something Facebook could do that would work well, but of course Facebook isn't trying to be useful to consumers.
Just out of curiosity - is the business model built around donations from users? This seems like a very important point for a review platform nowadays, I wouldn't necessarily trust a website like this just saying "We won't take money from advertisers", and I don't see how else you'd pay for it (unless you've just decided to dump a bunch of money in this :) )
The credibility and trustworthiness of our users is our biggest asset, so we are very careful with monetizing it too quickly. But we are definitely thinking about monetization and have a few ideas in mind:
- A Buy For Life badge/widget that companies could integrate on their website and pay us a fee.
- Providing anonymized product data for market research. I.e where do most leather boots break first? What are the stress points of kitchen knives? etc.
I love this concept, keep going! It would be great to have an app that allowed me to predict the use I'd get out of a particular product. In wardrobe alone, the # of items purchased but seldom worn is, in the aggregate, devastating to the environment and a waste of hard-earned money. There is a huge idea in what you're doing.
Originally I thought I had no way to say I was in Australia, as the drop-down (search) showed only a half dozen countries (and one large collection of countries - Asia). Diving in to the review process and I see you can add a country during your first review creation, which solves that problem nicely. I suspect letting users add new currencies may be inviting future fracas!
I would love for this to be a thing. I always try to buy quality products but it has become increasingly difficult to find things that will last. It doesn't help that a product that was once quality could be changed with little to no notice to consumers.
And the saying "you get what you pay for" doesn't hold out anymore either. Lots of things nowadays are both expensive to buy and cheaply made.
Have you ever been annoyed about an Amazon review saying "Package arrived flawless after one day, 5 stars"?
I want to change the way people review products. I'm now introducing "Recurring Reviews". After every year, the reviewer will receive an automatic reminder to assess the condition of the product and if the reviewer is still happy with it. This is how we can follow the whole lifecycle of a product.