What’s going on here?

Sometimes the anxiety behind deciding what to buy, is greater than the joy experienced holding your new delight in hand. That’s not right!

It used to be so easy to make a purchase. Big or small, I walked into the store, looked at the packaging, and picked the most attractive toy. Was it the best option available? Probably not, but it was good enough. There used to be an unspoken promise between the manufacturers and the consumers – if it’s good enough to get on the store shelf, it’ll be fine. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Not only are trips to a physical brick and mortar store becoming more and more rare for the average consumer, as time marches on the once trustworthy reviews online are getting difficult to tell the true from the fake!

The proliferation of Amazon review analyzers are a useful tool, that unfortunately mark the decline in consumer faith. Review Meta and Fake Spot are both handy tools for weeding out products and manufacturers using nefarious means to boost their rankings on Amazon, but once you get past the obvious tactics, how do you move on to the next step in your selection process. Should you choose the camera that Amazon prefers in their obscure algorithms, or the one with the most reviews? Best rating, or most expensive? When two Bluetooth transmitters look identical, are they really?

Here’s where I come in. I have a habit (good, bad, or otherwise) of hunkering down and doing the research. It’s not necessarily something I like doing, but my money is not disposable, and it feels like something that needs to be done. The time I spend looking for the perfect review can feel like time wasted. Why isn’t anyone else worried about the corner chipping? What happens when the kids leave it out in the sun all day? Can I really trust these two thousand “Five Star Reviews”, when there are fifty one star reviews with very similar complaints?

I don’t always find the answers I’m looking for, so here I leave for posterity a collection of what I’ve found, a bit of the process I went through to make my decisions, what I ultimately settled on, and what products actually deserve a golden fry.