These days most will check out the reviews of a product or service online before committing to a purchase – even if they don’t purchase it online.

There is just about a review for everything that can be bought.  Thinking of going to a restaurant, booking a holiday or hotel? Check out www.tripadvisor.co.uk. Buying something from Amazon?  Check out the reviews left by people who have bought the product….but...

Not all reviewers can be trusted for various reasons.  TripAdvisor do say they try to weed out the ‘fake’ reviews but not all can be eliminated.

And now Amazon have just announced that their review system is getting an overhaul.  Previously, companies on the Amazon website may have offered free (or heavily discounted) products to customers in exchange for good reviews.  Soon something called Amazon Vine will be used where trusted, vetted reviewers can post comments.

A good tip when looking at reviews from any website is to seek items with a large number of reviews and think about ignoring the very best and very worst comments to get an average or balanced overview of the product or service.