Take This Review and Shovel It!

A few weeks before Christmas while shopping in Sears I had the foresight to purchase a new snow shovel. It was the top-of-the-line new Craftsman model, complete with a padded steel handle, deep clear lucite shovel body and bottom ice scraper. It was selling for $29.95, but I redeemed my Kmart Shop Your Way Rewards points and got it for only 45-cents! And since it's a Craftsman it is guaranteed forever. You can't beat that deal!

A couple of weeks later I received an e-mail from Sears asking me if I would like to write a product review on the shovel. I was very happy with it and since it had gotten a thorough workout with the weekly blizzards we are having this winter I was more than happy to comply. I clicked on the link and began the process. First I had to rate the shovel from 1 to 5 stars. I wanted to give 4.5, since my only complaint was that the snow sometimes sticks in the well of the shovel, but that wasn't an option so I gave it 5. I wrote a nice, rather lengthy review detailing how I used the shovel and how it was easier to use and better made than the plastic shovel it replaced. Then I hit the "SUBMIT" button. A red warning came up alerting me that I needed to be logged in to write a review. I thought I was, but when I attempted to back track to see what I did wrong everything I wrote was erased. 

I went back and started the process again, logging in using my home e-mail address. I rewrote the review word-for-word the best I could remember and hit "SUBMIT" again. This time it said somebody already had that e-mail address (me!) and that I would have to log in again. Once again, everything I wrote disappeared. I tried it once more submitting my work e-mail address, but then I was told that conflicted with my home e-mail address. After a few choice curse words I gave up in frustration, figuring why am I wasting an hour of my time doing this to help out Sears!

By comparison, a month later I bought a bottle of Christian Audigier cologne online from The Bon Ton department store. A few weeks later they too asked me to submit a product review. I wrote one, giving it 4 out of 5 stars, noting that while the cologne has a great light scent and is beautifully packaged, the atomizer is a little short and therefore difficult to use. Bon Ton asked me to make up an online name and then asked for my home e-mail address, noting that it would be used to enter me into a drawing. I did as required and then hit the "SUBMIT" button. A note came up thanking me for taking the time to write the product review and said my review would be posted within 3 days pending review by store officials (I guess to make sure I didn't write anything threatening or X-rated.). It couldn't have been easier.

I guess the moral here is that consumers are eager to write product reviews -- if they are easy to submit and if there might even be a chance of a reward. 

There is also a lesson here  for supermarkets -- why not ask your customers to write product reviews? If a customer spends $100 on a Kobe Beef standing rib roast for Christmas why not ask them to write a review on how they liked it, prepared it, and would they buy it again? The same could be done for unusual items in seafood, produce, grocery and non-foods too. Imagine taking these reviews and running them in your ads -- "Best roast I ever ate." "We never had a better Thanksgiving turkey." "Your homemade pies are to die for!" In an era where people are migrating to Walmart, Target, Aldi and dozens of other competing outlets to do their grocery shopping I'd like to SUBMIT that this could give you a definite leg up on the competition.