Consumers vs Critics: Who do shoppers rely on more when buying electronics?
Today's shopping journey is a wild west of online reviews, five-star raves and one-star rants. In earlier pieces, we’ve focussed on what consumers rely on more, customer or critic reviews, when shopping for items like mobile phones and accommodation. In this piece, we’re buzzing around electronics and appliances.
According to data from a recent YouGov survey that polled respondents across 17 international markets, two in five consumers (40%) across markets rely equally on consumer and critic reviews when buying electronics.
About three in ten of them rely more on consumer reviews, while just one in ten (10%) are more likely to lean into what critics have to say about the electronics they intend to purchase.
Interestingly, 12% of respondents rely on neither critic nor consumer reviews.
As for data from individual markets, critic reviews are most favored in India (13%), Sweden (13%), Denmark (13%) and Australia (13%). Conversely, they are the least favored in Poland (5%) and Singapore (7%).
Nearly two in five Indonesians (39%) bank on mostly consumer reviews when purchasing electronics and appliances - the most likely across markets to do so. Consumers in Mexico (38%), Spain (37%) and the UAE (37%) closely follow those in Indonesia, in their preference for consumers reviews.
More than half of all Hong Kongers (53%) prefer both, consumer and critic reviews, equally. Half of Singaporeans (50%) do so as well. In Europe, Poles (42%) account for the largest proportion of consumers who value both, critic and consumer reviews, when buying electronics and appliances.
Within the US (where appliances-related discretionary spending is reportedly sluggish), consumers are most likely (42%) to take to both kinds of reviews. The data from Great Britian isn’t vastly different from the American figures - 39% of Brits are of the same opinion when it comes to reviews for electronics purchases.
Germans (21%) lead in saying they prefer neither consumer nor critic reviews when buying electronics and appliances. Consumers in France (20%), Sweden (17%) and the US (15%) prefer neither of the two as well.
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from
nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 17 markets with sample sizes varying between 500 and 2002 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in February 2024. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.
Photo by Jakub Zerdzickion Pexels