True Life: I’m Addicted to Product Reviews

What would your Google search history say about you? Are you a hypochondriac googling every sniffle, poop color change and slightest sign of a rash? Are you a development-obsessed mom who wants to know if walking after 12 months is normal? (It totally is.) Do you constantly have to know the answer to something to prove to someone that you are right? 

My Google search history would reveal that I’m obsessed with product reviews.

I’m the woman standing at the clearance pack and plays, spending 30 minutes on her phone deciding which one to buy. One has four and a half stars but is more expensive, the other has four stars and is $30 cheaper, and I feel like my brain is about to explode. What might be a 10-minute shopping trip can easily turn into a debilitating hour.

And this isn’t exclusively related to baby products. I must read reviews on just about everything, specifically the following:

a. something I have never tried, e.g. a new make-up foundation
b. something that’s going to cost over $50
c. something mechanical or electrical

The truth is, I’m going to spend days (read: likely weeks) researching a product online before I decide to purchase it.

Recently, we moved into a house with laminate flooring and I desperately wanted a robot vacuum to stay on top of all of the day-to-day grit. I scoffed at the $600 Roombas I was seeing in stores. How can a person simply walk up to such an expensive product and buy it right off the shelf without knowing if 1,000 other people are giving it two stars?

It haunts me. Needless to say, I made my major purchase online, and it only took me about three weeks to decide. Was it the remote that sold me or the fact that it could clean different floor surfaces? Why of course not. It was the 67% of people who gave it five stars.

This has become so problematic, I have to shop on Amazon from a desktop computer as opposed to the app. Why is that you ask? Because the app doesn’t give you the Best Sellers Rank. It’s nearly impossible for me to purchase a product that isn’t ranked in the Top 100.

Here’s my freak flag, and I’m letting it fly. 

Admittedly, my obsession has saved me quite a bit of money as well. In addition to being obsessed with reviews, I’m a big fan of Google’s “shopping” feature to determine the best price. Prior to the robot vacuum, we purchased a regular vacuum for the carpet in our previous home. I spent days scouring product reviews, comparing the Best Sellers, prices, Consumer Reports, and other review sites and decided on the number two selling vacuum on Amazon. Again, silly me, I couldn’t just “Buy Now with 1-Click.” I had to make sure I was getting the best deal, and a quick Google search showed me that I could save myself about $70 by purchasing it on Walmart’s site due to a recent rollback.

But all in all, I guess there are worse things in life that a Google Search history could reveal about me.