Store Reviews... Do people only read the bad?

[jsilverj]

I realized while I was reading some reviews that I would only read the negative ones. The ones titled " Very Dissatisfied ".

If one were researching a Company before making a purchase, would they too skim through the positives and stop at the negatives?

I guess the longer the skimming the better the Company. With each passing positive review you gain more confidence in the Company but why do we stop and read the negatives?

And why is it that the biggest Companies have the worst reviews? eg,

Buy.com 3 out of 10
Best Buy 1.52 out of 10
Sony Style 2.5 out of 10

[Speculant]

the biggest companies probably have the worst reviews because people have higher expectations towards them (because since it's a large company, people expect it to be perfect), and on top of that all their friends might tell them how wonderful the large store is, so that pumps up their expectations even higher. When the large company fails, the person's feeling towards the company takes a huge fall because their expectation was so high.

I think there's nothing wrong with only reading the bad reviews, that's what I do. If there's more bad reviews, but about a problem that I could fix or that is easily avoidable then it's not so bad, but if there's more bad reviews about a problem that is definitely going to happen then I am a little wary.

[dal5560]

It is a great idea to view bad reviews first in order to gauge how the company treats the complainers. There are a few types of one star reviewers. The biggest fall into these categories 1) Completely pissed off and post a negative think just in spite 2) Jump the gun and post a legitimate negative review, however before a seller can respond 3) A truly legitimate review of a bad seller.

I always try to watch out for a 3rd case.

With bigger companies, there are more customers, hence more people that may feel strongly one way or the other. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to judge what category they fit into.