Unrepresentative reviewing of OcUK on review sites

Angilion

Angilion

Angilion

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I've just looked for a review of the Acer V243HLbmd 24 inch monitor and, unsurprisingly, got loads of hits for places selling it instead ("be the first to write a review", etc).

I thought I might as well look at user reviews, so I clicked on the first link. It was Google's shopping sevice. How surprising that it was the first result returned by Google :)

So, I got a list of places selling it for various prices. Google's shopping service also references reviews of the vendor from various different consumer review websites. OcUK's rating was the worst of the list, which surprised me. I've been shopping with OcUK for over 10 years and I've directed dozens of people to them to buy stuff. Their experience was the same as mine - good advice, good service, good prices. I've had only one incident with less than polite staff, which probably had something to do with it being shortly before closing time on a Christmas eve a couple of years ago and the guy wanting to shut up shop and go home. Even then, he wasn't rude, just a bit abrupt and dismissive of these forums. I've had to return a few things as DOA (inevitable with dozens of purchases over the years) and it's been no bother.

I think the issue was summed up by one of the positive reviews:

These sites are cesspools for the unlucky few who think they're the only customers.
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There are only 638 ratings on Google shopping for OcUK and only 319 of those are used for the Google rating (because they're reviews from the consumer sites Google are using.)

So a couple of hundred unrepresentative experiences with OcUK are dragging its score down at review sites. I expect a lot of people look at Google's shopping section and a low score probably puts some of them off.

So, if you've had good experiences with OcUK, please spend a few minutes giving them an honest positive review at one of the review sites Google uses for its vendor ratings (I used reviewcentre.com). People are usually much more motivated to make a review if it's a complaint, but that leads to an unrepresentative score with a small number of reviews. A few hundred people with reviews of what usually happens would help give a more representative picture.

http://www.reviewcentre.com/review660581.html
 
What OCUK have had bad reviews not having that I have been using OCUK for over 10 years never had one prob.

Well some bad memory but that was replaced faster than a fast thing.

edit

review done ;)
 
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Angilion said:
So, if you've had good experiences with OcUK, please spend a few minutes giving them an honest positive review at one of the review sites...
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I think its important to highlight this as I fear people here could just write a made up review to "boost" OcUK up the list, which is as equally as unrepresentative as the people just reviewing because of a bad experience.

I do agree that it is unfair since the majority of places, not just OcUK, get pulled down in ratings because people only review when something bad happens. But don't just make up a good review since you like the forums or something (forums aren't linked to the shop after all). Only do it if you have had a good experience like Angilion says.
 
I have not I realy do mean I have never had an issue with OCUK.

Thats the problem today so many people talk out of there ass (i dont mean you Nymins) I mean in general.

TBH the reviews could all so be from a competitor trying to get OCUK a bad rep.
 
D.Roberts said:
I have not I realy do mean I have never had an issue with OCUK.

Thats the problem today so many people talk out of there ass (i dont mean you Nymins) I mean in general.

TBH the reviews could all so be from a competitor trying to get OCUK a bad rep.
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Oh yea i agree. It wasn't aimed at you at all, just in general to everyone here :)

I'm sure there are places that go out of their way to rate companies down, but I think it is as said in the OP, that people just rate their bad experiences and not their good ones.

Tbh I probably would rate a place badly if I had a problem more often than I would rate a place for a good experience.
 
I've seen another comment in another review that I think makes sense:

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]It [OCUK] also caters to a more hard-core technical crowd then many online stores who would never bother to review an online store.
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I think that's true and that it does result in OcUK being pulled down in ratings more than some other vendors. Enthusiasts generally want to use their new kit and maybe write about their new kit on hardware forums, not go to Ciao or wherever and write about the shop they bought it from.
[/FONT]
 
D.Roberts said:
What OCUK have had bad reviews not having that I have been using OCUK for over 10 years never had one prob.

Well some bad memory but that was replaced faster than a fast thing.

edit

review done ;)
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I had to laugh about this comment from your review. One of those times when your mind inexplicably inserts a completely different word to the one you intended.

Use them you WONT be disseminated.
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It's good to know that you won't be spread out over a large distance if you shop at OcUK, but that doesn't make it stand out. Other vendors also don't explode their customers :)
 
For anything, people are more likely to leave a comment/review when something bad happens. People who have good experiences generally don't write comments/reviews, unless it benefits them somehow.

Not had bad service from OcUK so far, but I've never had to send anything back either, so I've never encountered their customer service dept, good or bad.

Some sites deserve their bad reviews, however. I won't name names, but there are some sites I wouldn't touch with a 10" pole.
 
I think OcUK seem to be "hated" quite a lot around the internet, mainly due to ex forumites for various reasons. Personally I've never had an issue with the service, but then I haven't with any of the big online computer stores, however this forum seems to be "disliked" a lot more than other forums.
 
When I first read the thread title I thought it was directed at the buyer reviews of OCUK products on their site. But I have seen that you haven't been banned yet.. so it couldn't of been that :p

Product review censorship is what I dislike.

In the past I took my time to write a review of a product only for to get sent to the bin, and unpublished. I have wasted my time writing those reviews which have nothing to do with the service from OCUK (which I have always found to be great) but are about my thoughts about the PRODUCT.

I don't bother wasting my time any more writing those reviews anymore, it is like ******* into the wind.
 
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2StepSteve said:
When I first read the thread title I thought it was directed at the buyer reviews of OCUK products on their site.

But I have seen that you haven't been banned yet.. so it couldn't of been that :P

That is my only dig I have with OCUK. That they haven't posted up my fair reviews/thoughts of a product on their product page. I have wasted my time writing those reviews which have nothing to do with the service from OCUK but are about my thoughts of the PRODUCT.

I have made a note not to bother wasting my time any more writing those reviews on this site. Is like ******* into the wind.
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To be fair I've seen quite a few bad reviews that have been published on products. I understand your frustration though, but if OcUK see the review as bad for business, they're simply not going to publish it.
 
Angilion said:
People are usually much more motivated to make a review if it's a complaint, but that leads to an unrepresentative score with a small number of reviews.
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Maybe true, but if so, it is also true of all stores and so proportionally things will invariably balance out to a fair level.

Encouraging people to post positive reviews for a particular only skews the results and undermines the whole system.

edit - the other thing you need to consider is this place will present a very positive view of OcUK - maybe 'wrongly' so, maybe not - if all of that negative opinion is genuinely deserved the last place you would hear about it is here, as the moderators clearly run a very tight ship and stuff like that is snuffed out very quickly when it does appear. This is also somewhere you would be unlikely to hang about if you did have an issue with the store beyond trying to make an initial complaint.
 
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The thing is ocuk have improved recently. Having used the shop for years and had several bad times I can totally understand the reviews and scores. Its something that ocuk have at least for me sorted and I havent had a major issue for a while but it wasnt always so rosey.

Of course though people will always be more motivated to post reviews of bad service rather than good
 
Gamer_T said:
To be fair I've seen quite a few bad reviews that have been published on products. I understand your frustration though, but if OcUK see the review as bad for business, they're simply not going to publish it.
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Maybe it has changed then as the last time I *tried* to post a review was about a year ago since then I don't bother, as I say I have never slagged off the service OCUK provide as I have never needed to.

Reviews that are bad for business? Amazon seem to do extremely well allowing negative reviews of products on their site. The simple thing is if people do not like a product you stop stocking it, it isn't a bad reflection on the company!
 
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