Our country manager for Ireland started out in life as a technology journalist before moving his way up into the world of management, and this influence can be clearly seen in our recently launched series of Buyers Guides.
The idea was conceived one day after a trip to an electronics retailer where the sales staff did an impressive job pushing this product and that. This human-element is something we obviously have a little trouble replicating from a web shop point of view.
So we came to the idea of putting up buyers guides – they are a popular editorial feature on any website and genuinely of use to consumers.
Of course, on the flip side, one might say that we’re not the most unbiased of sources for this information… A perception we hope will be dispelled after you read one of the guides. Buyers guides don’t work if they’re fluff – and some of the guides you’ll find in magazines and other print media are just that, with the products being chosen – and sometimes even the copy written – by the advertisers. Some of it is just bad writing and space filler.
To get people to make purchasing decisions from buyers guides they have to be unbiased, and we go for the straight-shooting approach: Clearly point out the advantages and disadvantages to owning a product. In our monitor buying guide we make no qualms about telling you that a 98 euro monitor is a good deal if you’re looking for something cheap and cheerful, and spend the 259 euro only if you want a monitor for high-end gaming and media usage.
We’re going to be expanding the buyers guide concept into How-To’s in the coming weeks. We’ll begin with fairly simple how-to-build-your-own-PC articles, then move into overclocking. The basics that’ll enable people to make use of the components we sell. We’ll also continue the buyers guide concept, of course.
Of course the wider internet is a great source of up-to-the-minute information on products. There are so many review sites and comparison databases out there that it’s not hard to find out everything about a product before you buy. And on the internet you have far more time and more unbiased information sources to learn from than when you’re in a store and the sales guy is pushing you towards the till.
What do you think of our buyers guides? Are they unbiased, in your eyes? Useful?
