Pro-lite Oz

theprophet
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Pro-lite Oz

Postby theprophet » Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:36 pm

So it seems that the so called "average ratings" on the products listed dont mean anything. I was having a sticky beak at what was around and I came across the bracciano. i have owned a couple of sets so decided to write a review on them. So I wrote an honest review, rating them 3 stars and giving feedback about my experience with them (had an issue with the bearings crapping out, however after bearings where replaced have been great). When submitted it said your review has been submitted for mediation. i thought this was odd but could see its use to weed out reviews written based on hate for the company or not by experience or a number of things. Turns out that it is actually used to get rid of ANY bad reviews that have been posted giving them a 5 star "rating". A customer writing on honest product review on a site and then it getting deleted because it wasn't 5 star doesent seem right to me. What do you guys think?

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HappyHumber
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby HappyHumber » Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:52 pm

Why You Shouldn’t Trust Positive Online Reviews—Or Negative Ones, For That Matter

Just another 'caveat emptor' in our modern age, really.

Most online reviews posted on e-tailers sites have little more value than that of a Zimbabwean cent or.. a Facebook "Like".

Though I'm sure the Pro-lite reseller who's an active member here will no doubt pop up and put their view forward in response.
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jules21
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby jules21 » Mon Sep 23, 2013 5:21 pm

it's a very poor strategy. torpedo-7 do the same thing. chain reaction OTOH publish bad reviews.

the smarter ones publish replies.

defy1
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby defy1 » Mon Sep 23, 2013 6:01 pm

Its their site they can do whatever they want

Nobody
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby Nobody » Mon Sep 23, 2013 6:24 pm

defy1 wrote:Its their site they can do whatever they want
They can, but the word will get around on which business' reviews can be trusted. It becomes a reflection on them ultimately.

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ldrcycles
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby ldrcycles » Mon Sep 23, 2013 6:33 pm

jules21 wrote: chain reaction OTOH publish bad reviews.

the smarter ones publish replies.
The Brooks website is a good example of that, certainly helps my impression of the product when the company is willing to have negative feedback right there on the main page.
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HappyHumber
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby HappyHumber » Mon Sep 23, 2013 6:36 pm

jules21 wrote: chain reaction OTOH publish bad reviews.
the smarter ones publish replies.
The just plain devious ones skew the stats or publish only favourably.
defy1 wrote:Its their site they can do whatever they want
Yeah, sure it's their site. No qualms there. However, the savvy modern shopper should know better or at least question what they're reading in context. I do my research elsewhere and ultimately decide on price (basket total or individual item for small, one off orders) and more often than not ignore reseller site reviews.

As with a lot of marketing this sort of practice preys more on the impulsive buyer. Business owners (aka. entrepeneurs) do their best to make a return (aka. profit)

I've said it once, I'll say it again... buyer beware.
Last edited by HappyHumber on Mon Sep 23, 2013 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby zero » Mon Sep 23, 2013 6:56 pm

Nobody wrote:
defy1 wrote:Its their site they can do whatever they want
They can, but the word will get around on which business' reviews can be trusted. It becomes a reflection on them ultimately.
The braccianos on the website don't have a review, and one would imagine that jacks sincerely believes they are best wheels for money/weight/depth/aero (some combination) and can't accept the only review being a meh 3 stars.

If it were me I'd just get rid of the reviews, lots of customers have had positive experience with the wheels and post about it, which is worth more than the onsite reviews, and even the disgruntled customer seems to have received a warranty fix that he was happy with.


*edit if someone says a wheel rolls smooth, then I pretty much stop believing the rest of whats written anyway, its the beefy bottom bracket with vertical compliance of the wheel industry.

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winstonw
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby winstonw » Mon Sep 23, 2013 7:33 pm

I've said elsewhere, a wheelset review posted early in their life means nothing to me.
Tell me how they've held up after 5,000-30,000km.
Most reviews are nothing but well bashed thoughtless cliches - 'rolls smooth', 'fast', 'light', 'cool looking'....'stiff'
Helpful early review comments might include how true they are out of the box, objective measure of spoke tension and whether it met specc'ed tension, how quickly they went out of true, actual wheelset weight vs claimed.
This last point is more of a concern to me now, because the market is more and more buying wheels based on claimed weight, and 100g less can attract $200-400 more. Manufacturers who are sloppy with claimed weights need to have consumer pressure applied.

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ldrcycles
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby ldrcycles » Mon Sep 23, 2013 7:55 pm

winstonw wrote: Manufacturers who are sloppy with claimed weights need to have consumer pressure applied.
+1, I don't understand why they can say a wheelset weighs X and then sell them if they weigh more than that, why is that not false advertising? (I'm aware of some who do actually specify "weighs X plus or minus 5%" or something similar).
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liamb
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby liamb » Mon Sep 23, 2013 8:44 pm

Just to be clear I have 2 sets of Prolite wheels.
Just remember that there are trolls out there that just go onto websites and place false bad reports on anything from sex toys to wine to cars to phones to animals to Harry Potter. I guess some business owners have taken the steps to try to sus out what is true constructive criticism and what is trolling. My opinion is that we need to know the good and bad but the truth on both sides need to be assessed.
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MarkG
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby MarkG » Mon Sep 23, 2013 9:09 pm

Sex toys eh lol
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jules21
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby jules21 » Mon Sep 23, 2013 9:12 pm

liamb wrote:Just remember that there are trolls out there that just go onto websites and place false bad reports on anything from sex toys to wine to cars to phones to animals to Harry Potter.
there's an easy solution - only make reviews available to those who are registered as having purchased the product

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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby Nobody » Mon Sep 23, 2013 9:22 pm

@zero. My statement wasn't directed at Pro-lite specifically. Just a general statement about the posts above mine.

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im_no_pro
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby im_no_pro » Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:10 pm

jules21 wrote:
liamb wrote:Just remember that there are trolls out there that just go onto websites and place false bad reports on anything from sex toys to wine to cars to phones to animals to Harry Potter.
there's an easy solution - only make reviews available to those who are registered as having purchased the product
Which entirely defeats the purpose IMHO....
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby Mulger bill » Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:47 pm

im_no_pro wrote:
jules21 wrote:
liamb wrote:Just remember that there are trolls out there that just go onto websites and place false bad reports on anything from sex toys to wine to cars to phones to animals to Harry Potter.
there's an easy solution - only make reviews available to those who are registered as having purchased the product
Which entirely defeats the purpose IMHO....
I get the feeling that Jules meant "only make reviews available FROM those who are registered as having purchased the product."

Of course, I could be wrong here. :? Jules?
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jacks1071
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby jacks1071 » Tue Sep 24, 2013 12:00 am

theprophet wrote:So it seems that the so called "average ratings" on the products listed dont mean anything. I was having a sticky beak at what was around and I came across the bracciano. i have owned a couple of sets so decided to write a review on them. So I wrote an honest review, rating them 3 stars and giving feedback about my experience with them (had an issue with the bearings crapping out, however after bearings where replaced have been great). When submitted it said your review has been submitted for mediation. i thought this was odd but could see its use to weed out reviews written based on hate for the company or not by experience or a number of things. Turns out that it is actually used to get rid of ANY bad reviews that have been posted giving them a 5 star "rating". A customer writing on honest product review on a site and then it getting deleted because it wasn't 5 star doesent seem right to me. What do you guys think?
I don't understand why you would try to discredit me publically or what you would possibly have to gain from that?

Surely your experience was not bad if you've "owned a couple of sets"

I find it difficult to believe you've "owned a couple of sets" since there is two posts on here under your name looking for "cheap, not too worn out wheels" and another saying that you are 15 years old. At 15 years old you've maybe been riding 700C wheels for 3 or 4 years maximum and at the average weight of a 11-15 year old even if you rode 500km per week a set of Bracciano's would last years if you didn't crash them.

The Bracciano is one of the most popular after-market wheelsets in Australia. I have sold thousands of sets and you will struggle to find anything but great reviews on this product.

The review system requires you to have actually purchased a product that you are reviewing. When you publish a review you must enter an email address, if that address doesn't link back to an account where that product has been purchased it gets deleted automatically. I do not see it.

This is a spam control function we had to implement as we receive literally hundreds of "fake" reviews everyday, spammers love using these review systems to embed their website for SEO purposes...

I'm just guessing here trying to work out why your review doesn't show. We are not in the business of deleting reviews and in fact most but not all of our reviews are 5-stars. If my customers are giving us any less than 5-stars then I am not happy and want to know what I can do to improve that situation.

Although the main function of this rule is to automatically clear the spam the by product of this I guess is that if you purchased your wheels elsewhere - even if they are "Pro-Lite Bracciano" you might not have received exactly the same bearings, freehub or exactly the same specification as the stock that we supply and in that situation your review and comments would not be entirely valid. We want reviews to be made by our customers, people who have purchased the product from us because those customers are the ones who are important and their opinions and experience is entirely valid.

Lastly, we have no issues with the bearings supplied in any of our wheels, in fact the quality of the bearings we use is a key selling point.

If you have any issue at all, please feel free to contact me and I will be happy to help.
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby jacks1071 » Tue Sep 24, 2013 12:13 am

jules21 wrote:
liamb wrote:Just remember that there are trolls out there that just go onto websites and place false bad reports on anything from sex toys to wine to cars to phones to animals to Harry Potter.
there's an easy solution - only make reviews available to those who are registered as having purchased the product
That is exactly what we do Jules, if you post a review and your email doesn't link back to an account that has purchased the product then the review gets deleted automatically.

This is primarily a spam control function.
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Ross
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby Ross » Tue Sep 24, 2013 7:54 am

jules21 wrote:it's a very poor strategy. torpedo-7 do the same thing.
I posted a somewhat negative report on some sunnies I bought from T7 and they published it.

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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby DaveOZ » Tue Sep 24, 2013 8:02 am

thanks for the detailed reply Deon. There's always two sides to a story.

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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby im_no_pro » Tue Sep 24, 2013 8:34 am

Mulger bill wrote: I get the feeling that Jules meant "only make reviews available FROM those who are registered as having purchased the product."

Of course, I could be wrong here. :? Jules?
My turn for derp. :oops:

Thanks for the insight Deon, makes perfect sense that you need to buy it to review it.
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Scarfy96
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby Scarfy96 » Tue Sep 24, 2013 9:47 am

I have posted a less than glowing review on Torpedo7 as well. No problem it was pubished quite quickly.

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jules21
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby jules21 » Tue Sep 24, 2013 9:51 am

Mulger bill wrote:I get the feeling that Jules meant "only make reviews available FROM those who are registered as having purchased the product."

Of course, I could be wrong here. :? Jules?
no, that's it, ta Shaun. reviews could be taken to mean their submission or viewability. i meant their submission :)

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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby brawlo » Tue Sep 24, 2013 11:17 am

The problems with online reviews on seller sites and sites like productreview are that the majority are new purchaser and the reviews are glowing. The flip side are people who have some sort of problem and want to whinge about the product. The thing you then have to do is read through the bad reviews and determine if the reasoning is valid. You also have to consider the fact that when thousands of a product are sold, there will inevitable be some problems, hopefully they are minor. You also need to consider that as an old boss told me, some people will never be happy, no matter how good a job you do.

If you want reviews like long term happy user reviews, you hardly ever find those on review sites. You mostly have to trawl through sites such as our forums here to find them. Unfortunate, but mostly that is the case as I have found.

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Ross
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Re: Pro-lite Oz

Postby Ross » Tue Sep 24, 2013 1:39 pm

Also, different people have different tolerances, expectations and views. What is acceptable to one person can be viewed as a significant drama or fault in the eyes of another person.

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