Ever wonder the truth of 3d printer reviews? Here we talk about the truth of the reviews. Don’t be surprised there are many paid one for the marketing purposes.
Are you the type of person who Google and research a lot before buying things especially something uncommon like a 3D printer? Or are you the type of person who basically rely on customer reviews and or recommendations by the seller? No matter which type you are, make sure you take a glance at the back of all these beautiful created content and check if they are biased.
The Truth of 3D Printer Reviews = Brands Paid For It?
In beautiful weathers, customers pop in to take a tour in our demo centre. Some of them describe their needs and ask for recommendations, while the others seems to have a clear mind on what to buy and order it right away. I said they “seems” is because they did Google about a product and learnt about a specific brand, and they read the reviews knowing the PROs and CONs. However, are those… authentic?
We have gone through the specs sheet, and we dig into the reviews to see what the professionals talk about. Wait a second. Are they paid? Are they trustworthy? Not all reviews are paid for sure but there are loads. Those online media reviews didn’t even clarify if they are advertorial articles but obviously lean on one side, not to mention other users comments and ratings. This is a huge problem nowadays especially when the marketing has been transitioned from traditional to digital. Massive efforts are being made on all sort of digital channels, wherever you browse you will see embedded advertisment. Brands are paying for copywriting, reviews, video contents and fake users comments. So what is true?
The world was far simpler decades ago when we Googled and the results showed authentic reviews and comments from real users, until nowadays you have to make sure they are not SPAM. I feel headache when I have to consider the good reviews are paid by the brands while the bad reviews could be done by their competitors.
Free sample given, positive reviews expected. Well, not too negative at least.
This is how the things work. In every industries, whenever a new product is to be announced, PR from the brands and manufacturers are looking for exposures. From advertisements to media reviews and customer comments, all could be paid. I think many of you have that in mind too.
As a reseller in this industry, we have to purchase our 3D printers if we want to try them and showcase as a demo. Some is different from other tech products, these 3D printers could be tools for our 3D printing services to actually operate if they are capable to do so. You could be like, hey wait, some printers are relatively cheap, why wouldn’t the manufactures just give them to us? This is sad but true the manufacturers only give 3d printers away to Youtubers / KOL with high volumes, in return they get exposures and reviews of their machines. The manufacturers, however, are always craving for positive reviews just at the price of the sample units. The popular ones of course usually get paid for the nice reviews, the less popular ones are also likely to provide positive reviews and cover the cons so they can build relationships with the manufacturers to receive free samples in the future. That’s just a matter of the chicken or egg first.
So, are you a little bit clearer by now? We can’t say the reviews are mostly biased, but they will never be too honest and scare the manufacturers.
Read more from different sources before buying a 3D printers
A good example is the Creality printers. Their printers were indeed nice in an affordable price. They were the pioneers in low cost printers and made 3D printing a lot more popular. Their advantages are not significant anymore though, a lot of ODM & OEM rising with a new brand name in their county using the similar strategy. Some of those even hold better technologies than Creality does. Yet, people would still prefer to buy their first or second printer with Creality.
Why? Mostly because of the source of knowledge. People usually google first and there are a huge lot of suspecting paid contents by the brand. The printers are nice but they are not perfect, with the paid contents to zoom in the pros and zoom out the cons, this is another story. So, there are more and more peolpe buying them and the grown community becomes another strength and consideration to buy a printer. This is the game.
It is hard to say which source is most reliable, even some renowned 3D printing media we read could have done paid contents without clarifications. So, it is always nice to know more from different sources, or just simply call a local shop to ask for comments and make up your mind.
No 3D printer is perfect, so just find one which is more suitable for your needs. If you want a community to build confidence, share joy or suffering from the same problem, then you will need something like Creality or Prusa. If you want easy assembly, fast and quiet printing, you will need something like Artillery.
That’s all for today. Welcome to text us or call us if you want to know more, we are always happy to share. See ya.
