Pros: readable, palatable information on a range of topics, provides good basic understanding and gives the consumer some idea of what to look for in a product, in essence trains the consumer to be more thoughtful and critical
Cons: self-righteous, endless self-promotion, some of their special reports are scams, advice may be suspect sometimes... are they all that different from the companies they critique?
Ah, image is everything. Consumer Reports magazine has to be respected on two fundamental levels. Most noteworthy, it has an almost cultlike following that gives their decisions staggering importance. They do understand the tricks of marketing, and they market themselves very well. When Consumers reports, people listen! Yet, to their credit, Consumer Reports actually does attempt to provide objective and relevant assessments of products and services, and they do a reasonably good job of it. My greatest irritation is that they're so impressed with themselves that it's hard to really like them. And their endless self-promotion gets wearying. They seem to feel that the rules of good taste and salesmanship do not apply to themselves.
I've subscribed to Consumer Reports for years. It's one of those staple magazines like Newsweek that you don't really think about subscribing to. It's simply a given that you'll always have one on the coffee table. It's familiar. It's palatable. It's not terribly mind-challenging. Rather, it's more of an old friend and an easy read. For some folks, it's more than that. Lots of people won't even entertain the thought of purchasing a car or large appliance without first getting Consumer Reports' feedback.
Consumers Union, the nonprofit organization behind the magazine, has the laudable mission of attempting to provide consumers with unbiased, objective, useful product information. They don't accept advertising nor product donations. Rather, they purchase items like the rest of us. They then subject them to an array of tests and report their findings.
While this sounds great in theory, the results are uneven. Some of the tests that a product are subjected to may be hard for the average person to relate to. Real use in real settings just isn't the same animal as a set of esoteric tests. And, like it or not, there is no such thing as objectivity.
Bias always enters into a picture in one way or another. Perhaps most common is the observation of many people that Consumer Reports generally has a strong preference for foreign versus domestic vehicles. Bias occurs in other forms, as well. I remember years ago when they withdrew their good words for a product they had chosen as some sort of best buy. They did this because the manufacturer broke of of CU's rules and stated in their own advertising that CU had preferred them to others. Okay, the manufacturer may have broken CU's rule... but the product was still the same good product that CU had adored. CU's attitudes towards a company do bias how they rate that company's products.
Rather than reading Consumer Reports as The Answer in what to buy, it's a good place to start. I don't need to know which oven they like best as much as I need to know what characteristics they took into consideration, for example. The side-by-side comparison of features, prices, and possible drawbacks can be very useful in narrowing down choices for oneself. Particularly for more technical products, the articles do a very good job of writing to an uneducated audience. I don't mean that in an insulting way. Not everyone who uses a car or computer or air conditioner is an expert on them, and not everyone wants to be. But CU explains the basic jargon and concepts in readily understandable terms. The flip side is that some of the articles may seem too basic and simplistic to somebody with more expertise. I consider this a strength of the magazine, notwithstanding. The target audience is a regular Joe consumer, not a specialist.
Everyone's favorite part of the magazine is probably the inside back cover, the "Selling It" section that illustrates the ridiculous in the world of marketing. Typically they'll show a label that says something like "chicken dinner," and then they'll highlight the tiny print that says something like, "no chicken" or "add your own chicken" on the ingredient panel. This month, for example, among other items is a flyer for a children's birthday portrait. The flyer screams "free" all over, but the small print states that there's a $9.95 fee. These things are a lot of fun to look at, and they teach us to examine the fine print more closely ourselves.
The single greatest aspect of this magazine is the tendency for the reader to become more of a thinking consumer. Whether it involves reading the letters to the editor, laughing at the Selling It page, looking at product recalls, or reading the articles themselves, there's a tendency for the reader to find themselves becoming a more critical consumer.
My greatest complaint with the magazine is their holier than thou attitude. They're forever ramming down the reader's throat the fact that they accept no advertising and are champions for the consumer. At the same time, they hawk their products like no tomorrow. In addition to the $3.50 for a single issue or $26 for an annual subscription, the reader can get a New Car Price Report for $12... a year 2000 Buying Guide for $9.95... a Travel Letter newsletter for $39 annually... a Used Car Worksheet for $10... or a host of other special publications. They all cost more money. If CU has information to share, they should put it in the magazine itself. I didn't subscribe to the magazine to get bombarded with ads for more CU items.
Ever sit down to watch a PBS special and hear them beat their chests about how wonderful they are because they accept no commercials? And then they tell you that the program "is brought to you by" Texaco and GM and MacDonald's, etc. etc.. And then they whine and cry about how they need you to mail them cold hard cash so they can continue to do their good works? That's what Consumer Reports feels like. "Ohhh, we're sooo wonderful and we do such good things... and we'll sell you some snake oil, but it's good, because it's coming from us, not those other bad guys. Wink. Wink."
Am I being unfair? Well, I blew $12 and bought one of those New Car Price Reports. It was worth about $1.50. I received, quite literally, a price list for the type of car I was interested in. It has the invoice price, MSRP (sticker price), and what Consumers calls the wholesale price (dealer invoice, minus what Consumers believes to be the current incentives and holdback). All of this information is available, for free, all over the internet. And frankly, many websites have this information available in a format that is better organized and easier to read.
Some of the information on this price report isn't even accurate. The report, for example, hastily suggests that a dealer's advertising fee is "$200-$400 if applicable." That's not good enough, not for $12. The manufacturer-determined dealer advertising fee for this particular vehicle is $130. It's no secret. If they can't put meaningful information in the report, they shouldn't put it in at all.
In addition to the list of prices, this report also has equipment recommendations. They recommend 5 options, two of which are standard on all models of the vehicle in question, and one which is not available on any of the trimlines. Why recommend these "options" if they are standard or unavailable? Another section offers safety data. "Not available," is the the only information it offers. How helpful. It names three alternate models for me to consider and suggests that I order reports on them as well. Groan. Yes, I'm sure I'd be a better person if I threw another fistful of money their way.
Lastly, it has a two-page "Guide to Buying and Leasing" section which again gives information readily available for free all over the internet. This guide actually suggests that I do online research! I just love to pay to have somebody tell me to go look elsewhere for information. Ironically, Consumer Reports recommends that a buyer expect to pay between 4 and 8% over the wholesale price for any car, more for vehicles in demand. Edmunds, the premier internet site regarding car buying, recommends 3% over invoice as a reasonable figure. Other people suggest an even more conservative $100-200 over invoice as a good starting point. With the car I was considering, 8% over CU's wholesale figure would have been outrageously expensive. If I had paid that, I would have been the biggest sucker on the face of the Earth. Take any CU advice with a grain of salt. This New Car Price Report made me seriously question some of CU's judgement and certainly their ethics. I could throw together a much better report with free online information, and so could you. Don't fall for this.
In the end, I do read Consumer Reports magazine, and I enjoy it. Actually I have the online version now which offers the advantage of readily-accessible archived articles. I read it more for casual entertainment than for buying information on specific products. It does contain a lot of palatable, basic information on a broad range of topics, and the articles may leave one with a better understanding of and a better idea of what to look for in a product. That's the good news.
On the other hand, I don't really trust them. I was irritated with that New Car Price Report. If anybody else was selling that nonsense for $12, CU would blast them. Yet Consumers Union is out to make money as surely as anybody else, so they apply a different set of rules to themselves. I'm tempted to think that they sometimes write articles that sell, as opposed to articles that educate/inform. Am I the only person who feels that maybe all that fuss over rollovers was orchestrated specifically to cause controversy and to provoke a lawsuit and to get their name all over the news? It may have damaged their credibility a little, but on balance, didn't it get them more than they lost in terms of exposure? Just an idle thought. Sadly, I can't help but wonder just how much of their advice is tainted that way.
Testing products since 1936: Unbiased monthly reports on cars, home appliances, electronics, computers, food, health, finance, and more. No outside ad...More at Magazines.com
The indispensable guide for anyone who wants to comparison shop for the best quality and value of anything on the market, Consumer Reports Magazine is...More at Magazineline
Testing products since 1936: Unbiased monthly reports on cars, home appliances, electronics, computers, food, health, finance, and more. No outside ad...More at Magazine-Agent
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