Most magicians are magic consumers in one way or another. We like nothing better than to buy the latest ideas from the dealers, even when we already have probably more magic than we will ever be able to use! It’s like a drug though—the more we have the more we want.
However, we all get disappointed on occasions by our purchases when they don’t live up to our, perhaps unreasonable or even misguided, expectations. The trouble is it can be all too easy to be fooled by persuasive online video dems, and if you are less experienced in magic, it’s easy to be misled.
To get round this, many magicians will turn to independent opinions on tricks they may be interested in by reading product reviews. Usually written by magicians with plenty of knowledge and experience, these comments can be worth their weight in gold to a would-be purchaser as it can help them to decide if a particular trick is for them.
However, not all reviews are the same. For instance, a new product will sometimes, on its launch, be accompanied by a whole slew of one line quotes saying that the item is the best thing since sliced bread. These comments are not usually independent, considered reviews, but are often dashed off as a favour by friends or colleagues of the inventor or trick manufacturer.
If all you ever read are these comments, you will continue to buy products which may disappoint because the opinions are not independent or even at times properly considered.
The same can be said of comments posted by customers on the selling company’s website. Most of these comments are working at a superficial ‘like it/don’t like it’ level and are written by people who don’t have the knowledge or expertise to do a proper critique. What they say is just their gut reaction to the item, not a proper overview.
The only way to get some sort of perspective is to read well written reviews that are penned by performers who have no personal axe to grind. The review team that we use in the Magicseen reviews section, for instance, have all got a lot of experience between them, and they understand that in order to write a review that is useful to others, they have to park their own personal preferences at the door and try to evaluate the product on its own merits.
This means looking for the good as well as any bad points. It means making balanced judgements on quality, whether the product is fit for the intended purpose, what type of performance conditions it would be suitable for, whether the claims of the manufacturers are true and honest, how the price rates in comparison to similar products on the market, and so on.
When someone reads a well structured review, they should feel they have been provided with enough background information to make a decision about its suitability for them. The comments are always going to be the personal opinion of the reviewer, and two different people may draw different conclusions, but if the facts within the comments are well thought through, the customer should still be able to make their own judgement about whether to buy or not.