The Truth about Online Fitness Equipment Rating Services
One of the beauties of the information age is the quick and easy access to information. Heck, you literally have the Library of Congress at your fingertips. There are challenges, though. As everyone knows, just because you read something on the internet does not necessarily mean it's true.
A very good case in point are on-line fitness equipment rating services. What most fitness equipment manufacturers and specialty fitness dealers know to be true was borne out in researching this article - virtually every on-line fitness equipment review site is either an affiliate site or, worse yet, a bogus review site set up by an on-line retailer with the express purpose of providing glowing reviews only on the products they sell.
Affiliate sites are sites that receive commissions on sales tracked back to their website. Basically, if you are on a review site and it has hotlinks for any or all of the products reviewed, chances are close to 100% that it is an affiliate site. It works like this: the review site only reviews products from manufacturers that pay affiliate commissions. They hotlink those products so that when you click on the link for more information and decide to buy, it can be tracked back to the affiliate site for commission purposes.
Other good tip-offs to an affiliate site are if they a.) review products only found on the internet, b.) review brands you've never heard of, or c.) do NOT review brands that you see in a specialty fitness dealer. Another good tip-off is if the review site recommends that you only buy from on-line resources.
Some review sites are literally offshoots of on-line retailers. They set them up as "separate" websites (to try to make it look impartial or credible), yet they only review products sold by the "parent" e-tailer. If you are on a "review" site, click on a product for more information and that takes you to an e-tail site, run - don't walk - away.
Frankly, your choices for legitimate on-line fitness equipment reviews are relatively few and far between and even among those there are very, very few that review the full spectrum of products available. If you call a specialty fitness dealer they can tell you of the non-affiliate sites (who also do not take ad money from manufacturers), but of course they will steer you toward the site that gives the products they carry the best reviews. Some newsstand publications devoted to fitness or health will do limited equipment reviews from time to time, and they can be good, in relative terms.
The reality is that most of the time these "reviews" will only cover a handful of products (say 5 or 6 of the over 500 treadmills on the market) and, the writers and editors are so busy that they often depend on pitches from pr agencies to help them "decide" which products to review. Similarly, the nations largest consumer reporting publication endeavors to do a good job but, while some of the testing protocols they employ might do a good job for determining which peanut butter, tuna fish, or washer to buy, they leave something to be desired for fitness products. And, contrary to popular belief, they do not actually try all 500 treadmills or 350 ellipticals on the market.
The bottom line is that there are a lot of good products that don't get reviewed and a lot of bad products that receive good reviews from affiliate sites. Your best bets are to call your local specialty fitness store and get their recommendations for objective on-line review sources, and then check some of the leading newsstand health, fitness, and consumer reporting publications.
And, strongly consider buying from a specialty fitness retailer. They will have a great selection of products to try (something you can't do on-line), they will be able to give you background on each of the manufacturers (and their histories and warranties), and they'll be able to help you with professional delivery and installation.
About the Author:
Bob Lachniet is the owner of Fitness 4 Home Superstore, a specialty fitness equipment dealer recently named the #1 choice for home fitness equipment in Arizona by BestFitnessDealers.com. Find the best online fitness equipment machines in Arizona - visit our site today.
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