Our purpose (and passion) is to make your life easier by providing you with independent and unbiased product reviews that you can trust, every single time!
We love products almost as much as we love researching and writing about them. We sift through the myriad of product options, features and price-points and provide you with an awesome list of products that we would buy for ourselves, or a loved one. If we wouldn’t buy it ourselves and recommend it to a loved one it does not make it on to the list, no exceptions!
We know how much time it takes to thoroughly research and compare product specifications, features, benefits and ultimately determine their ‘value-for-your-money’ and utility – if you’ve tried to research a product yourself you probably know that it can be a tedious, time-consuming and confusing task.
That was before Trusted Picks was born.
You’ll notice that our lists are arranged in such a way that they cater for different budgets and end-use requirements. For example, you might find the best overall pick, the best value for money pick, the best budget conscience pick and the best ‘money is not a concern’ pick. We’ll spell it out clearly for you and then you can quickly decide which category you fall in to for any given product.
Our Process
It takes weeks or months to compile each list and we start by choosing a product to review. We then engage product experts and writers that have years of expertize in that specific product category.
We work closely with them as we talk with different product manufacturers as we pour over their papers and materials with a fine-tooth comb. We also read reputable forums as well as customer reviews on popular ecommerce sites. We leave no stone unturned, we look everywhere and we talk to anyone that is worth talking to as we fine-tune our picks.
Once we’ve identified the products that we love we categorize them e.g. in our portable vacuum cleaner (dust buster) list you will see them separated into cordless/corded and wet/dry – these distinctions will differ for each product that we review. We further categorize them to fit different budgets and end-user requirements and expectations e.g. occasional light usage right through to light commercial usage.
Finally after weeks or months of research we present you with our Trusted Picks, which includes the pros and the cons of each product (warts and all) in plain, easy to understand language so that you are empowered to make a faster, more informed purchasing decision.
If you like the product that we have recommended we hope that you will come back for more recommendations and share our reviews with your family and friends.
How We Make Money
We make money in two ways
Google Adsense
Google pays us for the little ads that you may see from time to time on our website. We have no say or control over the content of these ads and we like it that way. Google decides what ads to display and to be clear – we do not negotiate with product manufacturers and we do not receive kickbacks for selling ad space to product manufacturers or for including their product on our list. We maintain a totally arms-length relationship with them but you can’t even call it a relationship because we simply don’t have one with them.
Affiliate Commissions
If you buy one of the products on our list we may receive a commission from the retailer e.g. Amazon. This may not always be the case as there may be times when we recommend a product that we won’t receive a commission for. That’s fine by us!
Recommending the best product is (and always will be) our #1 priority – commissions are far less important and we view them as a by-product of us providing you with a great service. If we recommend a product that you return to the retailer we won’t get a penny, and more importantly, you probably won’t come back to us and even worse, you’ll speak negatively about us and that is the last thing that we want.
Doesn’t that create a conflict of interest or bias?
Only if we allow it to, and we will NEVER allow it to.
Our reputation, and our relationship with our readers is far important to us than receiving a small commission e.g. we earn between 5%-15% – so making $5-$15 from your $100 purchase is not going to pay the bills. We are a volume business that requires many different people buying the products that we recommend for us to keep providing you with this service.
We can only achieve this by building a solid reputation for picking great products and being very transparent with you about why we picked them, and who they are most suitable for.
If our recommendations are great the money will take care of itself. If our recommendations are poor (or biased) ultimately we won’t make money and we’ll be out of business – it really is that simple.
All businesses need to generate revenues and we believe that our business model creates much less of a conflict than traditional advertising does. Traditional advertising often means getting paid for pageviews (more eyeballs = more revenue), which is why we see so many hyped up, clickbait headlines and controversial articles these days and we never want to go there. There is already far too much hyped up, fake and biased content online and we have chosen to take a different path.
If you buy one of our Trusted Picks after clicking one of our links we might get paid and that allows us to keep writing awesome product reviews for you. If you don’t like our picks then don’t buy them and we earn nothing. If you buy one of our picks and return the product we won’t get paid either.
We invest weeks or months into every one of our lists. If you find one of our reviews helpful please consider clicking one of the links and buying from the retailer.
We will live (or die) by the quality, accuracy and integrity of our Trusted Picks and that’s just the way we like it.
How will I know when you’ve updated Trusted Picks?
RSS, Twitter and Facebook, or better still – Subscribe to our newsletter. We hate spam, we will never share your email with a 3rd party and you can unsubscribe at any time.
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Our Mission
To make your life easier by being the most trusted, reliable and accurate online resource for independent and unbiased product reviews.