ast year, Abigail Schreiber and her husband decided to buy a hot tub. “We ski a lot,” says the video editor/graphic designer based in Colorado Springs, Colo. “When you come back from a day trip, it’s nice to sit in a hot tub.”
The couple wanted the pressure to be consistent from jet to jet in their hot tub — even when everything was running simultaneously. It also needed to seat five or six. Schreiber had never bought a hot tub before, and knew virtually nothing about it.
So she did what millions of consumers do every day when shopping for a big purchase: She went online to learn about brands, features and prices.
Web sites of manufacturers and retailers play a vital role in sales. However, many consumers believe they don’t offer enough objective information. Online ratings sites and chat rooms provide third-party opinions, but even those sites have their flaws, industry veterans warn.
“It’s confusing for consumers,” says Brian Shoer, president of Bedford Pool & Patio in Bedford, N.H. “They have a hard time knowing where to turn. They almost throw their hands up in the air because it’s hard to get objective information.”
Consumers warm up to hot tubs
Manufacturer and retailer sites are becoming more prevalent, but many consumers believe they only tell part of the story. For example, Michelle Reid, a recent hot tub purchaser from Pueblo, Colo., thinks the Web sites are short on information and long on sales strategy. “Some don’t even have pictures, so you don’t get an idea of what you’re looking at,” she says. “If you want to know something, you have to call them.”
Reid felt manipulated by sites that seemed purposely sparse so she’d be forced to pay a visit to the store. She clicked right past them. She wanted photos and information about prices and warranties. “The Web site that has the most information will get my business,” she says.
For the most part, consumers lack studies from an impartial, nonadvertising source such as Consumer Reports. Instead, they must visit chat rooms, message boards and online ratings pages. “If you just rely on talking to the dealer, they’re going to tell you your tub was No. 1,” Schreiber says. “I relied more on other people’s opinions.”
Ratings come in a couple of forms: Web sites either provide rankings or assign a certain number of stars to each brand. On some sites, such as epinions.com, consumers rate the hot tubs. Other pages show side-by-side comparison spreadsheets of equipment, features, dimensions and prices for various brands.
Poolandspa.com provides probably the best known ratings in the industry. It began in 1994, making it the first online retailer and informational Web site, says Daniel Harrison, president of the Yaphank, N.Y.-based company. The ratings page, which ascribes a certain number of stars to each brand, links to a side-by-side comparison section.
Web surfers flock to this page, says Harrison, who also owns retail stores in Yaphank, N.Y., and Las Vegas. “Every day, it’s read more than any other pages that we have by far,” he says.
Message boards and chat rooms provide a different outlook. Here, consumers post questions, offer advice and vent about bad experiences. Industry professionals of every stripe can respond to their questions and concerns. Shoppers consult the pages not only to help them choose the right product, but also to learn more about ongoing issues such as maintenance from experienced hot tub owners.
“You get a balanced opinion, hearing from consumers, technicians, dealers, all in an open forum,” says Bill McCall, a moderator for the Columbus, Ohio-based site whatsthebest-hottub.com.
The industry bubbles over with concern
Many in the industry doubt the validity of ratings systems. Some sites work like amazon.com, where an average rating based on consumer input is provided. But they may not be based on enough information, says John Mosher, owner/ president of Central Iowa Pool & Spa in Des Moines.
“We checked to see how a particular brand was rated [on one site],” Mosher says. “I found that ... their survey included two or three consumer reviews. That’s not much of a consensus.”
Some believe ratings sites are advertising vehicles in disguise. “Most of the sites you pay into to rate yourself,” says Estrella De la Cruz, bookkeeper at Spa Depot in Las Vegas.
On poolandspa.com, the top-rated manufacturers pay to be on the site, receiving links and inclusion on the comparison spreadsheet for their purchases, according to Harrison. “We don’t hide that,” he says, adding that funding is needed to maintain the site. A statement on the home page explains that the site runs advertising.
Harrison insists that just because you provide a credit card number doesn’t mean you’ll get top billing: “There are companies wanting to buy this, and we won’t let them.” A product only gets this recommendation, he says, if he and his staff are confident about its appeal, based on personal experience with the brand, unit inspections at trade shows and consumer input.
“If we recommended a bad company, we’d hear about it from the customers,” he notes.
Harrison’s site is not made for one-stop research. “We warn people that, like anything, they have to get information from different places,” he says.
Chat rooms provide their own set of concerns. For example, industry personnel may pose as consumers to push their own brands. Therefore, editing of these sites varies. On whatsthebest-hottub.com, “It’s purely just making sure things are semi on topic, and nothing illegal or immoral is posted,” says McCall, a moderator on the site’s chat room. “What I try to do is screen out the most vicious attacks.”
Harrison, whose site also has a chat room, has barred some dealers. “Usually, it’s because they use profanity or launch personal attacks on a person at a specific dealership, or a person at a specific spa manufacturer,” he says.
Experienced chatters can usually spot a poser, though. “They always seem to have a strong positive or negative opinion about a particular brand and go out of their way to bring it up in subjects that aren’t necessarily related,” McCall says.
If he suspects that an industry member is pretending to be a consumer, McCall might challenge the participant openly by posting questions. Sometimes they turn out to be frauds; other times, not.
Many agree that what hurts the consumer also harms retailers. “I think, as a whole, it’s not good for the industry that we don’t have objective Web sites,” Shoer says. “For legitimate [retailers] who honestly try to research and find the best products, it makes our job more difficult because the consumer is looking at us in the same light as the [deceptive] dealers. They don’t know who the legitimate dealers are.”
Not enough retailers maximize their sites, adds Andrew Harris, vice president of wood tub maker and online retailer Roberts Hot Tubs in Richmond, Calif. “They use it as a glorified brochure,” he says.
Many await the day that hot tub brands become everyday knowledge, such as electronics or appliance names. Consumers will then have a better idea where to look, says Dennis Marunde, president of online retailer pools.com and Arvidson Pools & Spas in Crystal Lake, Ill.
“If there’s enough brand equity out there, I think consumers will be willing to use the Internet as a research vehicle and just decide on the dealer,” Marunde says. “In isolated cases, with isolated brands, I see it now.”
