Do you do product reviews on your website or blog? Do you receive products to test and keep? I do the occasional review, more in the past than I do lately.
Most of the time when I do an actual product review it’s an item that I bought myself and I’m just writing about my experiences with the product. One example of this would be the post I wrote just after I bought a Shark Steam Blaster (not that happy with it overall) or my discussions about our new front load washer and dryer (still extremely pleased).
Occasionally I’m contacted by a company and I’m given a product to test and then later write an opinion piece. I haven’t had many of those and I certainly don’t accept all offers for example I probably wouldn’t accept a clinicalliex review . I generally only accept products that I can actually get some use out of and that I will use regularly. In the past I’ve received a Nokia smart phone from a marketing company, bath soaps and skin care products, coffee and a few other food items or coupons for free and discounted food and beverage products, a photograph turned into a canvas, and a special window tint that I used on our very bright south facing kitchen window. There’s probably a few other products but those are the ones that I can remember at this moment.
One reason why I’m writing this post today is 1. that I’d like to do more reviews (a couple a month maybe) and 2. I just received a product that I’m going to review on my gardening blog.
In the past all the products that I’ve received to try out and review have been completely free and the one that I received early today was supposed to be free, however I was extremely surprised when the delivery person told me I had to pay the duty. It was a product shipped from the US to my home in Canada and I guess the company didn’t cover the duty and taxes.
I’m a little miffed, but when I think about it I’m getting a product that costs over $100 for free so it wouldn’t kill me to pay the almost $13 duty and taxes charge. Still, I think the company should have warned me that I’d have to pay these charges. I’ll be contacting the person who arranged the review to tell him about the Duty and taxes I had to pay. It’s possible that he either didn’t know about these extra charges or that it didn’t occur to him that my being in other country might incur these kinds of extra charges.
I’ll chalk it up as a lesson learned. the next time a company contacts me and offers me a product for free I’ll ask if there will be any shipping charges or duty.
Anyway, I’ll be reviewing the item that I just received on my gardening blog sometime next week. It’s a Black and Decker 24 V cordless Trimmer Edger. Definitely something that we’ll get some use out of. Oh, and I’ll be coming up with a giveaway too. The company said that I could give away a trimmer edger to one of my readers, so I guess I’d better start thinking about an interesting challenge for my giveaway. Any ideas?
If you do product reviews have you ever experienced something like this? Say a shipping charge, Duty or taxes?
Do you think it’s fair to have the blogger pay these extra charges or do you think the company sending the product should cover all charges?
I review juicers on my website. Like most review sites, the majority of my reviews come from customer feedback but I do occasionally get
offers of appliances to review.
Most of these offers I decline – what would I do with more than one juicer? I did however accept the offer of a hand juicer which I was considering buying for camping trips. I’m in the UK – the juicer duly arrived from Hong Kong with a 17 UK pounds (about $25 US) bill for import tax!
I wouldn’t have objected to paying the duty if the juicer was actually worth that much but I could go into my local supermarket and buy one for under 10 UK pounds…. guess free isn’t always free.
thanks for the tip. good to know i should always look into the shipping and importing cost before accepting free products for review.
My opinion is that everything should be free, even the duty and taxes charge. You are going to do a lot of advertising for that product, so why you should pay for doing that? You better talk with the company’s representatives to return your expense.
Jenny well I consider it a lesson learned as of now. I’ve never had to pay for shipping or duty when I’ve received products in the past, but you can bet that the next time a company offers me something and would like me to write an article about my experiences with their product I’ll be making sure that they pay for all shipping and duty charges.
*Lol* I wish I had this problem, but in Sweden only fashion sites send products.