How we review stores
A method you can check, so you can tell what a listing is actually worth.
What we look at
Every store is assessed on the same five questions. They are the questions that decide whether ordering is a reasonable thing for you to do, regardless of what the store sells.
- Where does it ship from, and where to? A domestic warehouse in your country and a parcel routed from China are different products at the same price. We record which.
- How does it take payment? Card networks and PayPal give you a chargeback path. Bank transfer and crypto do not. We list what a store accepts.
- What happens if it arrives broken? A stated returns window and a returns address are the signal. A store with no published returns policy is recorded as unconfirmed — not omitted, so you can see the gap.
- Is it the manufacturer or a reseller? We try to establish whether the store designs and makes its own product or moves other people’s stock. It changes what support you can expect.
- Does it have a real legal and support presence? A registered company name, a support channel, and terms that mention your jurisdiction.
Where the information comes from
Mostly from the store’s own published pages: shipping policy, returns policy, terms of service, payment options at checkout, and the description the brand writes about itself. We record the source and the date for each fact we collect. We do not use the brand’s marketing copy as our assessment, and we do not reproduce their photography.
Where a store publishes something we cannot verify — a warranty claim, a certification, an accuracy figure — we either leave it out or attribute it explicitly as the store’s claim rather than our finding.
What we will not claim
- We do not claim to have bought from every store. When we have not tested something ourselves, we say the assessment is based on published information.
- We do not publish a rating that looks like a customer average. Our scores are editorial and labelled as ours.
- We do not treat a missing policy as a pass. Absence of a returns policy is recorded as a risk, because that is what it is.
When we are wrong
Stores change. A listing that was accurate in March can be misleading by September. If you find one that has gone stale or wrong, tell us and we will fix or remove it. Merchants get the same treatment — ask, and the listing comes down within seven days.