If you’re shopping for gifts or hunting for deals this season, chances are you’re putting a lot of trust into star ratings. A 4.6 must be better than a 4.2, right? And if you find something that’s cheap and highly rated, you’re clicking the “buy” button.
Pause here before purchasing. New research uncovers a major blind spot in how people read and interpret reviews that can lead to bad purchases, wasted money and piles of low-quality products. As many as 98% of consumers check reviews before buying, and most assume the stars reflect only quality, not context or expectations.
“When consumers are rating a product, they are giving a ‘vibe’ rating to some extent,” said Ying Zeng, assistant professor of marketing at the Leeds School of Business and co-author of the study, published in the journal Psychology & Marketing in November 2025. “This vibe includes a lot of things—what they paid, how the product looks, how well it performs, and what the rater is currently feeling.”
How shoppers misread ratings
To explore this, Zeng and her co-authors—including Thomas Hsee of Stanford University and Christopher K. Hsee of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business—ran six studies using everyday items like power banks, home theater projectors and maps. Each study followed a two-phase approach: Participants first rated products they had used, then a separate group of prospective buyers interpreted those ratings.
The results were consistent: Raters judged higher-priced products more harshly, so readers systematically underestimated the true quality of expensive items. They even assumed cheaper products were better in some cases, unless they consciously considered how price had shaped the original ratings.
“Rating is not just about quality, it’s about the quality-to-price ratio,” Zeng said. “Readers don’t see that. They assume raters are very impartial and very sophisticated—that they understand how to disentangle price from the product quality.”
Expensive products are penalized
Price influences ratings in ways most shoppers never consider, Zeng said. When people pay more for something, they expect more.
“If it’s an expensive product, consumers tend to have a higher standard because there is a pain of paying,” Zeng said. “So the more I pay, the more I discount my rating.”
How to approach online reviews
- Be wary of cheap products with high ratings. High stars may just reflect low expectations not high quality.
- Give expensive items with slightly lower ratings the benefit of the doubt, especially when they’re on sale. The rating may reflect the original full-price expectations.
- Don’t rely solely on the rating number. Read reviews to get the real picture.
- Look for patterns not outliers. Focus on recurring complaints and strengths rather than single extreme reviews.
- Remember that ratings reflect a “vibe.” Appearance, user errors, the rater’s mood and other factors all contribute to the score.
That means pricey products often look worse on paper not because they are worse, but because the cost raised the raters’ expectations. Then, when those expensive items later go on sale, their lower ratings can scare off shoppers who don’t realize the ratings were influenced by the original full price.
“If an expensive product has a low rating but now it’s discounted, it’s probably worth considering that product,” Zeng said. “Compared to a cheap product with a high rating, you have to consider that the actual quality could be higher.”
The trap of the cheap, highly rated product
On the flip side, low-priced products often get more glowing scores because raters’ expectations were low to begin with.
“The combination of low price and high rating is very appealing,” Zeng said. “It may feel as if it’s a high-quality product with a very good deal, but that’s not necessarily the case.”
That’s hard to resist, as even Zeng can attest: “Even though I’m an expert in this area, I’m always under-adjusting. I know I should be cautious, but I still get trapped by a product with a cheap price and high rating.”
Cheap, low-quality items also create a sustainability problem. Zeng noted that people often don’t bother returning these products because the time and cost outweigh the refund, leading to more waste.
Takeaways for shoppers
Star ratings are easy, fast and intuitive—which is exactly why we overuse them.
“Numbers are easy to rely on, but they contain way less information than the text itself,” Zeng said.
Her advice: Read reviews, or even AI-generated summaries of reviews, which can sift through hundreds of comments and identify patterns.
“AI is a super powerful tool that summarizes the key complaints and key strengths,” she says. “Use that information and evaluate it with your own needs.”
And don’t forget this simple truth: “Ratings are contaminated by a lot of things,” Zeng said. “They’re emotional, contextual and often heavily influenced by price.”
Understanding that, especially during the shopping season when time is limited and pressure is high, can help you make better, less wasteful purchases.
This article was originally published by the University of Colorado Boulder and republished with permission.
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