The Truth Behind Treadmill Review Sites-The Truth Behind This Site

The Truth Behind Treadmill Review Sites-The Truth Behind This Site
Note: This is part 2 of the Truth Behind Treadmill Review Sites. If you haven't read part 1, you should definitely read it first or much what's said here won't make sense.

Here at treadmills411, we do not hide the fact that we receive some form of compensation from developing this site. In fact, you will notice that beneath every treadmill/elliptical listing, we prominently list a link to part 1 of this article which exposes most of the secrets other websites don't want you to know. We also fully disclose what treadmills411.com is all about by linking to parts 1 and 2 of this article on our “About You” page. It would have been very easy for us to keep these secrets under wraps but this isn't what this site is about.

This site is about you.
This site is about empowering you to make the best possible buying decision with all the information digitally available.

But before I get to how we empower you and why you should place your faith in treadmills411, you should first know all the secrets of this site in the spirit of full disclosure.

SECRETS GALORE

I. Making Money - So how does treadmills411 make money? As of now, this site's only source of revenue comes from the "featured sellers" listings and the eBay link below every review of this site. In other words, if you make a purchase through one of our links at one of treadmills411's featured sellers, treadmills411 gets a cut of what you buy. If you visit the seller without going through a link on this site(such as typing it in your browser), treadmills411 does not get any commission whatsoever. If you order using the phone but arrived at the website using a link from this site, treadmills411 does not get any commission. (We’re purposely listing ways for you to bypass our commission!) At the time of launch, this is the site's only form of revenue. If this changes, this section will also be updated.

II. Hiding the Non-featured Sellers - There are two types of sellers featured on this site. The first type or the "Featured Sellers" mentioned above offers a commission. The second type or the "Other Sellers" does not offer a commission. We only list links to their sites if they promise to link back to us. In other words, we’re not getting paid for listing them on this site (with the exception of eBay) but we’re not just going to list anyone that asks us to unless they link back too. Yet, because they pay absolutely nothing, I'm not afraid to admit that they are not going to be featured prominently. As we’ve mentioned before, this site requires revenues in order to survive which forces us to feature the “featured sellers” prominently even though they may not always have the best prices. They are also:

1. Not updated as frequently. Thus a link may lead you to a dead end page because they are not checked for validity as often. This will be improved later on as this is a horrible user experience but since this site is new, some things are prioritized higher than others.

2. Prices not listed. Again, non featured seller listings are barebones - or at least until the more important items are completed.

3. Not all items listed. If we feel posting a certain link to a certain listing will hurt us financially, we might not list at all. In other words, we might not list that a certain store carries a certain model if it’s lower than any of our featured sellers.

III. Not a treadmill expert – Unfortunately, we’re not treadmill experts. We don’t have the 20 years of experience in the fitness industry that other sites claim. But then again, people with that much experience are usually working in the industry making a living. When people are making a living at their day jobs, they could not possibly find the time to actively maintain and update a website religiously like we do or provide personally tailored buying advice through email like we do. If they had the time to do that, they probably can’t do their day job properly since updating a website takes too much time.

The way we look at it is that it’s a tradeoff. We may not be the most knowledgeable treadmill folks in the world but we work hard and try to learn everything we can by reading everything we can about treadmills. Treadmills411.com is sort of like a university. We study, read and write a lot.

IV. Meta Reviews – A meta review is a review that is not based on personal testing. If you’ve read any of our meta reviews, you would know that it’s split into three sections. The first two sections summarize what we could find about what experts and users have said about the treadmill. The third section is then our logical and objective analysis on what you should do. If you’ve read any of our meta reviews, you would know that we do not give off the impression that we’ve tested the treadmill ourselves but rather, we’re just trying to logically arrive at the conclusion as to whether this is a good buy or not.

A good way to envision how a meta review works is by imagining what conclusion you would have made if you had all the time in the world to read everything you could get your hands on the internet for that particular model. Then imagine doing all of that all over again for all the models that are out there on the market right now. What conclusions would you have drawn if you could read everything you could on all treadmills from all the brands? That’s what we’re trying to here at treadmills411.com

V. Limitations - This site's content is only as good as the information that’s available on the internet. It is often the case that we can’t find any reviews for a particular model and thus we can’t possibly review or recommend every model that exists out there. This is an inherent flaw of this site's meta review model. We’re only as good as the net is.

A second limitation is the meta reviews are not updated as often as you may like. Since most everything is done by hand, it takes time and money. As this site matures, this will also be improved upon. So for now, we apologize if the reviews get slightly outdated.

A final limitation is that all the content on this site is written by me, David Hu. Throughout this site, treadmills411.com has referred itself as “we” giving off the impression that there’s some big organization behind the site. This is not the case I’m the only writing the content. Although I’m the only one writing the content, I have had much help from others in getting all the elements of the site designed, coded and created. From this perspective, “we” is accurate but as far as the content for the meta review goes, I’m the only one writing it. This is a limitation because one person can only do so much work per day and answer so many emails per day.

PROBLEMS GALORE?

If you actually went through that long list of secrets, it is no surprise that treadmills411 is less than perfect. In fact, by writing and revealing so much about this website, it might actually scare you off and drive you away. However, for the sake of full disclosure, we had to do that.

SO IF THERE ARE SO MANY PROBLEMS, WHAT GOOD IS TREADMILLS411?

A site is not perfect the moment it launches. The largest websites in this world have problems too but they are continually worked upon and improved just like this site. In the end, I think it all comes down to the fact that treadmills411 can offer YOU the best shopping assistance service for treadmills anywhere on the internet. Why is this?

1. Comprehensive Price comparison - Review websites only list one place that sells a treadmill - the place that pays them. This is not the case with treadmills411 as we list multiple places that carry the model and pays us if you buy using our link. In this regard, we’re just like a mini shopping comparison engines such as shopping.com, nextag.com, shopzilla.com, pronto.com and many others but only for treadmills.

2. Most comprehensive review - Not only do treadmills and ellipticals meta reviews take into account the experts’ perspective, they also take user experiences into account. We then input our own logical conclusion as to what you should do and how at each price this decision gets affected. This is to provide you the most useful and comprehensive buying guide we can think of for that treadmill or elliptical. After all, a treadmill that was a best buy from another expert might have changed its prices a few months down the road. Another decent treadmill that didn’t get a best buy but has since gone down in price may actually be a better choice now. This is why we try to weigh everything by taking both quality and price into account to ensure you make the best possible purchasing choice.

3. Treating You With Care, Respect and Honesty - Full disclosure is the message here. As we've mentioned in part 1 and 2 of this article, we’re letting you know a lot of things that we could have kept under wraps and many of you would have been none the wiser. But we decided to not hide anything because we really have nothing that’s worth hiding. At the end of the day, we can sleep at night knowing we’ve tried our best in helping you make the best treadmill buying decision at almost the best price. Try as we might, sometimes we come up short in certain areas so if you discover any mistakes, please let us know. The only way for us to improve is if you point out our problems. As proud as we are of this site, it’s far from perfect.

4. All information, all one place - Reviews, prices, specs, best buys, worst buys, classification by price, articles, insider news, quirks, revelations, basically anything that I can think of that will help you in make the best buying decision. We understand that most of you will end up buying your treadmill offline so we hope to include a local sellers section in the future. By including everything we could think of that’s useful to a treadmill buyer, we hope we can become you and everyone else’s main treadmill reference source for the foreseeable future.

5. More treadmills and ellipticals reviewed than anywhere - At the end of 2007, we hope to get 650+ treadmills and ellipticals listed, meta reviewed and price compared on this site. Once that’s done, it will make us the biggest and most useful treadmill and elliptical site out there today. As far as I'm aware, no site even comes close and this is just the beginning. There are actually quite a few brands that we haven’t included in these first 650 listings so we have a lot of room to expand. Also since each year new models come out, that’s another area we could expand into. In fact, we have so many ideas lined up that we feel the current version is just lacking in so many aspects.

6. Personal Assistance – We still have a lot of work to do especially until we hit our 650 model target. Since I don't want to wait until the entire thing is completed before launching, I'm uploading a less than complete version which is the one you're viewing right now. Even though we would like to dedicate more of our time to our content, if you have a question, we’re just an email away. Of course, since we’re not true treadmill experts, we’re only as knowledgeable as what we’ve read. Unfortunately, that may or may not be enough depending on what your question is. Nonetheless, we’ll do all our best in trying to help you personally. The only exception is you don’t ask for us for technical help since there are people who do treadmill repairs for a living and they’re much better qualified.

7. Choice – Like I’ve mentioned before, we don’t have those decades of experience in the fitness equipment industry. But what we do have is time – time to help you make the best choice. Since the truly knowledgeable folks are probably too caught in their day jobs, they just don’t have enough time for you even if they really want to help you. The people at your fitness store will most likely only talk about the equipment at their store which is most likely, limited in selection. What we’re trying to offer is a complete picture of the treadmill industry. This gives you the ability to choose something that fits you exactly. It’s also your choice if you want to help the site by buying at one of our featured sellers or if you want to buy your treadmill offline. In either case, we just hope you choose the treadmill best suited for your needs.

If you've read this far, we are very thankful in you taking the time to understand what this site is all about - you. We hope you find this site at least a little useful.

Yours sincerely,

Treadmills411.com