Our Research Methodology – bestbambooguide.com

At BestBambooGuide, our goal is to provide timely, accurate information and independent reviews without bias. These are based on verified customer purchases and testing on our own purchases of products. In the process of reviewing customer experiences, we’ve put together more than 250,000 reviews from multiple online sources from customers that actually own the products we review. These form the basis for narrowing down the bamboo sheets, pillows, mattress toppers, etc., that we then purchase and put through further in house testing. Even after our articles are written, we monitor new reviews that come in, and watch how the products perform over time, updating our data about once per year.

We Are Only As Good As Our Data

Data Sources

We use a number of sources to collect data on customer experiences with each product in our reviews. The following are the general types of places we look:

Retail Websites and Product Pages

A large portion of the data we collect before finalizing our list of products to test comes from the product page on various retail websites such as Amazon, Walmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, and many more. Basically any major retail outlet that sells these products online and has customer reviews gets a visit from us at some point so that we can see what the aggregate ratings are, but also so we can see what individual reviewers are saying. A product may have great overall reviews, but if 5% of people have an absolutely terrible experience that might indicate a quality control problem or a customer service problem. You don’t want to be one of that 5%!

In addition to the sheer number of sources in this category, we take a lot of care to make sure the reviews we are looking at are from legitimate reviewers. Even things such as Amazon’s “verified purchase” tag are really not enough in many cases. We take the time to look at the user profile, and the actual words the reviewer wrote. If a product has 100 reviews come in on the same day and they are all a variation of “It’s great!” with no meaningful content, then we’re skeptical. It’s important to make sure the reviews are legitimate and that the reviewers were not paid to leave them.

Product Review Websites (aka, Our Competitors)

We’re not the only website out there reviewing bamboo products, bedding products, or other accessories. We definitely go through all of the major review websites we can find to see what everyone else is saying. Of course, we treat these with the same skepticism that we use on customer reviews. Here the major issue is how the review website is getting compensated for their review. If the manufacturers are paying them, or if particular manufacturers are paying them MORE for favorable reviews, then we need to take that into consideration.

The important thing here is site selection. It is quite common for websites to receive compensation to recommend specific models of a product or a particular brand. Since we spend a lot of time looking at these sites we know which ones are authentic and which ones are not. We use that expertise to focus on the authentic review websites that do real testing of products (like we do!) and provide unbiased information.

Discussion Boards and Forums

These can be a great source of information, but are a pain to sift through. There are very high quality discussion boards at places like Reddit and on the Stack Exchange network. Some people with a lot of experience in bamboo or in sleep disorders and sleep products participate and can provide great feedback on various products. The difficulty is in tracking down all of the information since these forums tend to have lots of conversations and discussions that aren’t relevant in the bamboo bedding world at all.

The other issue with forums and discussion boards is that almost all of the information is anecdotal. It’s particular people talking about a specific experience with a product. While this is great information, it isn’t comprehensive at all. Luckily we can go through hundreds of boards to get a better picture of the overall data.

Manufacturer Information and Publicly Available Data

While we would never just rehash the sales copy that a manufacturer provides, they do often release a lot of performance data and product and manufacturing details that give great insight into the research and development at the company, and the types of production facilities and processes they are using to make their bamboo fabric. Since most people buying bamboo products are concerned about the health implications of bamboo and the environmental impact of their bedding purchases, this manufacturer data on production process is vital. Going through all of the technical specifications and chemical data on the production process can be daunting, but that’s why we’re experts! We know the difference between viscose bamboo, rayon from bamboo, lyocell bamboo, Tencel, you name it.

Often manufacturers provide details such as:

Exact material composition
Where the fabric is made
Where the end product is made
Sizes, dimensions, types of stitching
Where to buy the products
Prices and discounts
Specific characteristics of the product such as thread count for sheets, thermal weight for duvets, etc.
Care instructions
Warranty information
Customer service history of the company
Shipping times and policies
Return policies