
Home > Ratings & Research FAQ

	1. What is the ishopbyzip Smiley Scale(tm)? The ishopbyzip Smiley Scale is a simple and intuitive way to visualize a lot of rigorous research about a store's capabilities, so you, the consumer can, at a glance tell the good from the not-so-good when comparison shopping.
	2. How are your reviews and ratings gathered? Ishopbyzip combines consumer feedback from two different sources to create the most comprehensive and reliable store ratings available anywhere. ♦ Customer Certified Ratings Many of our stores are designated as "Customer Certified". These stores have agreed to allow ishopbyzip to collect feedback directly from their customers as they make purchases. To do this, ishopbyzip literally sits at the checkout (receipt) page of tens of millions of transactions each month inviting real customers to share their experiences and give feedback directly after a purchase. (You may have seen our invitations pop-up when you've shopped around the web! Hopefully, you've filled out a survey.) Of course, a transaction is not complete until a customer receives his/her goods. Therefore, we follow up via e-mail to make sure that the store delivered the goods as promised. This continuous process ensures that ishopbyzip is able to collect timely, detailed and accurate ratings and feedback about both the ordering and fulfillment process of every Customer Certified store. No other ratings methodology comes close! ♦ ishopbyzip Members Through the years, ishopbyzip has put together a panel of over 1.3 million active online shoppers who have volunteered to provide ratings and feedback to help others shop. Also, each month our site welcomes millions of online shoppers looking to compare prices and share their experiences regarding each merchant. We use this virtual army of shoppers to rate stores who may not want to cooperate with ishopbyzip by giving us access to gather feedback from their customers at checkout. By combining the above sources of feedback, we assure you the shopper that we have the most reliable and up-to-date ratings possible regarding each store! 3. What is the number of reviews? The number of reviews is the total number of individual consumer reviews that ishopbyzip has collected for a particular store. The more people who have reviewed a store, the more statistically reliable the ratings are. For instance if 50,000+ people say a store is great in on-time delivery, it's a little different than if 3 people say so. (After all, the 3 people could be the storeowner's mom, dad and brother!) ishopbyzip does not consider anything less than 20 reviews in a 3-month period to be a statistically relevant number and therefore does not post scores for stores below this threshold of reviews. These stores are clearly designated as: "Not Yet Rated".
	4. What does "Being Re-Rated" mean? Stores can be re-rated for a variety of reasons, including: Detection of a significant amount of suspicious reviews or other unusual activity that makes us believe that the prior ratings were unreliable. Significant changes to a store's site or operations. Once enough valid reviews have been gathered, a new rating will be calculated and displayed for this store.
	5. How often are Store Ratings and Reviews updated? Every day we gather additional feedback from customers. The ratings and reviews of Customer Certified stores are updated every week. ishopbyzip Member Ratings are also collected continuously, but updated on a weekly basis.
	6. How do you stop ratings manipulations and fraud? We've been in the business of ratings online stores since 1996. Through the years we've put in place many ways of detecting and eliminating fraudulent ratings. Of course, for obvious reasons, we don't like to detail exactly what we look for and how we detect fraud, but suffice it to say that we use a combination of sophisticated mathematical algorithms, large numbers of reviews from a variety of sources that are checked against each other for consistency, and powerful analytic tools and systems to make sure that we are on the leading edge of detecting and eliminating systematic fraud from our ratings. Quite simply, without the most reliable store ratings on the web, we wouldn't be ishopbyzip!
	7. Many sites have store ratings, what's the big deal about yours? We've been in the business of ratings online stores since 1996. Through the years we've put in place many ways of detecting and eliminating fraudulent ratings. Of course, for obvious reasons, we don't like to detail exactly what we look for and how we detect fraud, but suffice it to say that we use a combination of sophisticated mathematical algorithms, large numbers of reviews from a variety of sources that are checked against each other for consistency, and powerful analytic tools and systems to make sure that we are on the leading edge of detecting and eliminating systematic fraud from our ratings. Quite simply, without the most reliable store ratings on the web, we wouldn't be ishopbyzip!
	8. Many sites have store ratings, what's the big deal about yours? We are the only comparison shopping site with ratings as a focus. Thus, our methodology, sampling techniques and comprehensiveness of sources are unsurpassed. And now, with the colorful Smiley Scale, our ratings are extremely intuitive and easy to use too. It's no wonder that ishopbyzip is the site that the press and respected organizations such as Consumers Union look to when trying to assess online store quality.
	9. Do stores pay to be listed in the Store Ratings section? No. To maintain the highest possible levels of objectivity and independence in our ratings, we do not charge stores for evaluation or listing on ishopbyzip. We are dedicated to providing consumers with unbiased information to make more informed and confident online buying decisions.
	10. What do Customer Certified stores receive for participating in the program? Customer Certified stores receive a "Customer Certified" medal for display on their site and medaled designation on ishopbyzip showing all visitors their participation in the web's most rigorous monitoring program and their proactive stance of receiving feedback and providing a satisfactory customer experience. In addition, all participants in ishopbyzip's point-of-sale survey program receive free real-time research based on survey results to help them to better serve their customers' needs. To learn more about the FREE ishopbyzip "Customer Certified" program