A little while ago, in an attempt to get my kids to eat healthier, I decided to purchase a fruit bowl. I figured that if the fruit was right in their faces, there was a tiny chance they might eat it. They'd be like, "Hey! Oranges! I'll have one of those!"
I use Amazon for most of my online purchases, so I typed "fruit bowl" into Amazon and I purchased a wooden bowl on the first page of results that looked nice.
A few days later, the bowl arrived. It was about the size of my hand. I could probably fit a single orange in it. Calling it a fruit bowl would be laughable. Well, unless "fruit" was in the singular. So I returned it. And I wrote an angry one-star review saying that the bowl was deceptively small.
Now I've written maybe a hundred Amazon reviews in my time. Some of been good and some have been bad. The review of this bowl certainly wasn't my first bad review. But it's the only review I've ever written that's ever received comments. And in fact, it received THREE comments. One told me that I was clueless and didn't bother to look at the bowl's dimensions (7 inches) and I should have measured my current bowls, to which I responded that I shouldn't have to get out a ruler to know that tiny bowl wasn't a fruit bowl. (The description of the bowl actually said it was "generously sized.") And then most recently, I got this comment:
"You apparently don't know what "serving" means.
Serving is when you bring food to a person, to serve them a meal or
food. It is not a fruit bowl. It is a bowl that can be used to serve a
side of fruit or salad. You generally don't serve 5 pieces of fruit in a
bowl at dinner. You shouldn't need a ruler to know what 7 inches looks like. The product isn't deceptive or misleading, you're just a moron."
Um, WTF? This is a bowl. Why are people getting so angry over my review of a ten-dollar bowl. What is going on here? Usually when I don't agree with the review of a product, I just downvote it... I don't call the person names. Especially if it's just a bowl.
My question was: Are these people sellers of the bowl? Are they trolls? Or are they people who just really love bowls?
I looked at some of the other bad reviews and the majority of them were complaining that the bowl was smaller than they expected (although only one of them got a comment). So clearly this was an issue a lot of people had, and my review probably kept people from purchasing the product who would have returned it or given it another bad review.
Anyway, in case you're curious, I bought a normal-sized fruit bowl after that. But the kids still won't eat their fruit. (Now it's a "fruit fly" bowl.)
Great piece of information, thanks for taking the time to share.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHaha Fizzy. Not sure what the person you quote above really meant, but to me a serving bowl is a larger bowl that you serve multiple people out of. I agree that a fruit bowl is a large bowl that you store lots of fruit in. The bowl that you eat the fruit out of is just a bowl (i.e. not a fruit bowl OR a serving bowl).
ReplyDeleteWell, I've definitely bought things like that on Amazon thinking they were going to be larger than they were when they arrived. The descriptions of items are often vague or inaccurate. Most notable example was where I bought scissors for cutting my daughter's hair and the finger holes were so small I could barely fit my fingers through them. This is why I read the 1-2 star comments when I buy anything on Amazon. So, IMHO your comment would have been helpful to me.
(People can be jerks, especially on the internet.... but you already knew that. :-))
Please tell me you were dictating this and dragon bit it. Please. Even if you have to lie.
ReplyDelete"Now I've written maybe a hundred Amazon reviews in my time. Some of been good and some have been bad."
Some of have been good? Some of what?
Um, pretty sure that was a typo. I don't get my blog professionally proofread ;)
DeleteGosh. You really can't catch a break, can you! I read right over your typo and didn't notice it. And yes - I would think a fruit bowl served fruit. Who the hell buys individual serving "fruit bowls." Does one need a shelf full of pasta bowls, cereal bowls, fruit bowls, ice cream bowls? I would similarly assume that a fruit bowl serves several servings of fruit. (Say that three times fast.)
DeleteI'm a QA guy, I can't help it.
DeleteDoesn't help that I was fending off my own alligators.
I had the same problem, only in reverse. I now own a gravy boat suitable for swimming.
ReplyDeleteI agree, fruit bowl = a big bowl that holds a few apples, bananas, etc.
ReplyDeleteI once gave a 1 star review for a product that was so hard to assemble that I had a handyman do it and he still didn't manage to make it functional. Multiple people attacked me that it was my fault, and I thought, gosh, why is it even important to people what I wrote about some boring amazon product!
Yeah to me "fruit bowl"= "a bowl for fruit". Who ever heard of a bowl for a single piece of fruit Not to mention who serves someone a fruit in a bowl? Maybe if it were grapes or the fruit was sliced up.
ReplyDeleteBut then you wouldn't want a wooden bowl for wet food. The taste would transfer.
Haha I bet no one here thought they'd be analyzing a bowl so much!