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Pillow Research Sources and Methodology
Our research findings are based on over 6,000 reviews / comments of actual pillow owners collected from diverse sources.
Sources
Message / Discussion Boards
In many cases, owner experiences collected from many message / discussion boards make up a significant part of our research data. Message boards are generally the best source for getting unbiased and authentic product reviews from actual owners. This is mainly because they tend to exist in near obscurity (most don't rank high in the search engines), are made up of a tight-knit group of people, and often have safeguards against suspicious contributors, such as someone who appears from nowhere to contribute to a product-related discussion.
In case if you don't know, message boards generally operate by someone posting a question and then others reply with answers. In this case, someone typically asks others what pillow they recommend or don’t recommend. People then reply with their opinions often based on their own pillow ownership experience.
Retailers' Websites
Online retailers such as Amazon, Overstock.com, Wal-Mart and several others provide their customers with the ability to rate and review products that they purchased from them. We have generally found the reviews on these websites to be credible and helpful.
Product Review Websites
A small amount of our research data may come from product review websites, such as Epinions or Viewpoints. Generally, we regard these sources to be the least credible since virtually anyone can post a product review and are sometimes paid to do so. Consequently, we include into our data only those reviews that we regard as most credible.
Personal Interviews
On occasion, we include owner data from personal interviews that we conduct. While the number of these interviews is small, the amount and quality of owner information they provide is often excellent.
Large Sample Sizes + Diverse Sources = Accurate Findings
The sample size of at least 1,200 actual owner experiences is large enough in our opinion to provide accurate findings. We at Sleep Like The Dead are not expert statisticians, but we believe that our findings, especially for the satisfaction ratings, have a maximum margin of sampling error of ±4 percentage points. We believe this because no matter how much data (information from owner reviews / comments) we add to each pillow type or brand, our findings do not extend beyond a range of a few percentage points.
In addition, in most cases no one source makes up more than 20% of the total number of reviews / comments included in our data. This diversity of sources helps to ensure that you are getting as accurate and unbiased information as possible.
Safeguards To Ensure Precise and Impartial Information
To further ensure accurate findings, several measures were taken. Namely, no data was collected from those who indicated that they have used a particular pillow for less than three nights since this is often not enough time to form a solid opinion one way or the other.
In addition, no data was collected from an owner review / comment that was older than six years. 90% of owner data is four years old or less.
Further, in cases where it was not clear if the reviewer owned the pillow, the review / comment were not included in the data. Owners were identified when they openly said they owned a particular pillow, referred to the pillow as “my pillow” or identified themselves as an actual owner in some other obvious, non-ambiguous way.
FAQ
Q: Do you have an economic relationship with manufacturers, retailers and advertisers? In other words, are your research findings biased?
A: In a word, no. Our mission is to help people sleep better and this can only be achieved by presenting unbiased and truthful information.
As a result, we receive NO compensation of any kind from any company, organization or individual to affect in any way or degree the content of our website including our product / owner research.
We do run advertisements for various sleep-related products and services on our website through Google which automatically and independent of us selects which ads and advertisers to display. This advertising in no way affects our website content or research results.
In addition, our research findings can be independently verified by anyone with a computer and internet connection, given that they are willing to invest enough time and effort. To do so, input queries into a search engine, especially Google, that contain keywords such as "message board", "discussion", "thread", "post", "reviews", "ratings" etc. and then the name of the product or brand you seek to find actual owner information about. Each product category or brand will usually have its own specific keywords which need to be used to achieve optimal results. And searching many pages into the search results for each query is often necessary to find relevant information.
Q: Can I submit a pillow review to be included in your research findings?
A: No. We don't accept unsolicited reviews because we simply cannot verify their credibility. Our sources for information are only online message boards, retailers' websites, product review websites and personal interviews.