What I do here
I write the buying guides on this site and the research behind them: which models are worth listing, which specifications actually separate them once the units are made comparable, what owners report failing after six months, and whether today’s price is genuinely low for that product.
How I work
Four steps, in this order: read the primary documentation, normalise the specifications, quantify what verified owners report, then check the price against its own history. Nothing on this site is written as if I had used a product I have not used. The full method is on Our method.
What I use
Naming the sources is the point. If a number on this site cannot be traced back to one of these, it should not be on the page.
- Manufacturer documentation — Specification sheets, manuals and warranty terms — the primary source for anything stated here as a hard specification.
- Verified owner reviews — Read and tagged by subject rather than by star rating, so the recurring complaints surface instead of the loudest ones.
- Price history — The current price measured against the product’s own 90-day range, not against a list price it never sold at.
- Marketplace data — What sells in volume, how a listing behaves over time, and which questions buyers actually ask.
What I won’t do
- Claim to have used a product I have not used.
- Accept payment for a placement, a ranking or a score.
- Let a brand see a guide before it is published.
- Print a specification I could not trace back to a document.
Where I’m coming from
My working life has been on the e-commerce side, and mostly on Amazon. Most of the day goes into marketplace data: what actually sells in volume, what a price has done over several months, and what buyers report after they have lived with a product for six months.
The other half is work on independent storefronts — product pages, specification claims, and the distance between a listing that looks convincing and one that actually converts. The two sides inform each other: marketplace data tells you what people buy, storefront work tells you what makes a claim believable.
That is a different starting point from a review site that waits for a press sample. It is also the reason this site exists. The models that sell in volume and the models that collect awards are frequently not the same list, and that gap is where a reader tends to get underserved.
The editorial team
Refer a Deal is produced by an editorial team that works on e-commerce day to day. Research, price tracking and editorial review are kept as separate steps, so the same person is never responsible both for what gets recommended and for what the numbers say about it.
- Research and buyer analysis — Reads manufacturer documentation and owner reviews, then writes the guides and the verdicts behind them.
- Price tracking — Maintains the 90-day price history behind every deal on the site, and decides what qualifies to be listed and what does not.
- Editorial review — Checks every page before it publishes: claims traced back to a source, no first-person testing language, disclosures in place.
- Commerce operations — Runs the Amazon and storefront side of the business, which is where the working knowledge of listings, pricing and returns comes from.
Get in touch
Corrections and disagreements are welcome — particularly if a specification is wrong or a price has moved. Use the contact page, or email contact@refer-a-deal.com directly.