Lori Borgman: Sometimes the reviews are fishy

Lori Borgman, Tribune News Service on Mar 17, 2026

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In this Age of Review and Return, almost 93% of all shoppers read reviews before making a purchase. Even though we review before we buy, we often return the purchase after it arrives.

There was a time when returns were a rarity. Oh, there were exceptions, but you had to face a stern clerk, who often consulted a stern manager. Now, you just drive by a designated Amazon drop-off and hurl your return out a car window. Instant refund.

I am big on the review part of the Review and Return equation. I search items by review ratings so often that it has become a habit. I was putting together an online grocery pickup order and saw that milk had more than 110,000 reviews.

Who reviews milk? Who reads reviews on milk? Apparently, I do. I clicked out of curiosity. The first review advised not to leave milk sitting out on the counter. Good to know.

A granddaughter is in the process of buying some pet fish. Being a savvy 10-year-old consumer, she is doing online research before spending her hard-earned money.

She made a chart of different stores that sell fish. Her comparison metrics are how many reviews each variety of fish received, whether the fish look overcrowded in the photos, whether they appear fed, whether the water is cloudy and whether any fish are floating upside down.

Proprietors with fish floating belly up are automatically ruled out. Dead in the water, so to speak.

Two stores were eliminated due to cloudy water. One of those earned an additional demerit because there were no reviews for the variety of fish she is interested in. No reviews, no sale.

She checked the overcrowded box for all the stores she reviewed. She’s a free-range fish kind of girl. You don’t crowd fish. It’s bad enough that fish have to spend their entire lives in schools. At least they should be in schools with big rooms.

All her sources received satisfactory marks for feeding the fish. I’m not sure how she determined the fish had been fed, but I don’t know fish. Well, other than tuna, salmon and cod. But those are in a pan, not an aquarium.

Our grand announced she finished her research and reviews and is about to spring for some fish. To which we said, “You go, gill!”