Ratings are the scores and comments that users give to stores or products. They reflect an individual opinion, and we combine these ratings to calculate an overall score.

Find the store and click on the link button "Add Comment/Rating". You can choose to provide just the information you want, but you need to at least choose an overall rating or a comment. It would also be helpful if you rate other aspects of the store, such as access, cleanliness, etc.

The ratings available for selection are:

• Overall Rating - How you generally feel about the store overall
• Access - Is it easy to get to the store? Is the parking sufficient? How much traffic do you have to get to, and can you reach it easily from your house or from the highway? Will your car be safe?
• Cleanliness - Are the floors cleaned? Is there dust on the counters? Are spillages cleaned promptly, or are boxes left lying around?
• Service - Are you greeted with attentiveness and a smile? If you raise an issue, do you get excuses or action? Is management approachable?
• Labelling - Do you pay for what you see on the label? Are the weights correct? Do the products on the shelves line up with the correct label?

Ratings are not really about price, as we have other measures to determine price quality. They are more about determining quality. We can then combine price and ratings to determine the ultimate decider: value.

Use the following as a guide to which number you should choose:

• 5 - Outstanding, cannot be bettered, everything you wish for
• 4 - Pretty good, makes an impression, getting close to perfection, recommendable, one or two issues short of top notch
• 3 - Good, decent, okay, like most others, unimpressive but not bad enough to make you feel genuinely uncomfortable
• 2 - A bit concerning, perhaps usable but with a cautionary note, on the edge of being dropped from your list
• 1 - A no-go, truly terrible, not even worth a try, nobody should be using this, zero value for money

To get the overall rating, we add up all the overall rating scores and get an average. We don't get consider other ratings (like Access, Service, etc), we don't consider time, and we allow multiple ratings from the same user.

We do allow multiple ratings from the same user, but we allow users to click on the "Report An Issue" link on a rating to flag us on potential abuse. If a user is rating the same item over and over, they should be leaving a comment to indicate why they need to keep raising the issue.

Ultimately, once you've had your say, you only need to do so once. If you rate an item again, you can do so if a new issue has come up, or if you changed your mind compared to a previous rating.

Humans are often draw into one of two sides of contrasting opinions. If for instance you compare two top-level competing phones, one person is likely to support one phone and give the other a poor rating, and vice versa. Typically it's hard to get an accurate opinion on many products, because people exaggerate the differences.

With all ratings and comments, we encourage users to add a pinch of salt, not to ignore what's being said, but to recognise that the issue raised might be a small note on an otherwise decent shopping experience. If you read through several comments, you can get a better picture of whether an issue keeps re-emerging. Volume is key, so have a look at how the opinions stack up.