ShopSmart

ShopSmart

Category: (Magazine)

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Editorial Reviews

ShopSmart is the lively new guide from the experts at Consumer Reports. Quick, easy-to-use, unbiased shopping advice to help readers find the best products and services for home, yard, health, fitness, food, electronics, family, autos and more. Like Consumer Reports, it is independent and carries no outside advertising.

Customer Reviews

avid reader

Reviewed by show lover, 2010-03-03

This is an incredible insightful and very helpful magazine from cover to cover. It doesn't have those smelly perfume ads that I cannot wait to rip out of all those other magazines before sneezing and wheezing. I look forward to getting my monthly subscription and put aside whatever I am reading at that moment to read ShopSmart. Great interesting and full of great tips and ideas

Great consumer product information

Reviewed by ShoeBabeNY, 2010-02-06

This is a great magazine. It deals with more everyday products then Consumer Reports (which I love also). I love when this comes in and sit down and read all the interesting articles and reviews. It has certainly helped me in many purchase decisions. This magazine is very interesting and fun to read. I hope to be reading it for many years.

Christmas Gift for a Friend

Reviewed by M. Milavec, 2010-02-03

I purchased a subscription to Shop Smart ;) for my friend as a Christmas gift this year. She received the first issue and absolutely loves it. She already purchased a vacuum cleaner based on the recommendations in this magazine and highly recommends it. It is a little pricey but an excellent choice as a splurge for yourself or as a gift idea.

A Practical Offshoot Of "Consumer Reports"

Reviewed by Robert I. Hedges, 2010-02-02

I have subscribed to "Consumer Reports" for years as I like their unbiased reviews and policy of not accepting advertising revenue. I still subscribe to "Consumer Reports" and have decided to subscribe to "ShopSmart" as well, as it retains the unbiased, no advertising attributes of "Consumer Reports" and focuses on making daily purchasing decisions without any hype or gimmicks.

"Consumer Reports" is extremely useful, but can be quite tedious and detailed, particularly when dealing with electronics or durable goods. "ShopSmart" retains the same general editorial tone, but is much more concise. The individual articles are informative but rather brief, focusing more on value choices versus technical minutiae: of the two it is the more readable magazine by far.

While I still consider "Consumer Reports" as the gold standard for product evaluation and differentiation, "ShopSmart" provides useful, easy to apply information in a highly readable package.

Female version of Consumer Reports Magazine.

Reviewed by kiwanissandy, 2009-08-06

I consider this magazine to be the feminine version of Consumer Reports. The articles are condensed versions of most that can be found in the regular Consumer Reports mag as well as the website. But these are mostly "female" related items, bras, saving at the grocery, purses, wines, etc. The colors are flashy and eye catching whereas the Consumer Reports magazine itself is more utilitarian.
I really like this magazine because it's shorter to the point articles, I don't have to search long lists to find the top 3 of something. This magazine gives the best recommendations as well as those not recommended. They've left out most of the dirty details to get to that point. The magazine also covers stories about the top 10 tips to save at the grocery, the top 10 websites that save you money, cleaning products you can't live without, the best little black dress and on and on.
They also have articles about single females' necessary household tools, and gives the best recommendations for power/hand tools for women. So that's why I'm saying it's meant for women mostly rather than guys.
It is expensive for 6 issues but in one purchase you could save $20, so to me the magazine is worth the cost. If you want, just get the online consumer reports, website only access and you'd have the best of both worlds.