Why so many online reviews complain about items that are red

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One thing that really makes consumers see red, ironically enough, is that they don’t like the red that they’re seeing.

So found a recent report that analyzed 51 million customer reviews by Yotpo, an e-commerce marketing platform. Among reviews that mentioned the color red, 70% were negative, according to the report.

The problem generally was not that shoppers didn’t expect the delivery driver to hand them a red product; it was that the product was not the shade of red they were expecting.

“This sweatshirt looks nothing like the photo,” states a one-star review featured in the report, which didn’t name the retailer. “Raspberry red—nothing like the soft coral in the photo.”

There’s no way to know when the mixup is the fault of the brand, which may have lit or photographed the item poorly, or the consumer, whose devices may not display the color properly. But the stakes, of course, are high, as the brand has to contend with not only the possibility of losing a disappointed customer, but also having to deal with the likelihood (and expense) of the item being returned.

But the report does have suggestions for how to sell red products…without going into the red. One is to simply describe the color with more specificity.

“Use specific color descriptions (think ‘cherry red’ or ‘brick red),’” the report advises.

It also suggests shooting the products with “familiar red objects like strawberries,” and shooting them in various lighting situations to show how the colors pop differently in different settings.

Whatever the strategy, if it works, more online shoppers will be ordering red…without getting the blues.