Unethical to promote products you've never used?

If you have a clear understanding of a particular niche including specific issues, there is no compromise of ethics in "recommending" product(s) that contain features specifically addressing those issues.

For example, professional sales people of high end products almost never own the products they're selling, but rather understand their potential buyers' needs and match them up with features within their product line.

Also known as "consultation" selling, this concept does not require you to buy every product you sell. I often sell Amazon products well into the 5-figure price range using this method.

It is neither practical nor expected to own every product before marketing them.

Okay, so you don't actually say that you have never used it but then what valuable information can you possibly tell your audience about the product? "Here is a product I found check it out"? Thats not a very convincing pitch.

Like a poster said above, even giving information or a review which implies that you have knowledge about a product that you don't really have is unethical also. Even if you don't say that you haven't used it.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

If you would have excluded what I highlighted in bold, I would have agreed with you and thanked your post.

When I review products, I review the "information" and not the "methodologies".

In some cases, I can review the "methodologies", only because I had used them previously.

The only thing unethical about promoting a product that you have never used is saying or implying that you have used it, and also promising that your reader will achieve specific results.

Although I have never before jumped off of a cliff, I can definitely recommend that you should not do that because it could kill you -- not based on my experience but the experiences of others. I don't have to jump off the cliff myself to know that it is a bad idea.

In the form of a question, your headline implies that people who promote products they have not used are unethical: "Unethical to promote products you've never used?"

Your original post further implies the same:



You have reiterated the same assumption in your response to me, bolded above for highlight.

I am not dishonest or unethical, nor am I trying to rationalize my behavior.

There is a fine line between ethical and unethical ways to promote any product or service.

If someone crosses that line, then they are marketing in an unethical manner. If they don't cross the line, they are not.

If you lie and tell your readers that you have used the product, when you haven't, then you have crossed that line into the unethical.

If you make promises to your readers that they will achieve certain results, then you are marketing in an unethical manner, because even if you were able to achieve those results, it does not mean that your customer will be able to achieve those results.

Look at the FTC and their definition of "expected results", they have made it clear that you can tell people "what you were able to accomplish", but you cannot say "that people will be able to do what you did."



Until the mid-1400's, most of the people on this planet thought the world was flat. Did it make them right? LOL

Before we sent space probes to Mars, people actually believed that Mars was inhabited by an intelligent race capable of building canals and pyramids. Were they right? LOL

If the majority of people think I am wrong, does it mean that I am? Certainly not.

In fact, most of those folks usually agree with me when I speak, and I had to speak up here to incite them to think beyond what they originally posted.

This is not a completely black-and-white issue as some have suggested.



I respect Alexa, and to my knowledge, she respects me. But her answer painted this as explicitly black-and-white. She said:

Alexa was more directly commenting about whether it is right to promise whether a product will "help them achieve a specific result", which has been addressed in my comments about the FTC.

Now, Alexa was not wrong in her comments, but she could have done a better job expressing what she was saying. She is a writer; she knows I am right. LOL



Shaun O'Reilly is brilliant, but even he missed the bigger picture.

The thing that Shaun said that hit the nail on the head was, "Making a blind recommendation is the sign of a dumbass."

And he was right. One should never ever make a blind recommendation. But it should be noted that you don't have to have tested the product for yourself to know whether the product will deliver on its promises to the customer.

If you take seriously your ability as a critical thinker, then you can review a product and decide based on your experience whether the product has the capacity to deliver on its promises or not.



In my honest opinion, Patrick Batty gets it:



I'll forgive Billy. He is a young un...

But then again, Billy qualified his comment to whether, "the affiliate is implying that they have used this product before."



This comment goes back to what Shaun said in his post:

"Making a blind recommendation is the sign of a dumbass."



Melanie was answering part of Alexa's comment regarding being dishonest.

When she said, "Most testimonials are done in a 'I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine' kind of way", she was making a statement that has little basis in reality.



Paul is also brilliant, and despite the posts of other people in the thread, he and I share the opinion that selling products that you have never used is NOT unethical:



Even though you are claiming that you did not have a bias when you started this thread, you are clearly showing your bias now:


You don't need to simply "point in a direction of a product" in order to remain on the ethical side of promotion.

You stay on the side of ethical by:

• Not saying you have used the product yourself;
• Not implying you have used the product yourself;
• Not saying or implying that someone will achieve "promised results";
• Not lying to or deceiving your customers;
• And as Shaun said, "Not making blind recommendations".

This sums it up perfectly. I own several review sites and each site promotes several dozen to over 100 products each. Although I don't own the products, I present the reviews in the context of my knowledge of the technology.

It's very easy to provide meaningful opinions / reviews of products you don't own assuming you know something about the technology or field in general and are good at researching what the marketplace at large is saying about said products.