DPReview is Hoping to Convert Its Review Prowess Into Sales with GearShop

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After a couple of months in beta, the photography review site DPReview is finally announcing the official launch of an online store that bears the website’s stamp of approval. Named GearShop, it’s a specialty camera store that will stock its shelves with only DPReview recommended and approved products.

It’s an interesting concept that DPReview believes will make for a more helpful online camera shopping experience. Fourteen years of experience reviewing products and establishing themselves as an unbiased source of information will translate into a store that only carries the best.

Although DPReview’s staff will remain entirely independent of the team running GearShop, the DPReview editorial staff will get the final say on every single product approval.

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“GearShop is a unique photo specialty store that utilizes DPReview’s comprehensive testing and research to select and recommend cameras, lenses and accessories,” explains the announcement. “Designed for photographers, by photographers … The store is run by a small team of photo enthusiasts dedicated to finding the very best products and to ensuring that product pages have the most comprehensive information anywhere on the web.”

The question that DPReview readers will probably now ask, and one the editors made sure to answer in the announcement, is how this will affect DPReview itself. Will the site’s involvement in an online store have an impact on what products they recommend? The answer, thankfully, is a hard “no.”

“The existence of a DPReview branded store and our involvement in the product selection process does not in any way affect the tenets and principles that guide our work on our site,” assure the editors. “We are and will remain 100% independent.”

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Obviously, GearShop has a lot of competition from big names that have established themselves as retail giants. But a store stocked with the best products, and whose descriptions “will not shy away from telling you about a product’s weaknesses as well as its strengths,” might be a welcome addition.

Currently, GearShop only serves the US (with plans to expand), but regardless of where you live, you can check out the online store for yourself by clicking here. For those who do happen to live in the US, buyers can take advantage of free 2-day shipping and, for a limited time, get up to $150 in free accessories when they purchase a qualifying camera.

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