I never want to be an expert on car seats.
I don't care what new models are coming out every year. I don't care about the intricate variations between different brands, and the historical reason for these differences.
But it's difficult to not feel the need to be an expert these days, given the wealth of information when making a decision about a car seat, or just about anything.
Online shopping has provided the ability to view, compare, and contrast all of the details about what you're buying, and so it's easy to develop anxiety about making the right choice.
Services like Consumer Reports and The Wirecutter try to help by buying and comparing all of the products in a category, and making a recommendation for the "best" one. But the deciding the "best" of anything is so subjective depending on the person. While things like build quality and customer service are universally liked, details like the aesthetic design and features are so specific to the person. Car seats are a good example of this: not only does the "best" car seat for me have to match all of my personal criteria, it has to fit well in my specific car.
So when it came time to buy my toddler a car seat, I was delighted to be connected with a "car seat consultant". This person met me at the store, asked me about all of my specific needs, and then went through and narrowed the dozens of available choices down to the four that were right for me. She tried them all in my car, helped me pick the best one, and I was on the road with my new car seat in under an hour.
The person I worked with is an expert on car seats, and wants to be. Her job is a car seat safety technician, and she works with families on how to safely set up their kids in car seats. She's also been a nanny and is a Mom, and is overall an expert on kids and safety.
This is the perfect type of consulting, and something I think we may begin to see more and more of in our purchasing. We've grown used to this concept when buying homes with real estate agents, and we grudgingly accept it when haggling with sales people at car dealerships. But we set out on our way to figure out the best vacuum cleaner and dishwasher and vacation spot, working through online reviews and the opinions of friends who are just as lost as us. Working with trusted experts may be one antidote to information overload, and allow us to get back to becoming experts on the things we actually care about.