CBS News
CBS Essentials: How we choose the best products for your home, work and life
EDWIN TAN / Getty Images
It’s simple: CBS Essentials is your trusted guide to online shopping. Our mission is to help you find solid, reliable products for your home, health and family, and to plug you into the latest deals and news about brands you love — all from a name you can rely on.
Our writers and editors live and breathe online shopping, with years of collective experience covering the retail landscape and reviewing products. We compile expert advice, customer reviews and first-hand know-how to find just the right products to recommend. We’re plugged into all the top retailers and brands to make sure we know when deals drop, new products launch and sales begin. And we provide hands-on reviews in the categories where buyers want the most help with their decision-making — consumer tech, mattresses, robot vacuums, clothing and more. In fact, our team includes some of the most knowledgable journalists in their field of expertise, so they bring to the table decades worth of experience that you can benefit from.
And this is important: Our editors work independently of the CBS News newsroom; we work independently of retailers; and we make money when you buy things from our links. We will always be clear with our readers about this.
How we select products
Our team of experts look at each product across five key metrics to deliver recommendations that are thorough, objective and useful.
- Verified reviews: We only consider products that are widely reviewed with consistently high ratings from verified buyers and qualified experts. If a product doesn’t meet that high standard, it doesn’t make it into our buying guides.
- Brand trust: There’s a reason why Americans trust some brands more than others, and we give special attention to those with a proven track record, consistent sales and a solid reputation for quality and satisfaction. We’re always looking for innovative new companies and products your household might like, but we weigh our selection metrics in favor of the tried-and-true.
- Customer feedback: We keep a steady eye on what our readers buy, what they keep, what they return, what they buy again. We listen to what our readers and similar consumers have to say, and feed that data into the buying guides and deals we bring to you.
- Newsworthiness: We keep a constant eye on new product drops and brands, and we vet them with the same painstaking standards we apply to every review and roundup. Whether it’s a fresh product that’s gone viral, or a new brand that’s disrupting a whole business model, we make sure it meets our quality benchmarks before recommending.
- Features and history: Whether it’s a brand-new washer-dryer set or the latest smartphone, features and capabilities matter. We evaluate each product’s feature offerings against its previous versions and competitors. Our in-house experts — in tech, furniture, appliances, kitchen, travel, fitness and deals — know what features matter, so you can, too.
Our goal at CBS Essentials is to do the research so you don’t have to, and recommend only the best products for your busy life. Our category experts continuously do rigorous, hands-on testing of the latest products, so we’re able to offer unbiased and reliable advice, no matter what you’re shopping for.
How the CBS Essentials team works
The Essentials team sticks to rigorous content guidelines: All product selections and editorial decisions are our own. We have affiliate relationships with many retailers, which is how CBS Essentials makes money. When you click a link to shop for a product, we receive a portion of the revenue from any resulting sales. This affiliate relationship does not affect our editorial decisions, and our mission remains to bring readers the best deals, as well as the most timely and most reliable product information you’ll find anywhere.
Our articles are also not influenced by retailers. Occasionally, a particular article may be sponsored by a brand. In that case, it will be clearly identified as “sponsored content.” We will always be upfront about this.
How we pick our deals
Not every sale is a worthwhile one. Some offers are rarer or more valuable than others. You can rely on CBS Essentials to tell you not only when a new deal drops, but also how epic that sale really is. Some items may be out of stock by the time links are clicked. Some deals may be over by the time you read an article. These things are subject to the retailer, and we work hard to keep current on deal and stock information.
Keeping up with CBS Essentials
There are many ways to stay in touch with our team and coverage:
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration starts off with mostly good will from the public: a majority of Americans overall are either happy or at least satisfied that he won and are either excited or optimistic about what he’ll do as president.
Trump’s handling of his presidential transition gets approval from most Americans overall and brings near-universal approval from his voters, along with a net-positive response about his selections for Cabinet posts, in particular, Sen. Marco Rubio, who is Trump’s pick to be secretary of state.
After inflation and the economy so dominated the election, Americans are more inclined to think his administration will bring down prices for food and groceries rather than raise them, and his voters overwhelmingly say that. Going into the election, his backers expected that, too.
In a similar vein, Trump’s election already has some Republicans’ views of the economy improving.
Overall, Republicans today are more excited about what Trump will do as president now than they were in 2016 when he was first elected.
Democrats say they feel more scared about what Trump might do than they did in 2016, and a large majority of Democrats think as president he will threaten their rights and freedoms. But at the same time, there seems to be a sense of exhaustion, as fewer than half of Democrats feel motivated to oppose Trump right now.
Americans, and Democrats specifically, do think the Biden administration should work with the incoming Trump administration to ensure a smooth transition, and that congressional Democrats should work with Donald Trump on issues where they find common ground.
Trump and the economy
After winning comes expectations. There’s a net optimism about the incoming administration’s effect on food and grocery prices, especially among Trump’s voters. That comes as most Americans continue to say prices are currently rising. And inflation was a big factor in Trump winning in the first place.
It may be no surprise then that among many potential items for the incoming administration, Americans say plans to lower prices ought to be the top priority.
The percentage of Republicans who call the U.S. economy good, while still low, has gone up, as the percentage who call it very bad has dropped. That pushes voters’ overall evaluation of the economy slightly higher than it’s been this year — and further spotlights how much partisanship, along with optimism, always plays into these evaluations.
Trump selections of Cabinet and agency chiefs for his administration
Trump’s current selections for agency heads and Cabinet picks get rated overwhelmingly as good choices from Trump’s voters, and are net-positive as selections among Americans who have heard enough about them to say. (Many have not heard enough yet.)
As a general rule, Americans want Trump to appoint people who’ll speak their minds and who have experience in the field or agency they’ll run. But in addition to those qualities, Republicans also want people who’ll be loyal to Trump.
A large majority of Republicans and Trump voters think Elon Musk should have at least some influence in the Trump administration. Americans overall are more split on that, largely along partisan lines.
Big majorities of Americans — and a slight majority of Republicans — would like to see the Senate hold hearings on his nominations, rather than let him make those appointments without it.
(Within self-identified Republicans, MAGA Republicans are relatively more inclined to say the Senate should skip the hearings.)
That sentiment holds whether or not people are told or reminded that the Constitution says the Senate should give advice and consent.
As a general matter, though, most of Trump’s voters and most Republicans do want Trump to have more presidential power this term than he did in his last. That sentiment is higher among Republican voters now than during the campaign.
Trump policies
On another economic front, Trump’s voters overwhelmingly favor the idea of tariffs: most of them don’t believe that will make prices higher. (For the third who believe tariffs will raise prices but support them anyhow, this is presumably a cost they’re willing to bear.)
For the public overall, opposition to tariffs goes hand in hand with the belief they’ll lead to higher prices.
As was the case with voters throughout the campaign, most Americans would, in principle, approve of a new mass deportation program.
If the Trump administration does start a mass deportation program, most of the public would have it carried out by law enforcement or current immigration agencies — most would not have the U.S. military do it.
Elections and democracy
The 2024 results have shifted Republicans’ views of U.S. democracy and also returned some confidence to their view of U.S. elections. Few Republicans suspect fraud in 2024. They overwhelmingly did about 2020.
Following Trump’s victory, there’s been an increase in the number of Republicans who say democracy and rule of law is secure, though most Americans continue to say it is not.
Looking ahead, there’s another shift along partisan lines. Throughout the campaign, Republicans said America’s best days were in its past, while Democrats felt they were in the future. These views are reversed now. After Trump’s win, most Republicans feel America’s best days are in its future.
This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,232 U.S. adults interviewed between November 19-22, 2024. The sample was weighted to be representative of adults nationwide according to gender, age, race, and education, based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as 2024 presidential vote. The margin of error is ±2.3 points.
