It may work to some extent in a market that has only a few options for any given product. If "the market" consists of only Coke, Pepsi, 7-Up, and a few others, a large enough sample of consumers can eventually try them all and decide which ones they like and which are the "losers." But when the market consists of tens or hundreds or thousands of different choices there is no way enough consumers are going to try them all in order to meaningfully sort out the "winners" from the "losers."
Some people have been using Tide laundry detergent for 40 years, and unless something obvious happens to change their perception of it a lot of them are likely to simply keep buying and using it. Those consumers aren't helping to sort out anything, and that may be pretty common.
Internet product ratings can help sort things out but you never how many of the ratings are done by paid PR people or friends and family of somebody who works at the manufacturer and wants them to "win."
Consumer magazine ratings can help, but for some products they may not be able to include all the choices available, especially if new products are coming to market all the time making their ratings outdated fairly quickly.
Never being especially materialistic myself, it probably wouldn't bother me too much if the only option I had was to shop in a government-run store that did not exist to maximize profits but rather to provide a few different choices of quality goods and services at a reasonable price. In the past I've even suggested that maybe the federal government should buy Walmart and run it like a "civilian PX;" a "public option" for everyday shopping. No shareholders to please or hotshot executives to grotesquely overcompensate; all employees make at least a living wage.
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