Customer reviews are among the few effective tools for building a credible and trustworthy name in eCommerce. Online buyers are now aware of the shopping journey. They have gone through the best and worst experiences with various online shops.
To avoid any unpleasant situation, they value reading reviews by previous customers of an eCommerce business. Therefore, the reviews section is the only content they would like to trust among the various content pages as customers like them share it.
Seeing the importance, the online stores have also devised plans to collect reviews from their satisfied customers and display them proudly on specific product pages and dedicated testimonials pages. To help you meet sales and conversion targets, let me share some statistics that testify to the significance of reviews for eCommerce.
Maximizing conversions
A study by Power reviews suggests that the conversion rate of expensive items increases by 380% when customer reviews are projected on them. Customer feedback helps in increasing conversions. Potential customers lack the confidence to trust a product, brand, or store. The moment they reach reviews of previous customers, they get to know that people are buying or consuming the product and have better experiences to share. Their belief helps them make the purchase decisions, which ultimately increases the conversion rate.
Boosting revenues
Increasing revenue is one of the primary goals of online stores. Therefore, an eCommerce website has to draft a strategy and a complete working plan to achieve this goal. Collecting and displaying reviews from satisfied customers is critical for boosting revenues. The following statistics can evaluate the significance of posting customer testimonials.
According to Digital Commerce, the revenue increases by 62% with regular consumer reviews. In addition, customers are more likely to visit and shop again to view other customers’ latest reviews and opinions.
A report by Harvard Business Reviews observes that the revenue of a business increased from 5% to 9% for every star they earn on Yelp. Getting improvements in ratings and reviews promotes a positive business image that brings in more sales.
Earning trust and credibility
Making the new users trust your business, brand, product, or service is challenging. Online customers are not likely to give every new business a try. They want someone to endorse the company to trust it for the quality and price they claim. Adding another form of content to your website may not be as effective as the customer reviews. A survey carried by The Demand Gen Report finds out that 97% of the B2B consumers consider the user-generated content (reviews) as more authentic and trustworthy.
The review ratings have a greater impact on trust and credibility as the users tend to buy products with a higher rating. Marketing Insider Group suggests that getting a 3-star review, for example, convinces only 57% of consumers to convert, whereas a 4-star rating brings 94% of customers.
Getting more traffic
Big Commerce, one of the reliable eCommerce platforms, reports that a website with testimonials attracts 45% more traffic than the websites with no reviews. The reason behind the increased traffic is the search engine algorithm, which favors the web pages that constantly publish fresh, unique, and user-friendly content. Therefore, customer reviews are relevant and valuable for the end consumers.
Big Commerce also suggests the significance of reviews in increasing traffic in that same post mentioned above. It states that publishing ten or more customer reviews has increased traffic from 15-20% in local listings.
Being helpful
Testimonials are helpful for the end consumers. It serves as introductory content that is different from the About Us page. Customers generate the content to help new users with the product or service. The Marketing Insider Group also suggests in a post that 56% of people find the testimonials helpful for online shopping. Assisting new users about a website or its catalog is one of the core purposes of sharing customer reviews and opinions.
Highlighting local businesses
Getting traction for a local business is difficult on the internet because so many online and offline are trying to appear in top searches. Choosing one of the many options is difficult for users. They seek suggestions from friends and family. However, the reviews from the local community help them further narrow down the choices. Consumers who want to find the nearest eCommerce shop are more likely to look for the reviews shared by the locals. According to Bright Local, 87% of consumers have read reviews of the local businesses in 2020. The likelihood of the reading reviews is expected to increase in the coming years as it was 81% in 2019.
Assisting in purchase decisions
Online buyers have various concerns about the quality and other factors of an eCommerce business, whether based on Magento or any other eCommerce platform. They are dreadful about the purchase even if they are satisfied by the customer support team. They need a push of trust and reliability to make the final decision. When they read customer reviews from an authentic source, they proceed to the checkout. The following statistics also prove the value of reviews for eCommerce.
Bright Local published a survey report back in 2015, which stays true to date. It states that 92% of consumers refer to online reviews when purchasing a product. So they need that soft push towards the trust they gain from reading the reviews.
Another fact from My Testimonial Engine reports that 72% of consumers would like to wait to read reviews before taking action. They consider it essential to go through what other buyers say about them. They are pretty satisfied with the products, price, and quality, but they still would like to read the public opinion.
Final words
Customer reviews are influential in various aspects. The trust and credibility it increases for an eCommerce business lead to higher conversion rates and better sales. Reviewing the statistics discussed in this post, the value of reviews cannot be ignored. I hope it will help you understand how reviews impact your online business in general.
