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Product reviews are one of the most effective ways to reduce customer concerns. Most customers of eCommerce stores are driven by feedback when making a purchase decision.
It does not matter whether you are a famous brand or just starting a local business. Customer testimonials play a vital role in any case while building brand credibility. And client trust is the crucial key to long-range brand success.
Many online retail sellers don’t pay enough attention to reviews, making their site more user-friendly, improving Magento search (or a similar feature on another platform), optimizing the payment process, etc. Of course, all these things are essential but will not bring you the proper effect if you do not get a positive product evaluation.
According to a study conducted by marketing agency Fan & Fuel, the lack of reviews negatively affects the purchase decision of 92% of customers. As a result, 35% will be less likely to buy something, and 32% will delay making an order and doing more research. In addition, 23% of clients will face, in that case, a challenge in spending money on an item, and 2% won’t buy anything at all.
The screenshot was taken on the Fan & Fuel website
Top 5 Benefits of Using Product Reviews for eCommerce
So what are the benefits of using customer reviews for eCommerce business owners? Let’s look at the five main ones and check out how different brands apply the feedback.
1. Influencing Buying Decisions
Before making a purchase decision, most customers thoroughly investigate product reviews. After all, this is the best way to learn about the item’s pros and cons before purchasing online.
Therefore, you should design the reviews section decently so that customers can easily navigate through it, understand whether a particular product is suitable for them, and place an order.
For example, let’s look at how feedback is organized on the official Lego site. Each product page has a feedback section. At the top of the section, there is an overall review performance. Several elements can be highlighted:
- Overall customer rating of the product;
- Total number of reviews;
- Percentage of users who recommend this product to others;
- Number of reviews for each score (1-5 stars);
- Summary of buyer experience (value for money and play experience).
The screenshot was taken on the Lego website.
The process of posting reviews on the site is designed so that buyers can make them as informative as possible. They may add photos, write a lot of text, and rate the product according to many parameters. It helps other customers to make the right choice and decide on the purchase faster.
The screenshot was taken on the Lego website
2. Increasing Conversion Rate
Reviews are a kind of trigger for purchasing, helping customers ensure that they have found the right product. So no surprise, having detailed reviews from other buyers helps increase the conversion rate.
The opinion of other people about items is trusted much more than any advertising statements of the brand. And this applies to absolutely any type of product.
Let’s look at an example of a customer review of a book on the Barnes & Noble site. The feedback section allows not only to read reviews on a particular book but also to see the rating of the customer who left a review and checks their choice of other items. Such a smart feedback feature indeed allows for selling more, i.e., increasing the conversion rate.
The screenshot was taken on the Barnes & Noble website
3. Building Trust
Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, customers cannot touch or test items before ordering online. Instead, all they can rely on are the photos and product descriptions. So then, how do you become sure that the seller offers a high-quality product that will not disappoint upon delivery?
The opinion of other customers who have already used the product helps gain customers’ trust. But, of course, you have to be prepared that not all reviews will be positive. This is why it is essential to manage the feedback not to lose your brand’s credibility.
Seller responses to feedback impact all customers who see it, not just those who left it. Statistics show that about 45% of customers would be very likely to engage with a company that responds to negative feedback.
The screenshot was taken on the ReviewTrackers website
4. Boosting SEO
Effective SEO requires more than just site speed optimization, quality content, meta tags filled with keywords, etc. User-generated content, including customer reviews, also plays a vital role in promoting site pages to the top of SERPs (search engine results pages) and enhancing their visibility.
By the way, did you know that if your customers evaluate your products, such rankings may appear as star snippets in the search results? These are the stars you sometimes see next to products in the SERP list. Stars shown within the short excerpt are eye-catching and urge users to click on the link. They are often accompanied by additional data and may look the following way: “⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 5 · 11 reviews”.
When a customer publishes a review on the site, it creates unique, useful, and SEO-optimized content. As a result, it is highly perceived by search engines and thus increases the website’s ranking.
Just look at the customer feedback on Bed Bath & Beyond. Many unique reviews, detailed and containing photos, obviously positively affect the SEO.
The screenshot was taken on the Bed Bath & Beyond website
5. Enhancing Marketing
Marketing, of course, is a vital tool for the development of any eCommerce business. That’s why many owners are constantly searching for the perfect content for their marketing campaigns.
Did you know that customer reviews can be a handy source for your marketing? We can even say it’s perfectly content because it’s completely free, unique, and user-generated. That’s why brands should consider leveraging such data as the number of reviews they get, product ratings, and others in their campaigns.
There can be a variety of ways to use it:
- e-mails;
- social media posts;
- PPC ads;
- printed ads;
- etc.
For example, the Fabletics brand uses product reviews to create website banners to promote certain products. The banner shows the overall review rating for the leggings and positive quotes from customer feedback. The link on the banner leads to the product page.
Such advertising looks much more convincing than just bare statements about quality.
The screenshot was taken on the Fabletics website
Wrapping Up
Customer feedback is the keystone to the success of any eCommerce business. It is essential for growth and development. Therefore, every brand should pay enough attention to reviews.
They help evaluate the performance of a business and reveal its problems. After all, customer feedback is an honest opinion about the products or services, reflecting their strengths and weaknesses. You earn popularity with competitors and the target audience by getting positive reviews.
Thus, customer testimonials motivate you to work even better, improve product quality, and develop the business. So make sure to implement a product reviews section on your marketplace if you still haven’t, optimize it properly, and increase the volume of feedback. In addition, don’t forget to keep track of what you receive and to respond to them in a timely and proper manner.
Kate Parish, chief marketing officer at Onilab with 8+ years of experience in Digital Marketing and website promotion. Kate always strives to stay in pace with the ever-advancing online world and the sphere of Magento PWA development. Her expertise includes in-depth knowledge of SEO, branding, PPC, SMM, and the field of online sales in general.
