Why Your Ecommerce Store Needs Reviews

Written by Jon on 9th February 2016

The customer review process has become more complex over the last few years, but the fundamentals behind why you should have reviews remain the same and only makes it more important for you to utilise effectively on your website.

So why should we have customer reviews on our website?

Simple: customer reviews = more conversions.

Do we need to provide anymore information than that?

Let’s break it down into some numbers:

  • 70% of customers consult reviews or ratings before making a final purchase. (PeopleClaim)
  • 63% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews.
  • 67% of consumers read 6 reviews or less before they feel they can trust a business enough to make a purchase. (MarketingProfs)
  • As many as 79% of consumers trust product reviews as much as a personal recommendation.
  • 80% of consumers have changed their mind about purchases based on NEGATIVE information they have found online. (ReputationAdvocate)
  • On average, 75 percent of reviews posted on review websites are positive, and 71 percent of consumers agreed that reviews make them more comfortable that they are purchasing the right product or service.

So if we look at the stats above, it is difficult to argue that reviews are not important to your business. You can see why they should be implemented into your website to assist the customer in their buying decision and how they can help increase your online sales.

customer-reviews-why

So, here are some of the key reasons why reviews are important to your business and how they will improve your sales:

  1. Re-assure Customers

Customers might have heard what you have told them about your product but they would also like to hear it from like minded individuals who have also purchased from you in the past.

These unbiased reviews will give your potential customers an insight of what it is like to shop with you, and let them know what to expect.

  1. User Generated Content

When your reviews are indexable, reviews can be a great way to get fresh content to your website on a regular basis, this content will be(or at least should be) relevant  to what is on the page and can assist in improving your search visibility overall.

So, reviews assist in improving your conversion rate and also generate additional organic traffic to your website, it’s a win-win,  no?

  1. Builds Online Trust (and some bad reviews are fine)

Some interesting research carried out by Lightspeed Research highlights what customers consider as reasonable in terms of bad reviews and how many they would tolerate before changing their mind when looking to purchase from you.

negative-reviews

  1. Increase Click Through Rates

Displaying your reviews alongside your ads, as you can in Google Adwords, will improve your click through rate to your website. If you are particularly pro active with your review procedure it will also allow you to stand out from your competitors.

In order for your reviews to display with your Google account, you would have to use one of the accredited suppliers that Google has verified.

For a full list of review sites and the relevant countries, you can visit this link.

  1. Get Feedback from Your Customers

This is possibly the most important one of them all. We can look at how reviews increase your conversion rate, how they will improve your search ranking and the rest of it; however getting customer feedback on your product and/or service is invaluable.  It allows you to determine what you are doing right and even more importantly, what you are doing wrong!

It is so important that you listen to this feedback, there is nothing worse than seeing the same problem continually crop up in the reviews. All it simply tells you is that the people behind the website do not value customer service high enough!

If you are looking for ideas on how to get feedback, check out this blog post here.