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How many times have you just bought a product without researching some information about the brand, product or seller? How often would you walk into a store, see a product you’ve never heard of, and purchase it over other brand-name products?
Studies show that many people online don’t simply buy products based on faith or a pretty label. In fact, many customers are heavily swayed by customer reviews found on e-commerce websites. Much like being advised by a friend, customer reviews help people make purchasing decisions by letting them know whether other people were satisfied or dissatisfied by a product or merchant. For example, how many people do you know that have used Amazon.com to purchase an item online? What was the reason behind using this website for the first time? Was it because of free shipping? Was it really the price? Or was it because someone or some website told you that Amazon was a trustworthy website? This same concept applies to any website or product on the web.
Amazon, a leader in e-commerce, has experienced spectacular growth in the past decade. In 2003, the online store reported $35 million in revenue, in 2010, they reported $34.2 BILLION. Many reasons behind their great success lies in their ability to sway customers into trusting them as a merchant, and helping them make wise purchasing decisions.
Amazon’s customer review section is a main highlight of any product page. Customers want to know that the product being sold is of good quality, especially since online shopping misses the ability to feel, smell, and try the product in person. By being able to see the opinions of those who have already received or used the product, a purchaser can get a much better feeling about the product. Products with high reviews usually produce great results for the merchant since people feel more comfortable purchasing well-liked products.
It’s important to encourage users of your product, website, or service to provide you or a retailer with their opinion of your products. Amazon will send a customer an email remainder a few weeks after purchasing a product, asking them to please review their recent purchase. The more interaction you can get from your customers, the more active, current, and reputable your business and service will appear.
However, when soliciting reviews from your customers, it’s important to not entice users into lying for you. Honest reviews are still by the best form of interaction with future customers. While many retailers are afraid of receiving negative reviews, we think it’s actually not that bad. If you have mediocre to bad reviews within a mass of good reviews, rather than having 100% great reviews, the opinions look more valid and reliable.
It’s important to not abuse reviews, and make sure that the creation of reviews is honest and truthful. If you have a great product, and customer service to match it, there should be no issues in getting reviews from happy customers. Many business owners do not see the benefit in taking time to talk to their customers about reviews, however studies show that by simply adding a few testimonials to your website, you can see a massive increase in customer conversions.
