How do you decide to buy a particular product from the variety of similar ones available online? If you’re a thoughtful shopper, you might look at the reviews and decide which product to finally go for.

According to research conducted by Nielsen, approximately 73 percent of online respondents use reviews to make purchase decisions. 

“Perhaps no other form of review is more credible than word-of-mouth testimonials from satisfied customers, whether in person or online via reviews and social media,” added Patrick Dodd, Chief Commercial Officer at Nielsen.

3Dcart also analyzed that reviews make buyers 71 percent more comfortable while purchasing a product. Hence, regardless of the nature of the customers’ opinion, brands should read and act upon the reviews as they can define the volume of sales for an e-commerce business.

This can give you a hint on the significance of reviews.

An Influential Marketing Tool for Free

Advertisement, print, video, or social media banners are, no doubt, important means of marketing as they have been effective product promotional tools for ages. Reviews and ratings are a new-age marketing tool, and the best part is that it is absolutely free and user-generated. Some e-commerce businesses show the number of reviews and star ratings received with their ads as proof of their performance.

Impact Buying Decisions

Recent statistical research shows that nearly 95 percent of consumers report that customer reviews influence their buying decision. Buyers read them thoroughly to know the pros and cons of a product before they purchase it. On Amazon, reviews that they find useful are voted as helpful by the reader. As the count of helpful votes increases, Amazon starts moving them above to increase their visibility. Following this process, the 8 most helpful reviews are displayed on the top including both negative and positive irrespective of the ratings.

Increase Conversion Rate

Reviews are a kind of assurance for the customers that they are looking at the right products and whether they should consider buying them or not. So, they have a significant contribution in increasing the conversion rates and performance of your ads. When product reviews talk about the product’s features, online shoppers are influenced by it more than what brands would market. 

Research by Power Reviews shows that the conversion rate of consumers who interact with the reviews is 108.4 percent higher than those who don’t. Among these, the maximum is those who click the ‘helpful’ button.

Another Research by Power Reviews shows that post-Covid, the consumers reading the reviews are 50 percent higher than pre-Covid, and reviews now have a 25 percent higher influence on conversion.

Builds a Relationship of Trust with the Customers

Unlike a physical store, e-commerce sites do not have an assistant to ask questions about the product. Since they cannot touch or feel it before buying, all they have is the information and images to rely on and assess the looks and quality. Giving buyers an opportunity to share their thoughts about the product along with providing them rich content helps build a relationship of trust with them. Equally important is to act upon the review, positive or negative, to maintain this trust.

Boosts SEO

Most businesses think that for successful SEO, they need only keyword-optimized rich content in the form of articles, blogs, infographics, PPT Vlogs, etc., to rank higher on the search engine result page. But user-generated content like reviews potentially breaks this myth. When buyers post a review on your e-commerce website, they give search engines rich, authentic, keyword-optimized content, something that is food for Google and search engines of Amazon and other e-commerce channels to increase product rankings. 

Summary

Customer reviews are a potent way to help an e-commerce business grow and expand. Therefore, a brand should frequently assess customer reviews. They are a good way to evaluate the performance of the business and identify the shortcomings that are inducing a lag in growth. A customer review is an honest opinion which reflects the positives as well as negatives of an e-commerce business. If you are getting good feedback, you are gaining popularity over your competitors and among your target audience. Such feedbacks bring brand awareness and help a business develop a reputation among its buyers. They are a motivation for you to work hard, improve your product quality, and expand. Reviews matter a lot. So, use the tips and tricks given above to improve and increase customer reviews for your e-commerce website. It is important for a brand to regularly and easily track and segregate the reviews in actionable buckets.