Planning to buy something online? The most likely way you would proceed is:
Step 1: Search the product.
Step 2: Check the online website offering the product.
Step 3: Read the product reviews and customer rating.
Step 4: Decide if you want to buy from the site or proceed to next site.
Step 5: Repeat step 1 to 4.
There is no denying that customer reviews are a powerful tool and greatly influence the buying decisions of online shoppers. They go a long way in creating the value of your brand and can influence your sales and overall performance of your store.
To evaluate the importance of online reviews let’s check some facts:
- 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
- 90% consumers read online reviews before visiting a business.
- 31% consumers are inclined to spend on business with excellent reviews.
- 72% of consumers feel that positive reviews make them trust online selling websites more.
- 92% users will use a local business if it has four star or above rating.
- 72% online shoppers will purchase only after reading positive reviews.
- 39% customers read reviews regularly.
- 67% of consumers read up to 6 reviews.
- 85% of customers read up to 10 reviews.
- 7% of consumers read 20+ reviews.
Source: Search Engine Land
Why Online Customer Reviews is a must have feature for online website?
Online reviews have the potential to make or break a sale for your store. If used strategically, the quality and quantity of reviews can help your brand gain an edge over your competitors.
The comments and reviews added by your buyers offers huge benefits for your online brand:
Influences Customers’ Opinion of Your Brand
If you have rolled out a new store you know how difficult it is to compete with the established players in the market. Building trust and a good reputation needs time, patience and exceptionally good product and services.
When you sell products online, the positive reviews posted by your customers can influence other visitors and build trust about your brand. This would finally bring better sales for your website.
Third Party Unbiased Vote
You like a dress online and decide to buy it. You go through the product description to check the specifications of the dress and material and have almost decided to go for it. Wouldn’t it be icing on the cake if you get to read some reviews that answer your queries about; the overall softness of the material, the garment fit, whether the color is same as shown in the product image, did the product arrive on time etc.
Getting unbiased insight through individual users adds a trust vote for your brand and its products. When you build online store adding reviews feature to the site, helps you to reduce the frequency of calls asking about additional information of the product and saves your support team much time in answering queries about product.
Portrays your brand as Customer Centric
Online reviews not only build trust and credibility for your brand but also show your store in positive light. By allowing them to voice their opinion freely, you are portraying your brand as customer centric.
If you allow advanced review options like uploading videos and picture reviews, you are perceived as a trendy brand that greatly values customer opinion. The facts and figures clearly indicate that 9 out of 10 users consult user reviews of a new online store to make their final purchase decision. With majority of users tuning in to hear what others are saying, not having customer reviews can only portray you as fishy, scammer or unreliable business.
Loved by Google
Google and other search engines give preference to sites with regular, valuable and unique content updates. Having customer reviews on your site is the easiest and smartest to achieve all this.
If, you use this content strategically and format in the Google desirable way, you hold a chance to be listed as “rich content” site on Google. Also, regular updates on online selling websites allows to increase their visibility and helps them in ranking high on SERPs.
Improved Conversions
Having lots of reviews ultimately results in a better buying decision for your customers. Let’s go back to the beginning of the stepwise procedure which describes how an online shopper makes his buying decision.
If the buyer gets sufficient reviews at Step 3, and the product prices are competitive, instead of moving to another site, he would stick to the website as too many reviews infuse trust and helps in making a final decision. Whether you have rolled out a new online store or have been in the market for some time, having online reviews of your products can certainly boost your sales by increasing customer trust.
Conclusion
With so many obvious benefits of online reviews no online business can dare to ignore it. Keep watching this space as the expert team of StoreHippo ecommerce platform will release updates on this topic and give you “Tips to increase Online reviews.”
If you have any comments or suggestions on this topic feel free to post it in comments below.
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