The importance of product reviews for E-commerce sites

  1. Why review matter

Wholesalers usually make mistake when they underestimate the important role of product reviews for eCommerce stores. They may be overloaded by too many related issues about eCommerce sites like optimizing site design, increasing conversions, customer service and administrative tasks. However, you shouldn’t forget about customer reviews because it has strong impact on customer purchase decisions.

It is clear seen that most of customers expect and appreciate the ability to review and evaluate products before purchasing. According to data studies on November 18, 2014 by Marvck, 72% of clients trust online reviews as much as recommendations from friends or relatives, 70% customer believed in online reviews and this number increases of 15% next four years. Customer reviews come to eCommerce as an important part of testing product prior to buying products online.

Customer usually spend time to look for product ratings to know this product deserve their attention and meet their needs. Once a product has been selected, prospective customers will compare reviews to one another before they make decision of purchasing a product or not.

Asking for product reviews can also make customers feel they are part of your business and it contributes to increase loyalty. Customers are also allowed to help you with your products’ SEO  by reviews. Furthermore, the content of customer’s review can be used for search results which helps you an SEO boost.

2. What about poor reviews

Many of us think that bad reviews will have bad effect to our eCommerce sites, but according to study carrying out by AlpacaDirect.com, reviews including bad reviews still make sale increase 23% for product that have reviews enabled. Bad reviews also can help the owner can recognize the negative site of products and fix it afterward. In terms of customers, bad review can help customers know the worst scenario they can meet before purchasing. Furthermore, it seems like customers tend to be doubt about the quality of products if all reviews are positive. It is the reason why you should be always polite and professional when responding bad reviews. Remember to use bad reviews as an opportunity to upgrade your products and your service.

3. How to get more reviews

In order to get more reviews from customers or visitors for your products or service, it it necessary to let your customers know about your own value. You also need to encourage them to create reviews as soon as possible. There are three steps of the review funnel according to Jon Hall of Grade.us: getting customers into the funnel, guiding them through the review process and monitoring and responding.

          

  1. Getting customers into the funnel

Most of customers don’t have time or motivation to write a review unless they have an awful experience before. In order to avoid this problem, you can invite customers to give feedback. Usually ask for reviewing can  increase your number of reviews quickly. Try to let your customers know that their comments have strong effect to you and always follow up them. You can ask them to share their opinions or experience by send them emails, give them a call or other types of support. When sending emails or message, you need to pay attention to your using words. Instead of putting pressure on your customers, try to make them feel free to write a review because happy customers often want to help other people find a good product and also send their thanks to the brands who served them well.

  1. Guiding customer through the review process

         

The review of third-party are benefit for sites such as Yahoo, Urbanspoon, Yelp. Other customers can use the local sites to discover, evaluate and compare the same products, services as yours. however , each site has different ranking and it changes during process. Therefore, you can create a landing page to make it easy for customers to use the review site that you suggested. Your landing page should focus on reviews only. Most of us want our customers leave a  positive review but leaving a bad experience is a good idea as well because it increases trust among customers.

  1. Monitoring and responding

You should use tools such as Yahoo! Localworks, Yext to monitor what people are saying about your brand. You also need to respond any negative reviews as soon as possible because if you longer the time of responding, customers may suspicious  about your products or service. It leads to bad result in the long run.

Last but not least, you don’t need to spend time answering all comments. Instead, you just need to concentrate on answering the negative reviews and replying to the positive reviews that can highlight features that customers may not know about your brand.