You’ve heard it before: gathering ecommerce customer reviews should necessitate a major part of your schedule. But have you stopped to wonder why? While it’s all good and fine to let FeedbackExpress handle the fiddly bits for you, knowing why we’re such an essential part of your day can help you make smarter choices. Grab a coffee and read on!
More Stars Means More Sales
Michael Luca, a researcher at Harvard Business School, wrote a paper called Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com in which he showed that
a one-star increase in Yelp rating leads to a 5-9 percent increase in revenue
(If you want a more user-friendly version of his work, the Huffington Post dissected his research into an article that’s not as scholarly).
The numbers are pretty staggering. Looking at independent retailers, Luca saw big jumps in sales when ratings increased by one star, such as from three to four, or four to five. Chain retailers didn’t see the same jump, which means you, the indie ecommerce merchant, need to be paying really close attention.
But Don’t Start Paying People for Excellent Reviews
In a separate piece, The Economist found that merchants should maintain strong ethics in their search for better ecommerce customer reviews to avoid gaining a reputation as a huckster. Not only is it the right thing to do, but Amazon and other sites aren’t shy about whipping out lawsuits to counteract these fake reviews — and being sunk by a mountain of paperwork, legal fees and court dates is the last thing any merchant needs.
Instead, Focus on How to Get Customer Reviews that’s Strongest in the Long Term
You’ve no doubt heard of a site called Airbnb, no? Anyone who’s ever hosted knows that the biggest hurdle is getting that first guest — but how to get that first guest without any reviews telling them it’s a good place to stay? It’s tempting to look to sites that’ll post reviews for you as getting a bump up, but that’s only a short-term fix. If you’re not sure how to get over that hump, we wrote a post a little while back with concrete tips on how to get reviews.
Once you’ve started to amass a little nest of customer reviews, the next step is to remember why it’s important: they have a direct correlation with conversion and sales. The more (and better) reviews you have, the higher your chances of converting hits to sales.
Think about it from the shopper’s perspective for a second. Back in ye olden days, they could walk into a brick-and-mortar store and peruse the aisles. If they came upon an object that tickled their fancy, they could pick it up and examine it closely, using all their senses to make a judgement about it. They got real-time information on the object’s size, colour, shape, weight and durability and could decide then and there if they would buy it.
That luxury is lost in online stores, where consumers have to trust the merchant’s description. And unfortunately, not every merchant is as savvy as they need to be in accurately describing what they’re selling. That’s where customer reviews come into play. A new would-be buyer can look at what previous buyers’ experiences are and use that in lieu of being able to check out the item themselves.
Plus, Don’t Forget This Neat Little Tidbit
Quick, name one of the best ways you can rank higher in online searches. If you said adding novel content to your site, you’re absolutely right! One of the most common ways of doing that is through blog posts, but super smart merchants know you can utilise user reviews as well (hello, SEO!). Just make sure those reviews are in plaintext HTML and ease up on the cookies/Flash/JavaScript/whatever else, and you’ll stake a place in the indexation line.
We’ve just thrown a lot at you, so don’t worry if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed. That’s what FeedbackExpress is for. We’ve got specially-trained squirrels carrying out the little tasks you might forget about, all so you can focus on the bigger picture. And to sweeten things up, we’re giving you the first 14 days on us when you sign up for your free trial!
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