Customer Reviews Can Help Your Ecommerce Business
One way you can boost your conversion rates on your ecommerce Web site is to offer customer reviews. In an interview with Brett Hurt, CEO of Bazaarvoice, e-Consultancy offers some insight into how effective customer reviews can be.
We’ve seen it can lift conversion 20% or more on an e-commerce site. We’ve seen it increase more highly in some cases, and nearly doubling in a couple of cases.
As for average order value, we have seen rises in the order of between 15% and 30%.
Hurt points out that for most online retailers, the conversion rate is 2.6% This means that the conversion rate can be increased dramatically, just by adding customer reviews of a product.
Customers, especially in the U.S., want to feel as though they are getting a good quality product. They want to know what others think about the product, since manufacturers and online retailers aren’t likely to disclose what it’s really like to use the product or service in real life.
Bazaarvoice offers a service that handles customer reviews for ecommerce Web sites. The idea is to help companies save money overall by handling the reviews. Reviews need to be moderated for profanity and spam, as well as for “seeding.” (Seeding is when a manufacturer or retailer posts an overly-postive review of its own product — this can actually be damaging to an online reputation.) Hurt points out that his service can be cost-efficient, depending on how many customer reviews an ecommerce Web site deals with:
Overstock.com, one of our clients in the US, used to do this in-house and we cost about half of what they used to spend internally. They had around six people reading reviews full time.
No matter how you do it, though, customer reviews can be a great help to ecommerce businesses. Online shoppers like to read them, and they are more likely to buy a product or service from a company that offers them the ability to see what others think.
Tags: ecommerce, ecommerce businesses, online shoppers, ecommerce Web sites,
Bazaarvoice, customer reviews
Posted by Miranda | December 27, 2007
That Software Guy December 27th, 2007
Nielsen also says Word of Mouth is a critical component of your marketing mix:
http://thecartblog.com/2007/10/02/nielsen-word-of-mouth-is-tops/
That Software Guy
Marc December 28th, 2007
Great article.
Your readers might want to try http://www.Measuredup.com a leading customer service review website where people share reviews with other users and with companies. Companies that are involved with and value customer service read Measuredup to keep up on what people are saying and to be able to improve customer service.
It is free and easy to use.
http://www.Measuredup.com
Miranda December 29th, 2007
Thanks for the info, Software Guy and Marc! It’s amazing how many review Web sites are out there now. And more are likely to keep coming. Online shoppers are especially interested in thoroughly researching products before buying, and part of that process is finding out what other “real world” users have to say about the products.
Shopping Cart Junkie December 31st, 2007
It seems that just about anything which reduces customer anxiety is crucial. Testimonials (real ones) can go a long ways as well.
Miranda January 1st, 2008
Thanks Shopping Cart Junkie! This is a valid point. In ecommerce, many are wary of products that can’t touch or test before they buy. Having real testimonials and product reviews can go a long way toward helping customers, especially those new to the online shopping experience, feel more comfortable.
Idris March 6th, 2008
You said it right… Online shopper definitely love to hear the product’s performance before they buy. The major disadvantage of eCommerce is that one cannot touch the product to see how it works, to fill this gap people (online shopper) look out for reviews of those customers (consumers) who have already used the product.
Customer reviews are factual ad campaign generated by users and it has its own value. In other words, i’d say it act as an Online judgement tool.
You can also view this blog post related to UGC (User Generated Content)
http://www.retail-ecommerce.com/2008/02/customer-reviews-trump-card-for-online.html
Miranda March 7th, 2008
Thanks, Idris! I agree that customer reviews can be very helpful for products that you never see before you buy.
Ed Peaslee June 26th, 2008
Customer reviews are absolutely critical to constant improvement and innovation. So many people create a product and never really find out what people think about it or how it can be improved. There’s a company called Mindshare that creates specific surveys like that.