Are You Making the Most of Your Ecommerce Reviews?

There’s an old saying: You can’t please all the people all the time. Not everyone will like the products you put out there, no matter how hard you try. The good thing is, whether your feedback is good or bad, you can use it all to boost your ecommerce business. Instead of hiding anything less than three stars, bring it all out into the light. Make the most of every review—not just the good ones. How can you use those negative reviews to grow your business, you ask? Here are some ways to make the most of your ecommerce reviews.

Give Credibility to All Reviews

Consumers are naturally suspicious people. As awesome as a product with 5-star reviews across the board may seem, our first thought is always “Where’s the catch?” When you add the recent review-plumping scandals—instances where company owners paid for glowing reviews they didn’t deserve—those high ratings look even more suspicious. When your feedback features a little negativity, the positive reviews look a little more realistic.

Provide Real and Valuable Information

By providing a review space on your ecommerce site, you give customers a chance to read real, helpful information about the products. For instance, if you sell apparel, your customers may leave reviews warning future buyers that one style is shorter than usual, so tall people may have trouble. That saves you the cost of returns when hundreds of tall people send their new jeans back.

Benefit from SEO

A review space on your site can help you pull in more traffic for specific products. For instance, if you use a more formal name for one of your products—such as “hooded sweatshirt” vs. “hoodie” or “ottoman” vs. “footstool” as the above referenced article shows—the customer reviews that mention the product by the less formal name will help you get found.

Also, when people search for reviews of your products, they should land on your page. If you don’t provide feedback space for your customers, those searchers will instead land on third-party review sites like Yelp! or Angie’s List. If they find the reviews on your site, they can add the item to the cart as soon as they’re convinced. You don’t want to give those who are ready to buy one more step, do you?

Give Necessary Social Proof

If you’re in a store with several types of beer to choose from, you might just wait until someone else grabs a six-pack before choosing the same thing. The less a buyer knows about a product, the more likely they’ll be to copy others. This is called “social default bias.” On your website, buyers will use reviews to help them make a choice. Because of social default bias, that choice will often be the most popular, highest-reviewed products. Without the assistance of reviews, they may experience choice paralysis and buy nothing.

No one wants that.

To make the most of ecommerce reviews, you really must provide a review portal on your site. A solution that allows for reviews on individual product pages is the best, but an overall review page will certainly help, too. For a quick look at the best way to offer consumer reviews on-site, check out Amazon.com or ModCloth.com. Both of these companies do a great job of allowing for social proof.

The right ecommerce platform should include all the things you need for success, and we’re committed to providing them. When you’re ready to open up reviews on your ecommerce site, we can help.