Comments on: 70% of Online Shoppers Read Multiple Product Reviews

By: Family and Marriage Counselor

Family and Marriage Counselor — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:31:14 +0000

Not only do I pay more attention to customer reviews online, I now write more reviews myself.

It almost seems an obligation as I’ve derived so much benefit from others experiences.

By: mystery shopper

mystery shopper — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:00:42 +0000

Speaking as someone who purchases more on-line than I do from the store, I can say that I rarely make a new purchase without looking first at customer reviews, and though I mostly read reviews after I’ve narrowed my search, I sometimes use them preliminarily, as a way of finding those products that stand out. I agree with Dr. Pete’s observation regarding those reviewers who either love or hate just about everything, but I think an experienced on-line shopper learns to cull the wheat from the chaff in terms of useful reviews fairly quickly.

By: customer service experience

customer service experience — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 03:54:01 +0000

Very interesting article. I think we’re going to see a huge increase in the amount of money spent on online customer experience research. I know some companies have begun implementing mystery shopping programs to measure this online customer experience.

By: Steve Watts

Steve Watts — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:53:04 +0000

I had an interesting discussion about this on the Church of the Customer blog about the efficacy of online word-of-mouth versus real-life word of mouth.

My position fell right along with the information provided here, that online word-of-mouth’s advantage is sheer volume–meaning I can potentially read dozens of opinions on a product before purchasing, which is a powerful way to build market trust and brand awareness.

By: Michelle Greer

Michelle Greer — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:00:38 +0000

I passed this on to my boss and we are evaluating options for better placed reviews for Volusion’s shopping cart. Thank you.

By: Kelly Rusk

Kelly Rusk — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:11:07 +0000

I think it’s also important for a company to have an action plan for bad reviews–if a site just has good reviews, it looks suspicious. However, if management responds to negative reviews in a timely and compassionate manner, it’s like bonus points.

By: Local Advertising Journal

Local Advertising Journal — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:06:01 +0000

We’ve seen a ton of articles on this exact subject recently. The consumers are definitely gaining more control despite the fact that business could skew some reviews by posting positive ones of their own but like Michelle said, more businesses should encourage their customers to leave positive feedback. It may certainly help their overall sales!

By: Jonathan Wolf

Jonathan Wolf — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:41:50 +0000

Michelle’s comment is dead-on. At Bazaarvoice, our Marketing Services team works closely with every client to deploy tailored strategies from our library of best practices to encourage customers to leave as many reviews, questions, answers, and Stories as possible!

By: Michelle Greer

Michelle Greer — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:24:44 +0000

Merchants all seem to know that reviews are effective. What they don’t know is how to encourage customers to leave them. Perhaps deploying some of the techniques seen in Bry-an’s video, particularly putting the reviews above the fold, would make the whole process more visible.

By: Pay Per Click Advertising Roundup for Monday 2/25/08 | semvironment

Pay Per Click Advertising Roundup for Monday 2/25/08 | semvironment — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:29:32 +0000

[...] 70% of Online Shoppers Read Multiple Product Reviews – Wow! That is a lot more than I expected…one of the first bold statements in this post states that “Almost 70% of customers looked at more than 4 reviews before making a purchase.” This is definitely a “must read” post! [...]

By: Dr. Pete

Dr. Pete — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:51:41 +0000

Interesting… I find myself wondering a lot lately about what e-commerce sites can do to improve the usefulness of reviews. The big problem I have, especially on hotel sites, is that you seem to be able to find a group of people who love and hate just about everything, and so often the reviews (as much as I think I want them) leave me more confused than when I started. Structured feedback like your pros-and-cons idea is definitely a direction I think we’ll see more of.