Customer reviews have become a feature of many online stores. Many users seek recommendations and reviews of the products they want to buy. They are looking for a wide range of information: opinions about the brand, the quality of the product, the material, its performance, and many other aspects.

In this post, we are going to explain the role of customer reviews and recommendations when buying a product in an eCommerce.

Types of customer reviews and opinions

Customer reviews can vary greatly, but they all have the same goal: Customer reviews can vary widely, but they all have the same goal: to provide feedback on their experience of buying a product or with a particular brand.

Online stores can offer the possibility for the customer to post a review on their own store's website. If not, users have resources to talk about their shopping experience on other channels (forums, YouTube, social networks...). Be aware, therefore, that reviews are inevitable for any store with a certain level of sales, so be prepared to receive criticism and take all necessary measures to address customer complaints.

These are some of the types of product reviews that can be found:

• Rating: This is when users rate their satisfaction with the product with stars or numbers.
• Reporting: these are comments or opinions about the products in your online store. These usually appear on the product page itself.

It is important to note that sometimes comments may also contain multimedia content (User-generated content). For example, a picture with a newly purchased product is commonly known as "unboxing." It may also contain a short video in case your eCommerce platform allows you to send this type of user-created content.

However, keep in mind that if users do not find opinions about your products, they will search for them on Google, your social networks, or any specialized forum, which means that your product or your brand will be talked about in one way or another.

Why do customer opinions influence the purchasing decision?

Potential customers of an online store want to have an idea of what to expect after purchasing a product. They want to know if there are negative aspects of the product that they should be aware of, as well as how many people are not satisfied with the purchased product.

Many users will give more credibility to other buyers who have already purchased that product (and preferably on the same website) than to advertisements or any other type of self-serving commercial communication. The reason is obvious; a non-self-serving opinion gives us a more complete picture of whether or not the product is right for us.

Reviews play an important role in a customer's decision. We tend to think that if there is a high percentage of people who don't like a product, chances are that it will happen to us too. In some cases, a product review is not about the item itself but about the brand's delivery performance, whether they met the deadline and whether the order was in good condition.

Reviews are, therefore, a double-edged sword: on the one hand, they can help you build trust in your products and services. On the other hand, they can alert other users that a product did not offer them a good buying experience. Negative reviews of a product can influence users' purchasing decisions and make them decide not to buy the product.

Therefore, there are 3 essential aspects that you must take into account in your online store:

• Users look for reviews, critiques, and opinions of the products they are going to buy.
• Potential buyers of your online store can be influenced by both positive and negative reviews.
• Having negative reviews on a product is a sign that the store is transparent and provides reliable information to the user.

Is your business taking advantage of the potential of reviews?

It is likely that your online store does not allow users to leave a comment on the product they have purchased. You may fear that this information will be made public, and if the customer is not satisfied, it will hurt your sales. 

But remember that the opposite can also happen; they may like the product, and you may get a valuable recommendation from a buyer, which will help you generate more sales.

The cost-benefit ratio between allowing or not allowing reviews on your online store is obvious. It is in your best interest to give users the opportunity to express themselves, which will also provide you with information about products that do not meet your customers' expectations, and perhaps you should remove them from the market or reduce stock.

Remember that the Internet is a communication space where a large number of people allow us to filter information to gain knowledge about the advantages of a product. When a product receives many negative reviews, we must be consistent and avoid trying to sell a product that only receives poor reviews if our goal is to provide maximum value to the customer and improve our brand recognition. 

Nevertheless, it should be assumed that it is almost impossible for 100% of the reviews of a product to be positive. This is usually the case when the product has had few sales, although the higher the number of sales of a product, the more statistically likely it is that a negative review will appear.

There are products that can go viral, improve their organic positioning on Google and receive a high percentage of conversions simply because you got a review, which convinced one person to leave a comment, and then another until you generated a sum of reviews that allowed you to increase your conversion rate considerably.

We hope you now understand the importance of reviews for an online store. At Webmefy, we are working to help you improve all those areas that can increase your conversion rate and increase the profitability of your eCommerce. If you want to continue improving your online store, we invite you to contact us now. We have partnered with the best-in-class platforms of review that have amazing integrations with Shopify to take your online store strategy to the next level.