The Importance of eCommerce Reviews: How Your Business Can Benefit

Bringing clients to your store is hard, and making them trust you is even harder. Let’s see what E-commerce reviews are and how they can be of great benefit to your store!

E-commerce websites are like virtual shopping malls filled with all sorts of products, but the best part? You get to hear all the juicy gossip from fellow shoppers! Yep, I'm talking about those customer reviews and comments that are so coveted, they could make or break a product's reputation. We call them "reviews" and they're a pretty big deal in the world of E-commerce. So, buckle up, and let's dive into the fascinating world of E-commerce reviews and find out what they're all about, how they can benefit your business, and what tools you can use to jumpstart your store!

What exactly are eCommerce Reviews?

"Thank your customer for complaining and mean it. Most will never bother to complain. They'll just walk away"

Marilyn Suttle

eCommerce reviews are customer feedback or testimonials about products or services that are sold through an online store. They are typically written by customers who have purchased the product or service and are used to provide other potential customers with information about the product's quality, features, and overall customer satisfaction.

eCommerce reviews can be posted on the product page of the website where the product is sold, on third-party review websites such as Yelp or Trustpilot, or on social media platforms. They can be either positive, neutral, or negative. Positive reviews can help increase customer trust and sales, while negative reviews can help customers make more informed purchasing decisions and help the eCommerce store to improve their products and services.

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eCommerce reviews typically include information such as the product name, the customer's overall rating, the customer's comments about the product, and the date the review was written. Many eCommerce platforms also include features such as the ability to sort reviews by most helpful, most recent, and highest rating.

eCommerce reviews are considered important for online businesses, as they can help to build trust and credibility with potential customers, and also provide valuable feedback for the store owner to improve their products and services.

The Surprising Benefits of eCommerce Ratings and Reviews

Ratings and Reviews allow customers to share their opinion, voice feedback, and concerns with other people and product makers along with providing a product with an overall rating, that people may use in their decision-making process.

And shoppers do rely on such reviews. Studies show that more than 99.9% of consumers read reviews at least sometimes when they are out shopping and this factor overshadows price, shipping costs, and branding.

A recent study also showed that customer-focused businesses are 60% more profitable and successful than organizations that focus on other things.

Types of Reviews

1. Simple Rating: this is a very bare-bones solution when users are only able to leave a rating without any feedback. It helps when the product is very conceptual and varies from person to person, like a digital market that catalogs wallpapers, different colors, or themes. Users would be able to sort products by reviews amount or rating, which is more than enough in such cases
2. Text Review: a very common setting nowadays, when users are able to leave detailed feedback on the product they purchased, usually paired with a rating attached. This approach requires more attention from store owners, because users may leave unrelated reviews or straight-up insult people and manufacturers with obscenities, and contain zero value for other customers. Such reviews should be moderated and removed, or in extreme cases, a demand letter is needed. Negative reviews should be handled responsibly in order to negate reputational damage for the seller.
3. Photo Review: A bit less common, but a very welcome feature for most stores that deal with physical products. Photos help other potential buyers to see what was the condition of a product other people purchased, what is the quality, and a text review on top helps to determine if people are happy or unhappy with the product. In case of constructive criticism, a photo helps the claim of a user in case the product was faulty. For software products having such a Review feature is completely unnecessary in most cases. Content moderation is required.
4. Video Review: Most advanced, taxing, and sophisticated among its peers, Video Reviews provide a great edge for stores with physical products. Potential customers are able to check not only photos of the product but videos made by other people as well. Content moderation is required.
5. Q&A - questions left by customers about your products. They can then be answered either by you or other customers. You can encourage customers to help each other by adding Loyalty program features, that would award users for constructive replies.

How To Set Up Reviews

Setting up a Review Program sounds like a complicated issue, however, if you are running a store on Shopify makes your life significantly easier. All of the solutions there offered by third parties are automated, are require little to no previous experience in order to set them up properly.

Check out this comprehensive guide on setting up Product Reviews on Your Shopify Store!

Choosing a Review App

Review programs nowadays come in all shapes and sizes. Choosing the right review app for your store and your trade volumes may a quite a task. There is no easy solution, one size fits all answer. Some store owners prefer multifunctional apps that offer not only a Reviews program, but also other features, such as Loyalty, POS, and other things, while other stores look only for a specific need to fulfill. 

With that in mind, we’ve reviewed the best software tools for customer and eCommerce reviews:

1. Growave

Growave is an all-in-one marketing platform that helps Shopify brands to reach, engage and convert their audience. One of the strongest points of the app is that it comes with a great variety of tools, such as Wishlists, Rewards and Loyalty programs, Instagram galleries, Reviews, Q&A and Social login, all while staying on the affordable side of the spectrum.

As a result, it helps your brand encourage users to share you on social media and email, while also enabling strong customer relationships with the help of loyalty programs, reviews and user-generated content.

Price: Paid plans start from $9/month.

2. Product Reviews

Shopify Product Reviews allows you to collect and share customer reviews on the product pages of your online store. Customers can rate and review products to help other people decide what to buy, and also provide valuable feedback to you.

‍Price: Free of charge

3. Rivo Product Reviews App & UGC

Price: Free of charge

Along with these make sure to check this collection of 22 Best Review Apps for Shopify!

Conclusion

Listening to your customers is the best thing you can do while setting up your eCommerce store. Giving them a voice is one of the important steps in that way. With the tools we mentioned above, you can identify your strong and weak points with the help of your most valuable critic - your customer. 

Try them all and find out which suits your needs best go out there, and build trust and loyalty with your consumer base!

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