Table of Contents
Imagine if you could increase your eCommerce sales by 31% with one simple strategy. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it’s not. It’s the power of eCommerce product reviews.
eCommerce product reviews are online word-of-mouth marketing. They can help you build trust, credibility, loyalty with your customers, and so on.
That’s what this ultimate guide is all about. We’ll show you everything you need to know about eCommerce product reviews, from collecting to displaying to managing them. Check out for some tips and best practices along the way as well!
Ready to take your business to the next level with eCommerce product reviews? Then let’s dive in!
| 💡 Recommend reading: |
What Are eCommerce Product Reviews?
eCommerce product reviews are the ratings and comments customers leave after buying or using a product on an eCommerce website. It’s usually about the product’s features, quality, performance, or value.
eCommerce product reviews are more than just customer feedback. They are powerful tools that can influence customer perceptions and purchase decisions.
eCommerce product reviews are effective social proofs to attract customers
How? By providing social proof.
Social proof is the idea that people are more likely to follow the actions of others to conform and make decisions. This means customers tend to rely on others’ opinions online before purchasing a product.
| 💡 According to research by Entrepreneur, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. |
eCommerce product reviews help build trust and credibility with potential customers. They can also help you improve your SEO ranking, and increase your conversion rate and sales.
We’ll discuss these benefits in more detail in the next section.
Why Are eCommerce Product Reviews Important?
1. Trust and credibility
Trust is a key factor in online shopping.
Customers want to know they are buying from a reliable seller. They also want to know that their products are high quality and meet their expectations.
However, customers can’t really trust an online seller, selling products they have never seen or physically touched before.
This lack of reliability can be solved with eCommerce product reviews.
Product reviews can provide social proof that other customers have bought and liked the products. They can also provide honest and unbiased feedback about product features, quality, performance, or value.
| 💡 Entrepreneur also mentioned 72% of consumers say positive reviews make them trust a business more. |
2. Online visibility and search engine rankings
Trust is not the only benefit of eCommerce product reviews. It can also help you improve your online visibility and search engine rankings.
Search engines love fresh and relevant content. They reward websites that provide useful and updated information for their users.
By providing fresh and relevant content for your eCommerce website, product reviews can add new keywords, phrases, and topics to your product pages.
3. Conversion rates and sales
eCommerce product reviews can also help you increase your conversion rates and sales.
They can help customers make informed and confident purchase decisions. Moreover, it supports customers overcome objections, doubts, or concerns about the products.
| 💡 Entrepreneur found out 92% of consumers will buy from a local business if they have at least a 5-star rating.
Moreover, displaying reviews can increase conversion rates by 270%. |
How To Get More eCommerce Product Reviews?
Getting more eCommerce product reviews is not as hard as it may seem. You just need to follow some tips and strategies that can motivate your customers to leave reviews.
1. Ask for a review through email
Email is a direct and personal way to communicate with your customers.
You can use email to send timely and personalized requests for reviews after they have purchased or received your products.
Here are some tips:
- Send the email at the right time. You don’t want to ask for a review too soon or too late. A good rule of thumb is to send the email within two weeks of delivery.
- Use a catchy subject line. You want to grab your customers’ attention and entice them to open your email. You can use questions, emojis, or personalization to make your subject line stand out.
For example: “How do you like your new shoes? 😍”, “We’d love to hear from you, [name]!”, or “You’ve got something to say…and we’re listening!”
- Write a friendly and concise message. You want to thank your customers for their purchases and explain why their feedback is important.
For example: “Thank you for choosing us! Your opinion matters to us and other customers looking for the perfect pair of shoes. Could you please take a minute to share your thoughts on our website?”
- Offer an incentive or reward. You can offer customers a discount code, a gift, a loyalty point, or a chance to win a prize for leaving a review.
For example: “As a token of our appreciation, we’ll send you a 10% off coupon code for your next purchase once you complete your review!”
You can ask for eCommerce product reviews via emails
2. Provide exceptional customer experiences
Another way to get more eCommerce product reviews is to provide exceptional customer experiences. Customers are likelier to leave positive reviews if they are satisfied with your products and services.
- Sell outstanding products. You want to sell products that meet or exceed your customers’ quality, performance, value, and design expectations.
- Offer free shipping and returns. Customers want fast, reliable, and affordable shipping options. They also want flexible and hassle-free return policies if they change their mind or receive a faulty product.
- Provide excellent customer service and delivery times. Customers value speedy, reliable, and friendly customer service agents who can answer their questions and resolve their issues quickly and effectively.
- Personalize your communication and offers. Create personalized communication and offer that match customers’ preferences, interests, behavior, and history.
3. Use tools and apps to collect and display reviews
Using tools and apps is another way to get more eCommerce product reviews.
These can automate sending review requests, collecting feedback, moderating reviews, displaying ratings and comments, generating social proof widgets, etc.
There are many tools and apps available for eCommerce platforms that can help you get more product reviews.
⭐ One of the best options for Shopify store owners is Ali Reviews, a powerful app that allows you to import product reviews from AliExpress or other sources and display the reviews beautifully on their website.
It offers comprehensive solutions to optimize eCommerce product reviews, such as customizing review widgets, sending automated review request emails with incentives, displaying photo/ video reviews with social proof popups, etc.
Ali Reviews is a great app for getting eCommerce product reviews
What Are The Four Types Of Reviews?
So far, we have discussed why and how to get more eCommerce product reviews.
But did you know you can collect and display different reviews on your website? Each type of review has its benefits and challenges, and you should know how to use them effectively.
In this section, we will introduce four types of reviews commonly used in eCommerce: business reviews and seller ratings, product reviews and ratings, photo reviews, and video reviews.
1. Business reviews and seller ratings
Business reviews and seller ratings are feedback from customers about your overall business performance and reputation.
Business reviews and seller ratings are important for building trust and credibility with potential customers.
They can also help you improve your online visibility and SEO rankings, especially on platforms like Google Shopping or Amazon.
🔍 Where do business reviews and seller ratings appear?
Business reviews and seller ratings can appear on various platforms and websites. Some of them are:
- Google My Business: This free tool allows you to create and manage your business profile on Google.
You can display your business name, address, phone number, website, hours, photos, etc. You can also collect and respond to customer reviews and ratings on Google Search and Maps.
Google My Business is one of eCommerce product reviews
- Amazon Seller Ratings: This feature allows customers to rate and review sellers on Amazon.
You can display your seller name, feedback score, feedback percentage, etc. You can also collect and respond to customer reviews and ratings on Amazon.
Amazon Seller Rating is one of eCommerce product reviews
| ⭐ Seller reviews best practices
You may not understand how search engines like Google and Bing use seller ratings to rank your online store in retail search results. Still, you should understand how important business reviews are for your success: you need them to win your customer’s trust and make them focus more on the products you’re selling on your website. |
2. Product reviews and ratings
Product reviews and ratings are feedback from customers about specific products they have bought or used.
Product reviews and ratings are important for providing social proof and information to your potential customers.
They can also help you increase conversion and sales rates, reduce return rates, and enhance customer loyalty.
🔍 Where do product reviews appear?
You can usually find product reviews on eCommerce websites and big online marketplaces like Amazon or Google Shopping.
If you use eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify, you need to turn on reviews with native apps on the platform or third-party apps and extensions.
You can find product reviews on eCommerce platforms or online marketplaces
⭐ Product reviews best practices
|
3. Photo reviews
Photo reviews are feedback customers leave about specific products they have bought or used, along with photos of themselves or the products.
They usually include a star rating, a photo, and a written comment about the product’s features, quality, performance, or value.
🔍 Where do photo reviews appear?
You can often see photo reviews on Google platforms, Amazon, eBay, and other online marketplaces.
They let customers add one or more photos along with their text. They do this because they know that customers are more likely to buy a product when they see how it looks in real life.
Another place where you can find photo reviews is on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
For some products and audiences, content that shows up on social media can also make a big difference in their choice of one product over another.
Photo reviews also appear on eCommerce platforms or online marketplaces
| ⭐ Photo reviews best practices
Photo reviews are harder to use on your site than text reviews. This is because native apps on Shopify and other platforms don’t usually offer many options for photo reviews on the seller or product pages. Third-party apps like Ali Reviews can help you with that. It provides galleries that you can put in different sections on your web pages, displaying powerful photo reviews closer to the point of sale. |
4. Video reviews
Video reviews are feedback customers leave about specific products they have bought or used, along with videos of themselves or the products.
They usually include a star rating, a video, and a written comment about the product.
🔍 Where do video reviews appear?
Video reviews are not easy to show on eCommerce websites without the help of third-party apps, just like photo reviews.
But unlike photo reviews, video reviews are not very common (or possible) on Google, Amazon, and other online product marketplaces.
The place where you can find a lot of video reviews is YouTube.
Many people on YouTube make videos about products and brands because they get paid by the seller or want to create content their followers will like.
You can also see video reviews on social media platforms, especially Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter.
Video reviews are mostly on social media
| ⭐ Video reviews best practices
To get more video reviews for your online store, one possible way is to contact your customers and convince them to make videos about their text or photo reviews. Remember, you may also need to offer some incentives or rewards to motivate your customers to do so (discounts, coupons, etc.) Some brands use social media to their advantage. This depends a lot on your target audience, and it explains why “influencer marketing” is so popular. 💡 Fun fact: 70% of YouTube subscribers feel that they can connect with reviews from public figures on their favorite platforms and will trust their product suggestions! |
Conclusion
We have covered everything you need to know about eCommerce product reviews.
They can help you build trust and credibility and improve online visibility and search engine rankings. They can also increase conversion rates and sales.
If you want to leverage the power of eCommerce product reviews (if you’re using Shopify), check out Ali Reviews, a powerful app that allows you to import, collect, display, and manage reviews easily and effectively.
If you like our article, stay up-to-date with the latest eCommerce news and insights on OneCommerce Blog!
