Profitero: The power of consumer reviews

Consumers are 2.4 times more likely to trust content created by other consumers than branded content. That’s why consumers love reading reviews and why 97% of shoppers consult other consumers before making an online purchase. In fact, online shopping reviews are 3.5 times more important to consumers’ purchasing decisions than reviews from their friends and family.

Profitero’s research found:

1. Review new products as soon as possible

Adding just one review on a product will nearly double its sales on Amazon, and going from 1 review to 50 reviews will double it again. After that, the sales impact starts to wane. This means brands should focus on getting authentic reviews for new products as quickly as possible.

2. Keep adding fresh reviews, because freshness is important

While increasing the number of reviews is important, it’s not enough. Brands also need to pay attention to review “velocity” or “freshness.” Even a small increase in new reviews per month can lead to a significant increase in sales for a product. For example, in the United States, increasing the growth rate of new reviews from an average of 1.0-4.9% per month to 5.0-9.9% per month can increase product sales by 206%.

Also, pay attention to the quality of recently added reviews. Top brands track review freshness and quality, i.e., minimizing the proportion of new negative reviews.

3. Use reviews to drive traffic to your product pages

You might think that increasing the number of product reviews would help consumers who are considering a purchase, thereby aiding conversions. While this is true, the more important role of reviews is to drive more traffic to your product page.

When products went from zero reviews to at least one review, they saw a huge boost in traffic on Amazon: 188% in the US and 308% in the UK. For top-selling items, these numbers were even higher.

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