In today’s competitive times, the online world is flooded with eCommerce stores. When a user looks for particular products over the internet, how would he decide whether to buy them from your store or not? The reputation of the online store matters a lot when a customer makes an online purchase. For that, online customer reviews are the most essential part of your business reputation.

Product reviews have become a powerful tool that affects the sales of eCommerce stores. Customer reviews persuade people to make purchases from your store. Product reviews help to build trust and loyalty among your users. They can help users make the right educated decisions when shopping for products online.
Today, we will throw some light on how customer reviews influence the eCommerce store sales online and how to convince the users to leave the product reviews.

Benefits of customer reviews for eCommerce stores

Customers reviews impact the buying decisions

Positive reviews and ratings left by the consumers help online shoppers make the right buying decisions. A lot of millennials read product reviews online before purchasing products online. They analyze the reviews and reduce the risk of making bad decisions when shopping online.

Customer reviews give sellers good insights about what their potential customers like. They help the eCommerce owners understand the preferences of the users. This can help them plan their activities in the right direction to increase eCommerce sales.

1. Reviews help to build trust and credibility

Customer reviews can build trust and credibility among your users. The potential clients may be confused and skeptical about purchasing products from your store. If they are able to find customer reviews and testimonials on your site, it creates a sense of trust and credibility about your brand. Positive reviews or mixed reviews would be able to make new and existing customers build trust for your brand.

2. Reviews boost Search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO is a must for eCommerce stores. Most of the eCommerce owners who do not realize the importance of SEO may be facing a lot of losses in their business. Customer reviews help the search engines get information about the products you sell and improve the search engine visibility of your eCommerce website. You can curate the keywords in reviews and achieve higher search rankings in Google.

Useful Read: Small Business SEO – The Complete Guide 2020

How to convince customers to leave reviews?

Getting customers’ reviews may not be an easy task. Most of the shoppers may not have enough time for writing and submitting reviews on your eCommerce stores. We have listed some of the great ways that can help you get some enticing reviews from your customers.

1. Start asking the customers for reviews directly

You can send an email to your customers asking them to submit their feedback or reviews. Once a customer has purchased a product from your store, you can send an automated email asking for the reviews. You can send such emails within one week of their purchase. On-site requests and follow-up emails can be good ways to collect customer reviews for your eCommerce store.

2. Offer some rewards or incentives

Incentives are a great way to pull the attention of the crowd when it comes to collecting reviews from your customers.

You can offer a discount coupon code or freebies to them for writing product reviews. Loyalty points program or rewards programs can also work wonders for most of the eCommerce stores. Offer them coupon codes in exchange of reviews so that they can make another purchase from your website.

3. Ask for photos along with reviews

People love snapping photos and sending along with the reviews. You can ask the customers to send pictures along with reviews so that your users can get a better idea of what the actual product looks like. Online shoppers cannot see the product in real, and so, they would be able to see the images and get an idea of how it looks. Images and videos tell a lot about the products rather than just text reviews.

4. Ask questions and get answers

It can be a good idea to send a questionnaire to your users and ask them to answer them. Once you have the answers to those questions, you can frame the paragraphs and post them on your eCommerce stores. Take the consent of the users before posting the reviews. Let them know that you would be posting their reviews on your eCommerce shops.

5. Reviewing should be easy

The worst thing a customer could face is a tedious and lengthy review submission process. Make the review process easier for the users. They should be able to save time and effort while submitting their product or service reviews on your site. Let the registered users leave feedback for your products once they have completed the purchase and items are successfully delivered to them.

How to handle the incoming reviews?

You may get a lot of customer reviews for the products you sell online. You cannot post all the reviews directly. First, monitor them and then post them online. Here are some handy ways to help you moderate your reviews and post the most appropriate ones:

1. Moderate each and every review before posting

Make a plan to moderate reviews regularly before they are posted on your website or portal. Use notifications whenever you get a review.

2. Respond to the reviews if you think they need attention

Thanking your customers for leaving the feedback can be a good idea. If the customers leave any negative feedback, make sure that you address their concerns or issues. Apologize for any mistakes made by your team or organization.

Also Read: Store Credit: Best Strategies To Customer Retention

3. Inspire the customers to leave more reviews

Ask the customers to share genuine thoughts about the products and delivery services. Encourage the users to send reviews about products so that you can post them on your eCommerce store or portal.

Does your store need more customer reviews to build trust among new and existing users? You should follow the above steps and encourage online shoppers to leave reviews for products and services. Get in touch with us and our experts would plan the best strategies to help you get online customer reviews from your customers to help you get more business from new customers and repeated business from existing users.