We are all consumers and at the very least understand our own shopping behavior and I think we can safely assume that most of us use product reviews to help us make on-line purchasing decisions. Almost every retailer today provides product reviews in an effort to help customers make their purchasing decision without leaving their site. Once a visitor leaves your site and goes in search of more information, the likelihood of them going back to your site is fairly slim. You must keep customers on your site in order to have conversions.

Take a look at your analytics data and you will most likely find that most of your conversions have a combination of high visit time combined with a high number of pages viewed. You will probably see a threshold, which once it’s crossed, virtually guarantees a conversion. Increasing ecommerce conversion ratios is not as difficult as it sounds. The key is to have sufficient relevant content to keep the visitor interested and to help him make a purchasing decision. Product reviews do just that.

Below are some of the benefits provided by product reviews:

  • Reviews create trust –      Visitors feel safer knowing other people are buying from the same site.
  • Reviews provide objective      information.
  • Reviews will reduce returns      by helping customers choose the product that’s right for them.
  • Reviews provide fresh content      on a regular basis – A must for ranking well in Google and Bing.

Above and beyond the benefits listed above, product reviews provide your site with authority, credibility and trust, key factors considered by consumers when deciding where to make an on-line purchase. It seems clear that to be competitive today, your shopping cart platform must support product reviews.

AbleCommerce shopping carts have built-in product review modules which you can enable or disable at will and you can even decide whether they should require approval before posting. We’ve also implemented a product review reminder service which automatically sends an e-mail to your customers asking for feedback on their purchases, turning a time intensive task into an automatic hands-off process.

Increasing ecommerce conversion ratios can be a daunting task, but in the area of product reviews AbleCommerce makes it easy with its built in product review support. Please contact us for additional information.