If you are looking for a way to take your eCommerce store to the next level, do it with product reviews!
When you get product reviews for your Shopify store from real customers in the form of
- reviews
- photos and
- videos
This post will guide you on how to get product reviews for your store and fill you in on why they are so important.
Why are product reviews important for eCommerce?
Product reviews are essential for your eCommerce business because product reviews
- Increase search traffic
- Boost conversions
- Create user-generated content
Not only that, but product reviews also
- Provide social proof
- Inspire trust
- Help answer questions
1. Product reviews increase search traffic
Adding product reviews to your Shopify or Wix store will help your business rank higher on Google.
With average rating badges and customer reviews displayed on your website, shoppers will be able to see your reviews when they search on Google.
When people see reviews and ratings tied to your business, they are more likely to choose your website as it appears reputable.
So by ranking higher and appearing like a reputable brand, your search traffic will go up!
Quality Product Reviews Improve SEO & Google Rankings
Having quality reviews will also help your SEO efforts and help you rank highly on Google.
Almost 10% of your ranking factor is based on user-generated content, such as reviews.
Reviews help you outrank your competition
If you want to outrank your competition, having a great review strategy is essential.
Quality reviews are looked upon favorably by Google and can help you outrank your competitors in Google searches.
Product reviews help search engines understand your business
The better search engines, such as Google and Bing, "understand your website and what you have to offer, the better your search rankings will be.
Search engines crawl your website and related content with “spiders” that read, interpret, and help connect consumers to businesses." - Matthew Hodges.
This means that you want to get high quality, in-depth reviews that help other shoppers and search engines better understand your business and product.
2. Product reviews increase conversions and boost sales
Once visitors enter your eCommerce site and begin to browse your products, if they see product reviews, they are more likely to buy from you.
This is because no one wants to be the first to try something new; people would rather follow others who have already purchased the items.
Additionally, the product reviews, along with customer photos and videos, will take your product descriptions to the next level by giving your potential customers even more information from real customers.
All of this together will result in a higher conversion rate as customers are more willing to buy your products when they enter your site.
Evidence reviews boost sales
I used Fera on my online store, Alora Boutique, to set up a one-time review request campaign to get reviews for our Lia stud earrings, added them to my product page, and the results speak for themselves!
Now they are on pre-order :D
Fera offers the most functionality out of the top 5 product review apps for Shopify and is easy to use.
3. Product reviews offer you user-generated content
When you ask for product reviews, photos, and videos from your customers, it generates a lot of user-generated content that you can use for marketing purposes and motivates potential customers to buy your product.
User-generated content highlights your products differently, as it offers more insight and new information about your products directly from real people trying your products.
It helps to sell your products in a way that doesn’t feel like a sales pitch; you are simply getting your happy customers to do the talking for you.
10 ways to get more reviews for your store
- Make it easy to leave product reviews
- Ask for product reviews at the right time
- Send personalized product review requests
- Offer incentives for reviews
- Show that you value customers’ opinions
- Encourage customers to leave reviews on social media
- Display reviews on your store
- Leverage your customer service team
- Send giveaways and samples
- Use an awesome product reviews app
1. Make it easy to leave product reviews
Be mobile friendly
To start getting reviews rolling in, you want to ensure it is easy for your customers to leave reviews, especially on mobile.
Also, if they purchase multiple products in one order, allow customers to easily leave a review for multiple products to get the most user-generated content as possible.
Fera also offers pre-loaded headlines for each star rating to make the process even easier.
Embed star ratings in your email
Make leaving a review easy with embedded star ratings.
Customers will love the fact that they never have to leave their email to give you a review!
2. Ask for product reviews at the right time
The best time to ask for a product review is right when the product is delivered, as it is essential when excitement for a package is high.
For products that customers need time to test out before they can leave a review (i.e., vacuum, drone, skincare products), you'll want to wait a little longer before sending the review request.
Another effective way to ask for product reviews is by using email marketing to grab the attention of the customer and motivate them to open the email and submit a review.
3. Send personalized product review requests
A great way to ensure your customers are taking action to fill out the review request is by creating a personalized review request as people love personalization!
By taking that extra step to craft a personalized email, it will help your customers connect with you and be appreciative of your efforts.
4. Offer incentives for reviews
A key way to motivate your customer to fill out your review request is by offering them incentives for the content they submit.
There are three types of incentives you can offer:
- Discounts
- Loyalty points
- Cashback
Discounts are great to offer your customers as it will get them to make another purchase from your store. Loyalty points should be offered when you want to build up a base of customers that show brand loyalty to your business.
The best circumstance to offer cashback is if you are looking for a strong response rate of review requests, as it is the most appealing incentive.
Here are some examples of what to offer and for what content:
- Submit a review = $2 cashback or 10% discount
- Submit a photo = $3 cashback or 15% discount
- Submit a video = $5 cashback or 20% discount
Note: that videos need a bigger incentive to get customers to submit one.
5. Show that you value customers’ opinions
To show everyone that you truly value customers' opinions, it's important to respond to every review to show your appreciation. This includes bad reviews too as you want to acknowledge, not ignore them.
To successfully respond to bad reviews, make sure you apologize and respond publicly (where appropriate), so everyone can see how you handle these situations and how you are willing to make things better.
It may be easy to think that you should take down bad reviews, but if you leave them up it shows that your business is authentic.
6. Encourage customers to leave reviews on social media
People spend a lot of time on social media, on average 144 minutes a day!
Use that to your advantage by encouraging customers to leave reviews on your social media channels. For example, on your Facebook page, you can add a review tab.
On your Instagram account, you can create a branded hashtag and use highlights to promote your rewards program.
Another way to motivate others to leave a review is by sharing your existing reviews on all social channels.
7. Display reviews on your store
Now that you have been able to gather product reviews, you will want to display them on your Shopify store.
If customers see that you accept reviews, they are likely to leave a review too, and they help to build trust with your brand. When displaying them in your store, make sure you style them to match your brand and store theme.
With Fera, you can create photo walls of customer reviews and add average rating badges to your products.
8. Leverage your customer service team
Ensure you have a strong customer service team as it is the closest interaction with the customer, and a personal touch can go a long way!
When the customer service team resolves an issue, that is a great time to ask for a review. Using this to your benefit will take your business to the next level by ensuring customer satisfaction.
9. Send giveaways and samples
Sending out samples of your products is a great first step if you are just starting out.
Another way you can get your products out there for feedback is by using influencer marketing to get reviews and UGC. If you are about to launch a new product sending out some samples or giveaways are the perfect opportunity.
A final great opportunity is if you have made improvements to a product that had bad reviews previously.
By following these suggestions, you are sure to get your product out there and get reviews in return.
10. Use an awesome product reviews app
If you want to make the review collection process easy, use Fera.
Fera is a trusted ratings & product reviews platform that
- Gets product reviews from post-purchase
- Displays reviews that match your branding
- Displays customer photos and videos in photo galleries, and video galleries
- Optimizes your review content for search engines like Google
- Displays average rating badges on-site
Quality is key when it comes to reviews
Collecting product reviews is essential to growing your business, and displaying product reviews will increase your sales.
While it's crucial to get as many reviews as possible, it's more important to get high-quality reviews that help your shoppers make an informed decision.
When it comes to your eCommerce product reviews, the thing that is more important than quantity is quality.
Generally, the more thorough and well thought out a product review is, the more helpful it is for your shoppers.
Think of it like this: if you are shopping for a sweater, what review would be more informative?
Review A
"Loved it! Fits great :)"
Review B:
"This sweater fits perfectly. I am 5'7 and got a medium, and the arms were perfect. Usually, sweaters are way too short in the arms, but I had no issue with the length.
This sweater also holds up in the wash. I wanted to wait until after a wash to leave a review because lots of sweaters shrink. This one doesn't! There was a bit of pilling, but nothing that I can't deal with. Would recommend."
Informative reviews are best
Review B is the most informative, and even though it is four stars, it makes a shopper's decision to buy the sweater easier.
A shopper can see the pros and cons of the sweater and decide if pilling is not as important as fit!
Balanced Product Reviews Sell More
Generally, the best product reviews to display on your online store are balanced and authentic reviews.
There is data to back this up too. Many consumers feel that 5-star reviews (and too many of them) are too good to be true and come off as fake.
The Spiegel Research Center says that "across product categories, we found that purchase likelihood typically peaks at ratings in the 4.0 – 4.7 range, and then begins to decrease as ratings approach 5.0."
Your reviews don't have to be perfect
Your shoppers don't expect you to sell perfect products. They just want your product to fit their needs and solve their problems.
So watch out; not only do consumers hate fake looking reviews, Google and Shopify hate fake reviews too.
Well written product reviews sell more
Believe it or not, spelling and grammar are paramount for shoppers in determining to buy your product.
While spelling and grammar are not within your control, some research found that "product reviews with spelling mistakes are less trusted by consumers, and the result is fewer sales."
People don't trust bad spellers
The rationale behind fewer sales for poorly spelled reviews may be that shoppers don't want to associate themselves with people who seem uneducated or untrustworthy.
Although we all know that having perfect grammar isn't a sign of intelligence, rightly or wrongly, it is a quick signal for trustworthiness.
You always want to be sending strong trust signals across your online store. Luckily, with Fera, you can edit your customer's reviews for spelling and grammar.
Now to be clear, you should NEVER use this functionality to change a customer's review, but fixing spelling and punctuation is fine.
Now, go out there and get some reviews!
Product reviews are one of the best ways to increase conversions, build trust, and improve your SEO for your Shopify or Wix store.
Try Fera's Product Reviews for FREE today and get more product reviews for your store.
