Consumers Trust Online Reviews
Following up on yesterdays post about how Customer Reviews Becoming More Important, it appears that consumer product reviews are also credible, at least according to a Deloitte Consumer Product Group-sponsored study.
“Some online retailers are reporting higher sales conversion rates as a result of allowing customers to post product reviews on their Web sites,” said Jeffrey Grau, senior analyst at eMarketer.
In the study Deloitte found that 62% of Internet users read product reviews written by other consumers and more than eight in 10 respondents who read consumer reviews said that the reviews had affected their buying intentions: either they became more determined to buy the product or they changed their minds and bought a different product altogether. Those are some huge numbers. The fact that 80% of consumers say that their buying decisions are impacted by product reviews has to be upsetting to some traditional marketers.
Pat Conroy, vice chairman and US consumer products group leader at Deloitte Touche USA, noted in a statement that widespread use of consumer reviews could cause problems.
“This increasing market transparency can adversely impact the margins, market share and brand equity of consumer products companies,” Mr. Conroy said. “Consumers are increasingly empowered, everyone has a voice, and information and opinions are instantly dispersed. Consumer product companies need to determine how best to capitalize on this new landscape.”
This is a really disappointing opinion from Deloitte. It is almost as if Pat Conroy is saying that giving consumers the ability to write and read product reviews is a bad thing as it gives the power back to the consumer and away from the advertiser with the largest budget.
So we have established that product reviews help sales. Back in August, another Deloitte study found that 42% of US online shoppers thought that featuring consumer reviews on Web sites increased consumer trust in the sites. So you would expect with the importance of customer reviews that e-retailers would be all over product review, especially with the holiday shopping season right around the corner.
So how do you explain the fact that more than two-thirds of US retail e-commerce sites did not allow consumers to post reviews as of August, according to an Internet Retailer-Vovici study. Don’t these companies want to make a profit online?
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization, Social Retailing : Comments (3) : Oct 19th, 2007
October 19th, 2007 at 7:59 am
[…] David Wilson wrote an interesting post today on Consumers Trust Online ReviewsHere’s a quick excerptFollowing up on yesterdays post about how Customer Reviews Becoming More Important, it appears that consumer product reviews are also credible, at least according to a Deloitte Consumer Product Group-sponsored study. … […]
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:39 am
[…] Según un estudio de Deloitte, que vemos reflejado en Social Media Optimization, el 62% de los usuarios en Internet leen las revisiones de los productos que otros usuarios hacen en la Web donde están comprando, y que además son relevantes a la hora de tomar la decisión de compra. […]
July 14th, 2008 at 11:45 am
[…] marketers, but it has also given rise to a troubling phenomenon … consumers are now putting their trust, and basing their buying decisions, on anonymous postings from people they’ve never […]