Before we jump into review volume, here’s a question to consider: would you rather purchase a product with 10 online reviews or a product with 453 online reviews?
Before we answer the question above, let’s revisit the importance of ratings and reviews in the digital marketplace.
Online shopping has skyrocketed over the past decade as consumers have begun to embrace this trend for its convenience without ever having to leave their homes. But of course, there are downsides to online convenience: how can we truly judge a product if we cannot physically touch or test the product to see if it’s worth the purchase?
Today, nearly 99.9% of consumers read online ratings and reviews with 98% considering them an essential part of their buying experience. Reviews fill in the digital consumer’s blind spots by answering questions that product descriptions and brand images cannot provide.
Online reviews are valued so much that a whopping 86% majority say they avoid purchasing products without first reading customer ratings and reviews.
Case in point: ratings and reviews are not only important but also essential for both the brand and consumer. Without them, there would be no sense of trust and credibility from the consumer, which in turn would badly hurt brand sales and reputation.
The more reviews you have, the better
PowerReviews conducted research between May 2020 and May 2021 to explore the impact of review volume on conversion. To accurately measure what they were looking for, they calculated the visitor conversion rate based on the product page visited with the most reviews during a site visit (counted as all interactions with a specific site in a 24-hour period).
Here’s what they found:
- Conversion lifts by 52.2.% when a shopper visits a product page with at least 1 review
- The same variable becomes 2x higher when a product page displays 11-30 reviews
- Products with over 100 reviews see conversion rates increase by over 250%
The linear relationship between review volume and conversion rates is crystal clear: the more reviews you have on your product, the higher your conversion rates will be.
Impact of review volume by industry
With the research and hard facts supplied, it’s not hard to justify the importance of review volume based on the research and hard facts supplied. The return on investment every time a company invests in producing a higher quantity of reviews is clear: more reviews equals more conversions, leading to more sales.
So what can you do to start achieving review volume on your site? Simple. Start prioritizing collecting large numbers of ratings and reviews for your products.
If you’re unsure how or where to begin, schedule a call with a member of our sales team to see how we can best help you achieve your target. In working with Stars and Stories, we guarantee the collection of high-volume reviews can be done in ways that are completely pain-free and more accurate, efficient, and scalable than ever before.