While ratings and reviews have only been around for about two decades, it's hard to imagine shopping without them. The majority (75%) of shoppers use reviews to discover and evaluate products. From food and beverage and apparel, to health and beauty and hardware, to everything in between, reviews play a crucial role in the buying process.
So reviews on your websites assure your prospects about the quality of your company. Displaying reviews on your website is, therefore, a great way to attract more customers and grow business.
1. Ratings and reviews impact everything from sales to SEO
From analysis of reporting data, we found that when shoppers engaged with reviews on best-in-class sites (the top 25% of our clients), there was a 138% lift in conversion, which is 7% higher than in 2018. But not only are shoppers converting more readily on pages with reviews, but they're also spending more money. The lift in revenue per visitor among shoppers engaging with reviews was 159% in 2019, up from 148% the year prior.
2. Ratings and reviews help shoppers make informed, confident purchases
Rating and reviews are the number one online feature shoppers rely on when making informed product decisions faster, more so than product page descriptions, chat bots, and the website's search tool.
Our research found that shoppers often turn to ratings and reviews when they're in the final stages of their decision making process to help them choose your product. In fact, 70% of shoppers often or always look at available reviews, and 60% of shoppers often or always look at customer photos. This not only helps them feel more confident in their decision but can also change how much they’re willing to spend. We also found that half of shoppers have been influenced by reviews to buy a more expensive product than planned.
3. Reviews improve your brand's trustworthiness
Brand trust is one of the most valuable assets a business can have in today's retail landscape. Almost all (82%) of shoppers won't buy from a brand they don't trust, and 62% of shoppers choose products based on a brand's reputation. One way to build consumer trust is by handing over the mic to their fellow peers to help advocate for your brand. Over three quarters (78%) of shoppers trust reviews, even more than family and friend recommendations.
4. How to add Ratings and reviews to Joomla website?
Most shopping extensions such as Virtuemart, Hikashop...etc support rating tools but do not have all the necessary features. We provide a solution to help integrate Rating and review system to any Joomla extension.
Here are some highlights that JLex Review is having:
- Integrate anywhere or can work independently.
- Use multiple review forms.
- The Guest can leave a review without login.
- Power editor with image, files, location and more.