Product Reviews

A large number of Amazon.com reviews are fraudulent and generated via Facebook, The Seattle Times reports. An examination by The Washington Post revealed that dozens of networks across Facebook allow merchants to seek shoppers to give glowing feedback on their products in exchange for money or gifts. Amazon has prohibited paid reviews for over a…

A new survey from Clutch found that 81 percent of online shoppers do not write reviews, even though many of these same shoppers rely on them when making purchasing decisions. Customer reviews provide context and social proof, helping to persuade shoppers to complete purchases. More importantly, reviews offer an outside perspective on products, complementing descriptions…

Things are feeling a little less festive these days. The cheer (and challenges) of the holiday season have passed. You may be riding high after beating your holiday goals, or struggling to find your motivation after a less-than-stellar season. Either way, it’s time to refresh and refocus. Your shoppers aren’t going to make 2018 easy…

While currently almost all of Amazon.com product reviews are written by users, the online shopping behemoth is pivoting to video later this month by inviting some of its 2 million merchant partners to post promotional and instructional videos to the site in mid-December, according to a report from business research firm L2. According to the report, “this feature…

There’s no doubt 2017 was a pivotal year in retail. The number of distressed U.S. retailers is nearing Great Recession levels, tripling in the past six years. As a result, in the last year alone, we’ve bid farewell to more than 20 major brands and retailers that were once thriving staples for consumers. And as…

By now, most businesses understand that ratings and reviews are a powerful tool to increase traffic, conversion and insights. One effective way to quickly collect more of this powerful content is product sampling. Product sampling campaigns are a quick and simple way for brands and retailers to increase product review content for both new and…

The holiday season represents a massive opportunity for retailers, both online and traditional. Last year’s Adobe Digital Index Report showed consumers spent $91.7 billion online in the U.S. alone, an 11 percent jump from the year before. In Canada, the U.K., and France, this rate of growth was similar, with jumps of 14 percent, 11…

The fourth quarter of 2017 may generate the biggest sales yet for e-commerce retail, at least according to a new CPC Strategy report that features the results of a survey of 1,500 U.S. consumers about their holiday shopping plans. One key statistic from the report: 88.1 percent of shoppers surveyed plan to spend about the…

Trustpilot, a leading online consumer review destination with 35 million reviews of nearly 190,000 businesses, recently released its Consumer Behavior and Expectations: The 2017 Holiday Season report, with in-depth analysis on consumer behavior, sentiment and customer review patterns. While thousands of consumers indicated pricing was one of the most important considerations for the 2017 shopping season, language analysis of more than 1 million consumer reviews suggested otherwise. Consumer sentiment favored brands offering superior customer service and timely fulfillment over other popular holiday initiatives, such as discount pricing and flexible return policies. The report helps retailers capitalize on key expectations and behaviors by identifying specific consumer trends, biases and preferences.

The Association for Psychological Science recently published an interesting study on consumer shopping behavior, showing that when two comparable products have similar average ratings, shoppers are significantly more likely to choose the product with the larger number of ratings. This finding won’t surprise e-commerce retailers, but in the psychology world, it’s an illustration of herd…