Open Flutter Project: Product Reviews in E-commerce App

What makes the users buy product using your app? Photos, description and rating, of course. Having products rated by your customers is another must have feature of the E-commerce App you should have. User reviews and users stories is not only motivation for others to buy but also an important engaging element of the app. That is why we need to spend some time get our head around it.

First, we need to make the process of adding the user reviews the most convenient way possible. The review form contains ability to add product rating, the user photos and the comment. The photos should be added using camera or device gallery. The best case scenario is to have voice recognition to add text. But we all know how that thing can work. Editing comments after such voice recognition might be more challenging than adding comments using device keyboard. So we will keep it for further discussions.

One of the important screens that everybody is forgetting is what happens after the review was added. The variants for that screen are:

• Say thank you for review.
• Propose to take a look at products that are bought with the reviewed product (use data of orders done by other users, machine learning?).
• Make quick buttons to buy common products.
• Propose to look at reviews done by other customers (to see how those shoes fit with that another dress from our online store, for instance).

The actual reviews section screen looks like that:

Now what if the review comment is overwhelming (5000–6000 characters). Should we limit maximum number of characters used? What about number of photos? Keep in mind that you can utilize the user reviews on your website. An average internet user sees up to 10 different pieces of content online before making final decision to buy your product. You want your product reviews to be part of that.

The rating breakdown looks good once the product has rating over 4 like in the example above:

There is a good question if we want it to be shown when we got something like that:

Your e-commerce app can be the only channel that your clients interact with your business. That is why mobile app experience has to be perfect. Here come little but important things like saving everything user enters (photos, description) before the review is submitted. That is made because the phone battery can go low, or the device itself can fall down, or somebody can destruct user from finishing the review right now. Therefore the customer should be able to come back later and finish the review from the exact moment where he stopped.

When you develop your app you need to remember that it is not the app your are working on, it is your business. There is an important parameter of your business called NPS. If you are not familiar with that here is a short overview. NPS — net promoter score is an indicator that shows what is the probability that the customer will recommend your business (your app) to other users. If it is lower than 8 of 10 than you got a bad NPS. 0 to 5 is a negative experience, 6 to 7 is neutral (the same as no viral effect for your business).

That is why we want to go viral with the reviews, get your customers share content right from the app.

Questions to be discussed:

1. Do we need a share button for the review (share products is a separate button)?
2. How long do we allow our customers to make review comment?
3. How do we order reviews? See “Helpful” link under review as an indicator the review was useful for others.
4. How many photos should the user add in average? Should there be maximum number of photos available?

Leave your comments on the ideas and questions in this article. Ask questions and we will try to find answers together.

Want this app to be done quicker?

Get in touch via LinkedIn to share your ideas and thoughts.