Building Client Confidence: The Power of Reviews in e-Commerce
By Jill Anderson
In today’s highly competitive e-commerce world, online reviews can make or break a company. According to one survey quoted by Forbes, 88 percent of consumers trust an online review as much as a personal recommendation. In fact, looking at online reviews before you make a purchase has become an industry norm. Why?
According to Forbes:
“For starters, each new review written about a product on your site increases the amount of unique content your site offers on that product, meaning you’ll be seen as having higher authority, more relevance, and, as such, a higher chance of getting those pages ranked.”
With the ubiquitous presence of digital interfaces at our fingertips, online reviews and four- to five-star ratings have become the number one source of information for online shoppers.
Why Customer Reviews Dictate Price
Generally speaking, as a product gets more expensive, it becomes increasingly more important to have online reviews. This is for three reasons: price, safety, and new or unfamiliarity with the product. According to peer reviews online, ratings are most impactful for expensive products. Some of these high-price items include baby food and weight loss products with research showing that more people are likely to purchase a high cost item that is highly rated. Data also shows that once a high-cost item crosses the four-star threshold, people are more likely to buy the item than its cheap counterpart. This is because the person looking at the star rating is assured that the product is worth it. Ultimately, this is what customer reviews help readers to achieve.
Also, according to Bigcommerce.com, three things are likely to happen when your product gets reviews: 58 percent of visitors are more likely to convert, 62 percent more revenue will be generated per customer visiting your site, and sales will increase 3 percent per order. Those are some mighty convincing statistics. There is also another benefit to customer reviews: they help people find you on Google’s search engine.
How Customer Reviews Help SEO
Looking into why we care so much about online reviews has everything to do with transparency, which is one of the benefits of the Internet. People want to know that they are not being scammed. In addition, they want to know that they are getting the best deal on the internet. It’s more than that, though, because online reviews have a major effect on your rankings for local search engines and which pages get searched. This is because Google’s algorithm takes into account where your ratings are and the links that relay back to your site.
Why Negative Reviews Matter Most
Having customer reviews and ratings can mean a lot for your business. Besides helping elevate your SEO ranking and driving traffic, they also assure your clientele that you are authentic and trusted, thereby increasing client confidence. Even having bad customer reviews may help show that you tolerate criticism and are open to change. Here’s why (explained by Forbes):
“Nothing but five-star ratings can seem too good to be true. But the best thing about a bad review is that, as the owner, of the company you have the opportunity to respond in a way that will win customers over.”
A study conducted by, Reevoo, an internet marketing company based in London, concluded that bad reviews improve conversions by 67 percent. In short, bad reviews demonstrate you have integrity because you haven’t manipulated your customer ratings. But that’s not all, the length of reviews and the person talking (i.e. the voice) can also affect customer buying decisions. A great thing about long reviews is that they will feature the long-tail keywords that customers look for. Thus, featuring long reviews on your website is one of the best content strategies you can have. In essence, what these reviews do is help open up a conversation not only with already-engaged customers and the business owner, but also new prospects.
The Secret to Big Retailer Success
One enterprise that takes this very seriously is Amazon, featuring countless reviews with almost every product, which builds consumer confidence in their content. Relying on these reviews has almost become second nature to anyone wanting to make a purchase. Also, according to Entrepreneur.com, it is one of the reasons why people love Amazon. It simply makes customers more likely to buy products.
The Importance of Authentic Reviews
Because of the obvious impact online review have, some business have even gone so far as to make them up. According to a Yelp review, for example, 16 percent of all online reviews for restaurants are fake. This is not recommended as it kills consumer confidence and negates any transparency and authenticity.
Preserving authenticity and integrity is why Revain uses blockchain technology — the same technology that backs Bitcoin and powers their new generation, feedback platform, revolutionising how consumers leave reviews.
How Revain is Revolutionising the Industry
The team at Revain recognises the importance of reviews and has employed the first-of-its-kind, tamper-proof system that ensures the integrity of each customer review. That’s why Revain has dedicated its customer-review system to the blockchain technology that gives consumers the real, unadulterated information they need to make accurate, organic decisions.
The system covers reviews on ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings), cryptocurrency exchanges, e-commerce, gaming, booking, and fast-moving consumer goods. Essentially, it prevents businesses from creating fake reviews and deleting negative ones. Furthermore, it provides your business a stamp of integrity that lets consumers know that you are a high-quality vendor.
The Blockchain System that Combats Fake Reviews
The Revain system combats fake reviews with a number of features:
- The “Know Your Customer” system prevents mass registrations, in turn used to post countless reviews.
- Each review undergoes a two-step verification process, by AI and manually.
- The two-step verification process also detects unwarranted text, abuse, flooding, and spam.
Revain, Version 0.8 also includes the ability to set up a corporate account for your company. The corporate account allows your company to manage its page through a dashboard much like Wordpress. Some of it’s features include: project/exchange description, logo, and social media.
Some Key Components of Revain
Built on the Ethereum platform, the Revain feedback platform features other neat components that make it the first of its kind.
Revain’s system features two-tokens: the first token allows users to actively continue to submit reviews, and the second works with a conversion mechanism that generates an internal token, creating a consistent and transparent user experience.
Starting with Version 0.3, Revain improved the overall design and interface, and added new widgets, including a customisable ‘Investment Price’ widget. Versions 0.4 introduced an additional 20 tokens ranking volume, ratings, and activity; and with version 0.5 came an extended infographics section. Digital signature verification was seen with version 0.6. And now with version 0.7 and 0.8 the system offers both a fully customisable project platforms and a project design section where admins can design their pages.
If you’re not convinced, remember that it ultimately helps all parties involved: consumers, reviewers, business owners, and those trying to bring transparency to the marketplace.
The Overall Benefit of Revain’s System
Though it is obvious that users and consumers will benefit from Revain’s blockchain technology, Revain’s real purpose is to help the market become transparent and help companies get real feedback about their products — building client confidence. As a result, we should see fewer bad products in the market, and better relationships between consumers and vendors.
Learning what customers think is crucial when selling to them. To find out more about Revain’s roadmap and what our blockchain system offers, click here.
