Just How Important are Customer Ratings and Reviews Anyway?

It is hard to believe that there was a time when customer ratings and reviews for products were not available online. For many shoppers, customer ratings have become a common tool used for accessing the value and worth of a given product before buying. The days of having to depend exclusively upon a handful of review magazines or newspapers is long gone. Thus, customer ratings and reviews have become a very important part of the online purchasing process.

Recently Entrepreneur Magazine determined that over 60 percent of online shoppers use customer ratings and reviews when they are making purchases. Of this group, the vast majority stated that these reviews factored into their online purchasing decisions. In short, you can count on the fact that customer ratings and reviews play a sizable role in purchasing decisions.

Now you might be tempted to believe that customer ratings and reviews are strictly limited in their value to whether or not a product is good or bad. However, this is just not the case. Customer feedback is often full of valuable information about every aspect of the product. In fact, many manufacturers will use customer feedback that they find in customer ratings and reviews to help them improve their products.

The world of online shopping is certainly a competitive one and sitting at the top of the pile is Amazon. Amazon has arguably become the number one place on the Internet for shoppers to visit when looking customer ratings and reviews. It is actually quite common for some products sold on Amazon to have hundreds of reviews!

Ultimately, shoppers will be swayed by the reviews that they read online. Consumer ratings are increasingly being used by more and more of the shopping public as a way to determine if a product is the right fit for them or even if a given product is a quality one. If you are selling products online, it is likely in your best interest to encourage customer feedback including customer ratings and reviews.