The importance of customer reviews!

If you type “effectiveness of online reviews” in a search engine you will find many reports that will tell you that reviews have a huge impact on online purchases. We do believe the same. Word of mouth is the strongest marketing tool available to any business. Online it is just the same.

“83% buys faster at a webshop with customer reviews” (Soykan 2017)

Our college from WebwinkelKeur, Sibel Soykan, did a graduation research at our company on this aspect and found that “83,3% of the respondents indicate that they buy faster at the web store if they have customer reviews.” Link to her her article (in Dutch): https://www.webwinkelkeur.nl/onderzoek-invloed-keurmerk-klantbeoordelingen/

List of independent research

This report of Soykan was sponsored by WebwinkelKeur. Also many of the reports you will find online are sponsored by a company that facilitates online reviews. Truly independent research on customer reviews is rare. Here is what we have found:

“Ratings are the 3rd most important factor when making purchase decisions” (Simon-Kucher & Partners 2019)

The Rating Economy – Consumer Survey https://www.simon-kucher.com/nl/TheRatingEconomy-Overview

“The purchase likelihood for a product with five reviews is 270% greater than the purchase likelihood of a product with no reviews.” (Askalidis, Y. and Malthouse, E. C. 2016)

Medill Spiegel Research Center – How online reviews influence Sales https://spiegel.medill.northwestern.edu/How-Online-Reviews-Influence-Sales/

“The information in consumer reviews is widely considered as more reliable than marketer-sponsored information” (Constantinides and Holleschovsky 2016)

Impact of Online Product Reviews on Purchasing Decisions  https://www.scitepress.org/Papers/2016/58610/58610.pdf

Have you found a truly independent research that investigates the effect of online reviews? Information is power!
Please tell and we will add it to the list.