A while back I came across a really great post by Joshua Porter about “Why You Shouldn’t be Afraid of Customer Reviews.”
A lot of what he discusses is key to our own understanding and strategy
around product reviews, and we’ve come to discover ourselves through
conversion metrics, case studies, and other findings.

He discusses the common fear that retailers have had about consumer
reviews, with the assumption that negative reviews would have a bad
impact on their business. He points out how negative reviews are
actually very beneficial to a retailers business: “While it’s easy
to imagine negative reviews leading to lost sales, they more often lead
to increased sales of good products and increased customer happiness
resulting from helping people make smart decisions.”

When making a purchase decision, the following are general validation points that a person takes into consideration:

1. Negative reviews

He points out that when a person is already interested in a product,
they want to go straight to the negative reviews. The reason being is
that a manufacturer site or description would never tell you what’s bad
about the product, and people want to see what the worst possible
negatives of the product are so that they can make an informed
decision. It’s no surprise that our “cons” tags are one of our most
popular features.

If a product has really bad reviews, a person will go and find a
product that has really positive reviews, and feel all the more
confidant that they’re making the right decision. Also, negative
reviews help retailers save costs from fewer returns, and manufacturers
get great feedback on how to improve their product.

2. Credibility of reviews

In a recent article featuring an interview with our CEO,
the author stated “It is often difficult to tell whether a review is
coming from a real consumer or if it was placed there inorganically as
a marketing tactic.” This is a widespread question people wonder when
reading reviews online, given review sites like Epinions who pays
people to write reviews.

Our “Verified Buyer”
feature was born on trying to solve this issue. We work with our retail
partners to send out product review requests to people around 3 weeks
after they purchased it. Since it’s sent to the same email address used
to make the purchase, we can tag that review as a “Verified Buyer”
review.

3. Validation that this product is “right for me.”

People put various levels of emphasis on different factors that shape their purchase decision.:

• The physical features/image
• Star rating/reviews - both positive and negative reviews, and the credibility of those reviews.
• Pros and cons - It’s reassuring to see cons because no product is perfect.
• Best uses - we ask people to tag what the ‘best use’ of the product is.
• Affinity - people always want to know, who is this review written
  by? Is it someone with the same needs and wants as me? Is it a person
  who is an expert and knows more about the product than I do? That’s why
  we ask people during the review writing process what type of user they
  are. Professional? Beginner? etc. That way, we can roll up the tags,
  and show people the recommended products by each affinity.
• Price - of course, when a person is weighing the positives vs. the
  negatives, features and specs and so forth, they take into
  consideration how much that product is worth spending on.

All of these factors are obviously weighed differently in different
peoples’ minds, while some factors might not even matter to some at
all. If one of these decision points is weighed really negatively in a
persons mind, say for example the “cons” or the price are things the
person isn’t satisfied with, that will come in the way of making the
final purchase decision.