Nearly 80% of U.S. consumers say they put more trust in brands that offer customer ratings and reviews and 76% said it is very or extremely important to read customer reviews before buying, in a survey sponsored by BazaarVoice, which provides technology for adding reviews to web sites. The poll of 245 online shoppers in the U.S. and United Kingdom was conducted in May and June by market research firm Vizu Corp.
U.S. respondents chose ratings and review as the most useful e-commerce feature, named by 44%. That was followed by product comparisons (15%), product navigation (12%) and privacy information (11%). Peer reviews were preferred to expert reviews by a 6-to-1 margin.
Shoppers in the United Kingdom, however, place less value on customer reviews. While 78% of U.S. shoppers said they trusted brands that offered reviews, only 53% in the UK agreed. 22% of UK respondents disagreed with that assertion, versus 8% in the U.S. Whereas 73% in the U.S. agreed peer reviews were preferable to a brand’s description of its product, that was the case for only 45% of UK consumers surveyed. And only 54% of UK consumers thought reading customer reviews was very important, compared with 76% in the U.S.
The difference reflects the relatively low number of UK sites offering ratings and reviews versus those in the U.S., says Sam Decker, chief marketing officer at BazaarVoice. He says research indicates just over a quarter of UK e-commerce sites offer ratings and reviews compared with nearly half of U.S. e-retailers. Privacy and security remain more important, chosen as the most important feature of an e-commerce site by more than one-third of UK consumers in the survey.
Decker says UK consumers will rely more on reviews as more online retailers offer them. “There is a huge opportunity for UK retailers to increase brand trust and visibility—and sales—through the strategic use of reviews,” Decker says.
Those who answered the survey were offered no incentive other than being able to see the results, BazaarVoice says.
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