Nearly everything is available for buying online through eCom platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, etc. However, reviews and ratings highly influence consumers’ buying decisions or even add-to-cart actions. Our research states that eCom buying heavily relied on R&Rs in 2021.
A positive R&R score can become a factor that drives impulse buying decisions most of the time and offers scope for increasing the product price. Many consumers don’t mind paying more for a good product. Meanwhile, a negative score leads to a diminished customer base, switching to competitive sellers/eCom platforms, and finding alternative solutions.
Therefore, R&R can help a brand build a vast consumer base and enhance targeting/reach. The impact of R&Rs is not limited to consumers’ buying or a brand’s pricing decisions. It extends implications in SEO rankings, product return forecasts, detecting underperforming products, and more.
For example, reviews often include brand names and product-related keywords, affecting search engine rankings and easing product discoverability. On the other hand, ratings have also become a part of a digital advertisement to showcase consumer trustworthiness in a brand. Therefore, R&Rs are a big part of user-generated content.
Analyzing R&Rs can prove helpful in identifying the bestsellers, most favored brands, the average rating of the brand across platforms, etc. Brands also analyze ratings to understand the likelihood of consumer repurchases. Monitoring the R&R score can greatly influence the marketing and advertising decisions. For example, if you check that Biscuits’ is receiving negative reviews such as broken, crushed, etc., it should go back to the packaging team.
3 Reasons Brands Monitor Reviews and Ratings
Understand the Consumer Needs
Reviews and ratings give a first-hand impression of a brand’s product listings on eCom stores. The positive, negative, and neutral reviews often specify the best and worst features, besides competitor advantages. Moreover, reviews on eCom stores often consist of supported pictures and videos, which helps brands to understand the problem stated by the consumer even more.
Understanding the consumer’s needs helps make product improvements, launch new listings, and enhance the user experience across eCom stores. Simultaneously, reviews give brands a chance to build strong long-term relationships with customers and uplift the brand’s market reputation.
Simultaneously, reviews help find warning signs on eCom platforms such as fake/duplicate products, bad quality, products not matching the description, etc. The personal experience shared by people through reviews cultivates trust among other buyers and in the brand.
Find the Buying Decision-Making Factors
User-generated content, including reviews, influences the buying decision of 25% of online shoppers. Therefore, monitoring online reviews and ratings on eCom platforms helps brands find the key factors influencing buyers’ decisions. According to a source, online reviews uplift sales by 18%.
For example, if most people state that the “quality of the speaker is awesome, but the price is slightly high,” eCom buyers that value quality over price would not mind paying a bit extra. Simultaneously, the brand received a pricing intelligence that the product has a higher cost than similar listings.
As such, reviews are the online form of open-line communication between brands and consumers. So, brands can find their areas of improvement and enhance the products’ most likable features/qualities.
Measure Trustworthiness on the Product Listings
Given that most online shoppers go through at least three reviews before making the final purchasing decision, it is inevitable to state that trust in a product or brand is built through R&Rs.
Moreover, consumers share the best qualities or worst experiences through ratings and reviews, which offer a clear picture of the product that a potential consumer would bring home. As a result, ratings and reviews give a true picture of the brand and its products, even with influencers continuously trying to alter the scores.
According to a source, consumers are less likely to buy products without ratings and reviews, as they would most likely become the first to share the experience. Also, many consumers try to avoid the risk of buying from a new seller with no R&Rs, as it does not establish trust. Lastly, too many positive reviews tend to make the consumers suspicious of the product.
As per a source, 55% of consumers often become skeptical that reviews of a product are fake if they encompass similar wording. Therefore, brands need to continuously take measures to grab verified user-generated reviews and ratings to acquire the trust of potential new buyers. Analyzing reviews and ratings help brands to measure the consumer trustworthiness of different product listings versus the competition.
Takeaway
Monitoring reviews and ratings give insight into the favored platform and product performance and suggest growth opportunities. Moreover, brands constantly analyze the reviews for deciphering the hero product under different categories and allocate marketing budgets.
Additionally, checking review and rating scores helps a brand decide on product inclusions in ads, PR, and influencer campaigns. Therefore, R&R has become a crucial part of mFilterIt’s eCommerce Intelligence Tool.
The solution offers deep insights based on many filters such as product, platform, sub-category, etc., and enables brands to make sound decisions. Using the dashboard, brands can also review competitors’ product performance based on reviews and ratings.
