What do reviews that actually maximize conversions look like?

6.3.2023

Aleš Randa

3 min

Article

When a customer reads your reviews, they are looking for very specific things to make a purchase decision. Your job is to make these elements as accessible as possible to make their decision as easy as possible. But what exactly matters? And what does it look like in practice? Take inspiration from today's article, which answers these questions using data from a survey of more than 11,000 shoppers.

For the majority of people, stars or the number of reviews are not enough

When designing product pages, the most attention is usually given to photos, description, price and CTA. There isn't much room for reviews, which is why they are commonly reduced to just stars and a number of review texts.

However, a new survey of 11,000 customers clearly shows that this practice does not sit well with shoppers:

The full text of the reviews is always looked at by 46% of people, at least sometimes by 42%. Together, that's a very impressive 88%.
Gen Z (63% of them) and Millennials (52%) are the most likely to click through to the full review. Boomers have the lowest number of clicks (39%), but even this is not an insignificant number.
Only 1% of all respondents are satisfied with just a star rating and number of reviews.
As many as half of customers will not buy a new product that only has stars as reviews on the site.

Full reviews are read most often by the people who spend the most money with you

If your customers are used to spending 45 000 CZK or more per month on their purchases, they are also reading full reviews up to 40% more often than others. So it's obviously not true that the more shoppers can afford, the less careful they are when buying. On the contrary, they want to make sure they really get what they pay for

In the reviews, people notice the length and grammar, the photos and videos are essentia

If you have detailed text on your site along with stars, you'll want to know exactly what people are looking for. The survey also provided useful answers to this question:

People read reviews really carefully, especially if they're going to spend a lot. 84% of them say they primarily look for what buyers didn't like about the product so they can then assess whether they can live with it themselves.
Customers make sure that the product does what it is supposed to do and that others use it as much as they do. From this, they estimate how long it will last and evaluate value for money.
32% notice grammar mistakes in texts. If there are a lot of them, as many as 54% start to doubt the credibility of the claim.
94% of people actively look for visual content in reviews, 57% specifically focus on organic content. Photos in reviews cause up to 91% lift in conversions.
If buyers do not find any photos, 12% will not buy the product. This trend is pronounced across product categories, most notably in apparel, home décor, consumer electronics, and beauty and health care.
Most buyers filter their reviews by various criteria (only the worst, most frequent, oldest, etc.) and the fact that they can do this increases conversions by over 200%. In short, people appreciate every step you take to make it easier for them.
One-star reviews are the most commonly filtered criteria. This is because these are the ones that most customers find most informative.
84% of buyers feel positively when a review comes from a verified client. Don't forget that in the Czech Republic, as of the beginning of 2023, you have to indicate whether you verify your reviews or not.