Reviews educate customers, positive reviews can motivate people to buy.
Consumers who remembered customer reviews on a Web site reported 9% higher customer satisfaction levels, were 9% more likely to make a purchase and 8% more likely to purchase on the next visit (ForeSee Results, January 2008) Reviews attract customers to your site (and keep them coming back - customers prefer sites with reviews).Bazaarvoice has a large collection of stats, including: There's no end to the number of studies that show the value of customer reviews. Please note, in this list, #10 has the highest impact, and #1 the lowest. Retailers often wonder what Web 2.0 / social media activities to be involved with, so this post ranks what I believe are the top 10 Web 2.0 activities for ecommerce based on their business impact. In the ecommerce context, Web 2.0 includes leveraging social commerce on your own site, blogging/podcasting and participating in social networks like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter - and anywhere you or your customers can create and share content. The Wikipedic definition of Web 2.0 is " a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that lets people collaborate and share information online." Wikipedia, being a user-generated knowledge base, is itself Web 2.0. Is social media/Web 2.0 for retail just hype or an essential part of doing business in the 21st century?