Spoilt for choice – there are so many products on the market these days that it’s hard to decide which one to buy. This is where product reviews come into play. Because potential buyers no longer rely on the product description alone, but more importantly on what others think about a product – product reviews have become an essential part of the buying process.
Why are product reviews so important?
Various studies on global trust in advertising found that nowadays around 72 percent of people trust opinions published online, thereby significantly influencing their decision to buy – or not. “Recommendations from people I know” have shown how important reviews are to consumers. So regardless of whether you have a website or an e-commerce site, reviews or testimonials can help make your company or product more credible and trustworthy.
Especially with technical products such as laptops, household appliances, in the entertainment sector such as the best CDs in the electronic music scene, feature films, computer games or the question of what is the best online casino on the market, with books, restaurants, but also when deciding on the next hotel for the summer holiday, reviews from buyers help enormously with the right choice and thus purchase decision. Moreover, reviews are of SEO relevance: Users usually use the kind of keywords and key phrases in their reviews that your target audience is looking for when trying to find products.
Price comparison of a product
For a given product and even brand, different sellers have different prices. With seller and product reviews, you can find out the different prices for different sellers and buy from the one with the lowest price. Moreover, not everyone has or wants to spend a lot of money on products. On the other hand, if one knows what to expect from a purchase, one can make an appropriate buying decision. Product reviews can provide important information here. Depending on the product or service in question, in addition to product reviews on internet portals such as Amazon or Zalando, special review portals such as Yelp, Jameda, Check24, Expedia, Tripadvisor, Kununu or the largest social network Facebook can help you make the right choice.
Learn more about a product
Reviews not only provide emotional statements about what the buyer liked or disliked. One can learn more about how the product works, its associated features and relevant specifications through detailed information. Someone who says “I hated how the product had to be assembled” or “I loved how easy the product was to use” is giving a potential buyer concrete information. Of course, certain information can be taken from the actual product description. However, such descriptions are not exactly as detailed or in-depth as a customer review. The often comprehensive reviews written by some can provide exceptionally clear details about what to expect from the product.
Make sure the product is up to date
Digital products and other types of items are updated daily. By looking at product reviews, one is informed about new features and their actual added value. With these insights, one can decide whether it is worth investing extra money to buy the latest versions or whether the older version is still perfectly adequate. Because sometimes updates are not what one needs.
Read credible comments
Not all product and customer reviews are written exclusively by a consumer. Online and print magazines from established media companies invest heavily in publishing product reviews. Professionally published consumer reviews aim to present an objective, unbiased assessment of products. Customers can generally trust these reviews a lot. As long as the company publishing the reviews maintains its credibility, there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the reviews. Consumer magazines like Stiftung Warentest definitely help to get a decent picture of a product’s merits or demerits.
How to recognise fake reviews
Increasingly, retailers and manufacturers ask customers to write positive reviews of their products or services on various websites. Sometimes they offer a discount for doing so. Advertising agencies and PR agencies are also already taking on the role of enthusiastic consumers. To tell the difference between a false recommendation and a genuine product review, you should always take a closer look at the seller or provider. Some websites like Amazon link users’ reviews to their buyer database and mark these people as “verified buyers” of the goods they review. These are the most reliable reviewers. Moreover, if a product or service – especially a new one – receives multiple awards in a short period of time (about 30 minutes), one should become suspicious. It is possible that the product review was written by people who receive money for it. Also, too many 5-star ratings in total are often a warning sign of fake product reviews.
So before you next want to buy an item or service, you should read the reviews first. Because by reading them, you can (almost always) be sure that you have made a good purchase decision.
