Feedback. It’s got the power to make us both celebrate and wince. In modern eCommerce, whether actively collected or organically received, eCommerce product reviews influence buying decisions, improve brand trust, and enhance customer retention.
Product reviews are one of the strongest forms of social proof. When partnered with real-time social proof messaging, retailers can highlight top-rated and highly purchased products at the exact moment shoppers are deciding what to buy — increasing conversions and reducing hesitation.
Read on to explore how product reviews can shape purchasing decisions, influence brand perception, and serve as a valuable tool for retailers and brands across the eCommerce landscape.
The importance of product reviews to eCommerce success
Consumers love product reviews because they provide credibility. They’re the evidence that a shopper needs to understand whether the product or service they’re interested in is right for them. As consumers, we are increasingly time poor, and although eCommerce websites continue to improve the customer experience, consumers prefer information that allows them to differentiate a certain branded bag, a dress or a steam iron from everything else on their long list. Reviews help them to do this quickly, making it easier to access third-party opinions.
Beyond building buyer confidence, customer reviews are important for several key reasons:
- Provide valuable product insights beyond the description: Product descriptions often focus on features and specifications, but reviews reveal real-life performance, durability, fit, and other practical considerations. For example, customers might highlight if a dress runs small or if a steam iron heats up faster than expected. These nuances can significantly influence purchasing decisions.
- Influence purchase decisions through social proof: When shoppers see many positive reviews, they experience social proof — the psychological phenomenon where people look to others’ behavior to guide their own decisions. This effect reduces perceived risk and encourages purchases, especially for higher-priced or unfamiliar products.
- Boosts SEO and organic visibility: Search engines reward product pages with frequent, authentic customer reviews because they provide fresh, keyword-rich content. Reviews often include natural phrases customers use when searching — such as product features, comparisons, or common questions — helping product pages rank for more relevant terms and improving overall discoverability.
- Helps reduce return rates: Reviews set clearer expectations by highlighting real experiences with fit, colour accuracy, durability and usage. When customers understand what a product is really like before buying, they are less likely to return it. Pairing review insights with social proof messaging can further guide customers toward products with higher satisfaction and lower return rates.
The business benefits of product reviews
Beyond influencing customers, product reviews deliver significant advantages for ecommerce businesses themselves. They provide valuable insights into product performance and customer preferences, helping brands identify areas for improvement and innovate effectively. Reviews also reduce return rates by setting clear expectations, saving costs associated with refunds and restocking.
From a marketing perspective, a high volume of positive reviews strengthens brand credibility, driving higher conversion rates and repeat purchases. Additionally, a robust review ecosystem differentiates your brand in a crowded marketplace, demonstrating transparency and commitment to quality that competitors may lack. Altogether, product reviews are a powerful tool for sustainable ecommerce growth.
Why are positive product reviews so valuable for eCommerce marketing? And what makes a good review?
Reviews also provide credibility and authenticity. Retailers that take an active part in the feedback process are seen to be honest and transparent. This can be done by welcoming 360-degree feedback alongside other forms of insights from influencers and experts. To most shoppers, a 5-star review placed by the retailer is fairly obvious to spot, and most consumers will weed these out. They’re not worth it in terms of the brand damage and loss of trust, so avoid the temptation.
Volume is also important. The more reviews the better! Consumers are unlikely to buy after reading a single review, they’ll read several and pay attention to the aggregated score across a number of reviews, meaning that you’ll want to build up a bank of advocates over time. A 4.6/5 score from 235 reviews over six months is much stronger than a 4.6/5 score from five reviews over two weeks. According to 2025 research by Capital One Shopping, more than 99% of shoppers read online reviews and reviews influence 93% of consumers’ purchasing decisions.
Third-party positive opinion is generally rated more highly than your own marketing messages, and, when customer reviews are positive, they help to sell products better than any of your own website copy or smart imagery ever could. Third-party data is arguably one of your most important pieces of product marketing because people tend to trust these sources the most.
Reviews also lend themselves to simple visual representation via coloured star charts to attract consumer attention and encourage product consideration. Or your branding might lend itself to ranking products according to their review ratings.
How to encourage customers to leave reviews
Encouraging customers to leave reviews is essential for building a robust collection of eCommerce product reviews that boost your brand’s credibility and help future shoppers make informed decisions. Here are some proven strategies to motivate your customers to share their honest feedback:
- Ask promptly after purchase: Timing is everything. Send a friendly, personalized email asking for a review shortly after the customer has received their product. This ensures the experience is fresh in their mind and increases the likelihood of a detailed, genuine review.
- Make reviewing easy and accessible: Simplify the review process by minimizing the steps required. Provide direct links to the review page in your emails and ensure your review submission forms are mobile-friendly. The easier it is, the more customers will follow through.
- Incentivize reviews (Carefully): Offering small incentives like discount codes, loyalty points, or entry into a prize draw can motivate customers to leave reviews. However, be sure to emphasize that honest feedback is valued to maintain authenticity and trust.
- Highlight the importance of their feedback: Remind customers that their reviews help others make confident purchasing decisions and improve the quality of products and services. This sense of contribution can encourage more thoughtful and engaged reviews.
- Use multiple channels: Don’t rely solely on email. Encourage reviews through your website, social media platforms, and even post-purchase SMS messages, creating multiple touchpoints for customers to share their experience.
- Respond to reviews to build trust: Acknowledging positive and negative reviews shows customers that their feedback matters. Addressing concerns transparently can turn a poor experience into a positive one and demonstrates a brand’s commitment to service and improvement.
By actively encouraging customers to leave reviews, you’ll steadily grow a valuable repository of ecommerce customer reviews that enhance your product pages, build trust and ultimately increase sales.
Leveraging product reviews for key insights
- To measure the quality of a product. Real customer feedback provides valuable insights for both consumers and retailers. Positive reviews build trust, attracting potential buyers, while constructive criticism helps companies identify and rectify product flaws. This two-way communication fosters a continuous improvement cycle, ensuring that products meet or exceed customer expectations, ultimately elevating overall product quality and customer satisfaction.
- To reduce returns. Reviews don’t have to be solely about quality, there are many more aspects they can shed light on. For example, you can invite buyers to rate a product for fit (e.g., “100% of people rated this 5 stars for fit true to size”), supporting prospective buyers who are wavering between size choices. Reviews, coupled with social proof messaging, can further increase consumer purchasing confidence and reduce potential returns. Read more on how to reduce returns using social proof messaging.
- To improve customer experience. Genuine reviews offer a first-hand account of product performance, aiding customers in informed decision-making. Positive feedback builds trust, while addressing concerns in reviews demonstrates commitment to customer satisfaction. Good and bad feedback helps overall performance if we listen to it, and are prepared to accept the good with the bad reviews. Tackling the bad can turn around a poor customer service experience, whereas fighting the criticism is dangerous. Accept feedback, to the point of saying sorry if things are below the standards you have set and use the feedback to make changes to a product or process, telling customers what you’ve done to show that you’ve listened.
- To Identify issues with, and streamline, shipping. For retailers and brands with multiple product releases each year, insight from real customers on the shipping process can be important operational feedback, to cascade throughout your business and maintain your edge. This can also be beneficial to identify and resolve any repeat issues being experienced by customers.
- To measure and optimise review performance. Common review metrics include average star rating, review volume, review recency, helpful-vote counts and conversion rate lift. Tracking these KPIs helps retailers understand how review quality influences customer behaviour and reveals opportunities for optimisation, ensuring they get the most value from their review ecosystem.
Take advantage of customer product reviews to boost your eCommerce growth
Taggstar works with eCommerce review providers to aggregate positive, summarized shopper review data in our social proof messages. Taggstar integrates with leading providers of product reviews and user-generated (UGC) solutions, combining two powerful conversion rate optimization technologies. The integration of reviews and ratings with social proof messaging brings valuable information to the forefront and helps shoppers make more informed and better buying decisions.
Interested in learning more ? Contact Taggstar to speak with a social proof expert.
Frequently Asked Questions About Product Reviews in eCommerce
Why are product reviews important for eCommerce?
Product reviews build trust, act as social proof and help customers make confident decisions. They also drive conversions, improve SEO visibility and provide retailers with valuable insights to refine products and the customer experience.
Do product reviews really influence buying decisions?
Yes. In the US, nearly all shoppers read reviews before purchasing. Reviews help customers understand real-world performance, fit and quality, making it easier to choose the right product and reducing hesitation during checkout.
How do product reviews help increase eCommerce sales?
Products with reviews—especially recent and detailed ones—convert better than those without. Reviews reassure shoppers, validate product claims and highlight positive customer experiences, leading to higher revenue and repeat purchases.
Can product reviews help reduce returns?
Absolutely. Reviews provide clarity about fit, durability and performance, helping customers set accurate expectations before buying. When reviews are combined with social proof messaging, shoppers feel more confident and are less likely to buy incorrectly or bracket sizes.
How should retailers encourage customers to leave reviews?
Retailers can request reviews through post-purchase emails or SMS, simplify the review process and offer small incentives. Explaining how reviews help other shoppers can also increase participation.
Do negative reviews hurt eCommerce performance?
Not necessarily. A balance of positive and negative reviews makes a product feel authentic. Retailers who respond thoughtfully to criticism often build more trust and demonstrate strong customer service values.
