Ecommerce is big business, and it’s growing. Global ecommerce sales were forecast to reach $2.2 trillion in 2019, up from $1.9 trillion in 2018. In the U.S., ecommerce sales were predicted to reach $500 billion this year alone (with growth expected as high as 18% next year). Consumers are shopping online more frequently than ever before—and these numbers are only expected to grow in 2020 and beyond! While there’s no doubt that businesses should be using product ratings & reviews for their ecommerce store, why should you? Read on below for five reasons why consumer feedback matters:

1. Social Proof (purchases made by others)

Social proof is a powerful tool for ecommerce stores. When customers see that other people have purchased and enjoyed a product, they are more likely to purchase the same product themselves.

Social proof can be used to drive sales and conversions. The trustworthiness and credibility of your brand increases when you demonstrate social proof with reviews, ratings, and testimonials from customers who have purchased your products before them. These individuals feel an emotional connection with you and like what you offer; therefore they want others to enjoy it too!

2. Credibility (trust & authenticity)

Reviews and ratings are key for establishing trust and authenticity. It is necessary to have the capacity to include reviews and ratings so consumers can share their opinion. These reviews and ratings can also aid customers in making a choice because they offer insight into how content other people have been with your product or service.

Consistently monitoring reviews and ratings is essential for maintaining the trust of customers. This can help you identify trends in customer feedback, solve customer problems quickly, and guarantee that customers are content with your product or service.

3. Higher return on investment, revenues, and gross merchandise volume

The benefits of product ratings and reviews are threefold:

• Increased conversion. Product ratings and reviews can increase your conversion rate by as much as 40%. This means more customers will buy your products, which will lead to higher revenues.
• Increased revenue. Customers who use the product rating & review feature are likely to spend more on each order because they’re confident in their purchase decisions (and they’ll probably tell their friends about it too).
• Decreased cost per sale. For example, if you’re using paid advertising on Google Adwords or Facebook Ads, then you’ll spend less money on advertising if your conversion rate goes up because there’s less waste when people click through and buy something instead of just looking around without making an actual purchase. The same thing goes for paid social media ads like Instagram Ads or Twitter Promoted Tweets—they work better when people know what they’re buying before clicking through!

4. Organic SEO/keywords

Organic SEO is the process of getting your website ranked organically on search engines. It’s not just about having a great content strategy, it’s about having a great content strategy that includes active users who leave reviews and ratings.

Let’s say you have an ecommerce store offering various products at different price points. You want to rank well in Google for “T-Shirt” and “Women’s T-Shirts.” But how do you know if people who search for “T-Shirts” are going to be happy with the quality of your product?

If they’re not, they’ll leave a 1-star review or give you a low rating and this can hurt your rankings.

You can’t control what people search for, but you can control how they find out about your business and whether or not they’ll buy from you. That means providing relevant and trustworthy information that helps potential customers make informed decisions — including reviews and ratings from other customers.

5. Consumer reviews and ratings help to drive purchases.

As a consumer, you know the importance of customer reviews. They are at the top of your mind before making any purchase decision. You want to see what other people think about a product or service before you buy it yourself. Why? Because reviews provide social proof that a product is worth buying based on other people’s experience with the same item.

Customer reviews also help to build credibility for your business by showing customers that others like them have already purchased from you and had positive experiences with their purchases. This increases trust in your brand and can lead to increased conversions due to this trust factor as well as increased return on investment, revenues, and gross merchandise volume (GMV). Customer ratings also play an important role in organic SEO/keywords because they make up part of Google’s search algorithm!

Conclusion

Product reviews and ratings are crucial to the success of your ecommerce business. Not only do they help you to build trust with consumers, but they also drive conversions by giving them a better idea of what’s in store for when they make their purchase. With this in mind, it’s important that you ensure your products have enough reviews so that consumers can feel confident about buying from your website!