A recent study commissioned by Power Reviews and conducted by the e-tailing group, “Social Shopping Study 2007”, reinforced what many marketers have already discovered: there are many shoppers who rely on peer feedback to make purchase decisions.  The study identified 65% of the respondents as “Social Researchers” – those who always or almost always actively seek-out and read customer reviews before making a purchase.

Some interesting findings about Social Researchers from the report:

• 82 percent of Social Researchers found reading reviews preferable to researching a product in-store with a knowledgeable sales associate.
• 64 percent of Social Researchers research products online more than half the time, regardless of where they buy the product (online, brick-and-mortar store, catalog, etc.) .
• Almost all respondents indicated that reviews are helpful for products beyond electronics, such as toys and video games, sporting goods, gifts, specialty foods and health and beauty products.
• 81 percent of consumers use customer reviews to decide between two or three products or to confirm that their final selection is the correct one.

My take-aways from the report: 

• People are increasingly expecting ecommerce websites to provide peer reviews and similar functionality.  If you have an online store and currently don’t provide this information – you need to start looking into it.
• Online reviews aren’t just for consumers who purchase online – they are for those buying through all channels.  This is consistent with other research that has demonstrated the impact of online marketing on offline purchases.  If you have  offline locations, make sure you are letting people know where to find them and try to quantify the impact of your online activities on offline sales.
• Peer reviews aren’t just for electronics anymore - shoppers rely on them to make decisions regarding a wide variety of products.
• Customer reviews are very important during the latter stages of the buying cycle and having that functionality will help ensure that consumers are at your site when they are ready to make a purchase.