New Survey Reveals How Customer Reviews Can Impact Product Sales

One of the oldest sayings in the world of business is that the customer is always right, and what that essentially means is that if you want to make it big and allow your enterprise to flourish you need to ensure that your customers are always as happy as they want to be. The rise of the internet meant that users could now leave reviews for products and businesses, and this has most definitely had an impact on how businesses try to market themselves.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that not every product or service category will be impacted the same way when it comes to online reviews. A new study conducted by YouGov has surveyed consumers in 17 different countries and asked them whether or not an online review will impact their purchasing decisions across five different product classes, and the results are quite interesting to witness because they reveal the areas where reviews actually matter a lot more than you might think.

If you take a look at the global average, the product category where users felt reviews mattered the most was that of household appliances, with over 30% of users saying they mattered there. Clothes followed at around 27%, followed by movies and TV shows at 23%, airlines at around 16% and financial investments at around 15%. It’s clear that clothes and household appliances often involve people deferring to other people’s experiences, so good reviews can be a lot more handy in those types of industries.

Another thing to note is that there is a lot of variation that can be seen from country to country. Generally speaking, consumers in more developed countries seem to rely on reviews less than developing ones. For example, consumers buying clothes in Indonesia, India and China relied on reviews more heavily, with 50%, 48% and 41% respectively saying that they use reviews during their buying process. Clothes were also more important in these locations and reviews impacted clothing purchases more than household appliances within these geographical areas so the trend is by no means constant.



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