Today’s eCommerce shoppers are looking to understand pretty much everything about a product before they purchase it. And the more reviews you have for a product, the easier it is for your shoppers to manage their expectations.
Our Reviews Consumer Survey found that 85% of shoppers are more likely to purchase products that have anywhere between 50 and 500 reviews. Why? The more reviews your shoppers read, the easier it is for them to determine whether a product is the right fit for them.
To increase the number of reviews your products receive, you’ll first need to understand how useful an incentivized review could be.
And not just any review — reviews with visual user-generated content, too! Our survey also found that 63% of shoppers trust reviews more when they see photos and videos. So why not incentivize your current customer base to help build trust with new ones?
Here’s what your brand needs to know about incentivizing eCommerce reviews.
Why incentivize eCommerce reviews?
Reviews play a huge role in the buyer’s journey — besides the product itself, reviews can make or break a purchase as they’re the ultimate deciding factor. Therefore, encouraging shoppers to engage with your brand by sharing their feedback via a product review can help to strengthen your relationship with them. This is especially true in today’s competitive market where many eCommerce brands are pushing to drive customer retention.
When it comes to reviews, sometimes shoppers simply forget to leave one, or think of it as a time-consuming task. But if you offer a bit of encouragement in the form of an incentive and create a seamless review collection process, it could be beneficial for both you and your customers.
How to incentivize product reviews
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has regulations in place for both marketers and eCommerce platforms when it comes to collecting reviews from customers. With these regulations in mind, and our experience in the eCommerce world, we put together a few types of incentives brands may want to use next time they ask customers to review their products.
- Offer loyalty points. Not only does this motivate customers to provide feedback, but it also encourages repeat purchases.
- Use discounts or coupons. Our survey revealed that 47% of eCommerce shoppers would leave a product review if they were offered discounts or coupons.
- Get creative with social. Incentivize your shoppers to include photos in their reviews by rewarding them with an opportunity to be featured on your Instagram account.
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However you choose to encourage your shoppers to share feedback, make it clear that you’re offering an incentive and explain what that incentive is.
What to avoid when incentivizing a review
While offering your customers incentives for submitting feedback be sure to avoid the following;
- Paying shoppers for reviews. In addition to this practice not being aligned with FTC’s regulations, it’s also unethical to pay shoppers for their feedback.
- Adding conditions to any incentives. When you incentivize reviews, you may hope that it’s a positive one, but there’s a chance that it could be negative. Brands should not incentivize reviews under the condition that the reviews be positive.
- Overusing incentives. Offering incentives is a great way to initiate more interactions with your shoppers, but if you overuse them, it could skew your shoppers’ reviews.
- Incentivizing site reviews. If you’re looking to obtain your Google Seller Rating, don’t incentivize your site reviews. Google will not count incentivized site reviews as the 100 reviews needed to achieve your rating.
With these strategies in mind, you’ll master the art of an incentivized review in no time!
Yotpo Reviews and Loyalty
Per our survey, we learned that 54% of shoppers would include photos and videos with their eCommerce reviews if discounts or loyalty points were used as an incentive. At Yotpo, we recommend incentivizing your product reviews with loyalty points as a best practice.
Leverage Yotpo Reviews and Loyalty together to seamlessly offer your customers loyalty points when they submit a review. By incentivizing eCommerce reviews with loyalty points, you’re also encouraging shoppers to return to your site for repeat purchases again and again.
Nutrition brand The Turmeric Co. partnered with Yotpo to design more customizable review requests as well as a loyalty program. After optimizing their review collection strategy, the brand launched their “Turmeric Tokens” loyalty program and started rewarding shoppers with loyalty points (“Tokens”) for each review that was submitted. Since using Reviews and Loyalty together, the brand has seen a 600% increase in revenue.
The incentivized review
Whether you’re incentivizing your customers to leave a review or submit visual user-generated content such as photos with their review, be sure to align with our best practices. Doing so will allow you to collect high-quality feedback in an ethical way that adheres to FTC regulations.
If you’re ready to start incentivizing reviews, consider offering your customers loyalty points as a reward. This will help to build trust with your customers, increase engagement, and even impact retention.