Understand what the number of reviews is and know its importance in ecommerce

Reviews in ecommerce are comments and opinions about the products made by your customers and can further increase their trust when purchasing.

On some ecommerce websites, you can see that there are a number of product reviews and comments made by other customers. These report the experience of each with respect to the product being rated. There are a few ways to access this information on a website: on the product page (PDP) or on the product listing page (PLP).

 

Number of PLP evaluations

 

On the Product Listing Page, known as PLP, it is possible to view, on many websites, the average rating of the product, usually with stars ranging from 0 to 5. Some may have decimal ratings such as 4.7, for example. This system allows the user to see the product rating represented by the number of stars that are filled (colored) or not.

In addition to the star classification, it is important that the PLP also presents the number of reviews with comments that were submitted. For example, if a product got a rating of 3.8 and only 4 comments, this information is completely different from the rating received by a product with 1,500 comments.

Another important aspect for user navigation is the option to order the products by best rated. If the website has the option for users to review products, why not give them the option to order by best rated?

 

Number of reviews on the PDP

 

When we browse the PDP (Product Page), it becomes even more important to be able to access the number of product reviews. Below the title, the user looks for the rating average and the possibility to finally be forwarded to the submitted reviews. Some aspects are very important for the user to better understand these reviews:

 

Rating chart

 

For the customer to better understand the rating, having a rating distribution chart is essential. For example, a 4.8 rating with 100 comments can be achieved in a few different ways:

 

• 80 ratings of 5 and 20 ratings of 4;
• 100 ratings of 5, etc.

 

For the customer, it may be important to understand why someone didn’t give them the highest rating, making this type of information more accessible and transparent.

 

Review titles

The required title in the comment helps the reader to understand the key subject of this review, which helps them to decide which comments are most relevant to them. In addition, the person who just wants to “skim” will only be able to read some product comments in the titles.

 

Comment ordering

The option to order the comments can be quite useful for the user who is browsing. With options such as most relevant, least relevant, most recent, least recent, best rated, etc., the user can find the type of comment they are looking for faster.

 

Number of reviews

The number of ratings shown also matters for the best display of information. For products with many comments, it is necessary to have a segmentation by pagination or by “load more” that allows the customer to view other comments only if desired.

This way, the page is not very long and does not interfere with the navigation of people who are not looking for comments. On the other hand, if the user wants to see the comments, it is important to have a reasonable number, which we consider to be an average of 6, before they need to change pages or load other comments.

 

Who can rate the product?

 

This question can be answered in different ways depending on which website you are referring to. Product ratings can be restricted to only those who made the purchase, only those who are logged into the site or even anyone who accesses the link.

On the one hand, limiting ratings to only the people who bought the product can bring greater information security. On the other hand, having more reviews brings more reliability to the user. The customer who reviews the product and did not buy it on the website, may have bought in the physical store or even on another website that sells the same product. Then, most likely they will leave a comment that demonstrates credibility.

 

Only 37% of ecommerce sites show the number of reviews on the PLP

 

So far, we understand how important it is to have product reviews for greater user transparency and reliability. However, only 37% of ecommerce sites evaluated by Eshopper have this functionality showing on the Product Listing Page.

Of sites that do have it, 27% are from the Home Appliances segment and 54% choose to only request the email for the user to leave a comment, without having to buy or log in, while 19% only allow customers who actually bought a product on the site to do a review.

Of the ecommerce businesses that provide the number of reviews and comments on the site, only 15% meet all the following criteria: they have the summary of the rating that can be accessed under the product title in the PDP, they have a chart with the rating distribution and the comment ordering functionality and they additionally provide at least 6 comments available on the PDP, requiring a review title.