July 23, 2007 Comments
Wal-Mart has finally enabled consumer reviews for the products being sold on its web site. The move comes a little more than six months after a Wal-Mart sponsored blog came screeching to a halt amidst a storm of criticism when readers discovered that the blog chronicling the journey of a married couple across the country in an RV was not a work of two fans, but rather of paid professional writers.
The move to add reviews will bring the Wal-Mart site into the modern world of Web 2.0 where competitors like Amazon.com and Target have long accepted consumer feedback on products sold on the site.
The reviews are fairly standard in terms of e-com sites. They feature an overall rating, subcategory ratings that vary by product, space for a detailed text review and space for readers to rate the quality of a review. The reviews also feature a space for the reviewer to record their gender, age range, how long they've owned the product and how often they use the product. That's pretty handy information that could heavily influence the credibility of some reviewers.
Business Week notes that product reviews are being published within about five days of submission. Wal-Mart will also be sending email invitations to online customers asking them to return to the site to post a review of the product they purchased.
Overall, reviews of the move have been fairly positive so far. While some expected criticism has been logged over the five day review process, the fact that negative reviews are showing up leads me to believe that Wal-Mart is simply being cautious in their approach to a new content generator. Hopefully the retailer will speed up the review process down the road as they begin to get the hang of the system.
Still thinking about adding product reviews to your e-commerce site? I'd encourage you to push forward with the idea. Product reviews can not only help land you some nice search rankings for long-tail phrases, they can also help you convert visitors to buyers.
In 2006, 48% of those researching or buying products online described reviews as either "very useful or useful," he says, "and they often read through reviews to confirm that they are making the right decision. The whole idea is that there is wisdom of the masses."
And about 52% of those in Jupiter's survey have either written a review themselves or contributed some kind of feedback, he says, adding that customers who use online reviews are also more likely to be younger, as well as more affluent--two audiences Wal-Mart has been courting.
Sehgal says that for the most part, consumers do respect the collective wisdom of other shoppers. While retailers and manufacturers have been accused of putting in fake reviews, "it benefits buyers to have the comments as transparent as possible," he says.
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