E-commerce sites 'should include reviews'

15/08/2008

E-commerce web design should include a section for customer reviews, a new E-consultancy report has recommended.

Produced in partnership with Logan Tod & Co and Immediate Future, the Online Shopping and Credit Crunch Survey Report indicated that 62 per cent of consumers are likely to look at peer reviews before making a decision to purchase a product.

To this end, e-commerce websites should include the capability for consumers to add their own product and service reviews, while it may also be a good idea to submit product feeds to comparison sites as they represent an important method of research for online shoppers, the report said.

"A whole group of more financially pressed people ... now use social media to make decisions and then comparison engines to find the best deal," said Matthew Tod of Logan Tod & Co.

"Complexity rules and simple strategies will fail if online retailers don't understand this."

Research conducted by Opinion Research Corporation earlier this year showed that travel, recreation and leisure goods and services are the categories for which online shoppers are most likely to conduct internet-based brand research.