Compare Review Platforms: Which Is Right For Your eCommerce Business?

In the eCommerce world, trust is a big factor when it comes to influencing buying decisions. Online customer reviews can make or break a product, as well as impacting buyers’ opinions of your business as a whole.

In fact, eCommerce sites without reviews, even negative ones, won’t see the 18% uplift that customer feedback often brings in. A site without any reviews leaves users questioning whether or not it’s legitimate; a site with purely positive reviews leaves users feeling suspicious, as if it’s too good to be true.

But before you can even consider getting customer reviews, you need a platform to submit on - and it needs to be simple to navigate, easy to implement, and straightforward to update. We’ll take you through some of the best customer review platforms on the market to help you make the right decision for your eCommerce business.

Benefits Of Customer Review Platforms

Before we get started, let’s take a look at the benefits of customer review platforms and how they can positively impact your eCommerce business.

Not only do reviews create trust amongst your customers, they also provide you with a learning curve, especially if you’re receiving more negative feedback than you were expecting. If a product is gaining the same kind of comments, time after time, you can use this to your advantage. Make the changes the customers are suggesting - and tell them you’ve made the changes because of them. Not only will this improve your product, but it will also create customer trust in a different way; you’ve listened and taken on board feedback, something a lot of businesses, especially bigger companies, fail to do.

But you can’t just rely on Google My Business reviews or Yelp. Although these are great, free tools, and have their own benefits in regards to increasing trust factors, they’re not enough when it comes to users browsing on your site. Once you’ve gathered some reviews on a bespoke platform, you can then use these as customer testimonials across your site or even on social media advertising.

Customer reviews are a great way to interact with people too. Whether a review is positive or negative, that individual has taken time out of their day to write something about your products or company. Take the same time to reply back, thanking them for their review, or offering them a solution if their review is negative. Use customer reviews as a chance to show your personality off - for the right reasons.

What To Look For In eCommerce Review Software

When choosing the right eCommerce customer review software, there are a few features and cost considerations you should look out for.

- Integrations with your current eCommerce software

- What level of reporting and insight you get back

- Automation of review requests, such as email notifications

- Cost - it might have all the bells and whistles, but will it affect your bottom line?

Top 5 Customer Review Platforms

TrustPilot

TrustPilot is all about transparency and honesty, so it’s all in their name. The platform has been around since 2007, developing and honing their features and technology for almost 15 years.

They boast 6.9billion monthly impressions on their TrustBox widgets, where reviews are showcased on websites. TrustPilot themselves even have 132,704 on their own platform, which could be a conflict of interest, but the fact they don’t have 5/5 stars confirms they’re all real.

The platform offers a free plan, which many businesses take advantage of, which allows you to claim your profile page, send review invites, receive support, and a few more features too. However, if you want to make the most of your TrustPilot reviews, their standard plan starts from £199 per month, and then you can customise this with add-ons. These include customisable review invitations (helping showcase your brand’s personality), social sharing integrations, and even more data.

Another bonus with TrustPilot is that it’s available in 65 countries (and they’re still expanding), so wherever you’re targeting, or wherever you hope to target, TrustPilot is recognised across the globe.

Feefo

Another well-known review site, Feefo offers its platform to a number of different industries, including retail, property, automotive, and travel. So whatever your eCommerce site is selling, Feefo is buying.

The platform allows you to display customer reviews against individual products, including photo and video reviews. Customers can also filter out the reviews that matter to them, making them more likely to buy.

Automated emails can be sent out to customers and a range of customisation features can be implemented, such as the way reviews are displayed on your site, and Feefo’s reporting system is second-to-none.

It’s not just about reviews either. Feefo can allow you to gain real insight into your business performance, helping you make changes, without needing to look through customer feedback. They also have a range of payment options to choose from, starting with a free trial.

Yotpo

If you’re looking for a platform that focuses on user generated content (UGC), then you probably don’t need to look much further than Yotpo.

Their motto is that ‘great brands are built on happy customers’, which definitely reflects some of their own customers’ brands, from Patagonia to Steve Madden. The platform enables you to collect reviews using data-driven tools, such as automated emails and artificial intelligence.

Yotpo also has a community Q&A section, enabling users to ask and answer questions honestly. This is a clever way to build trust and drive conversions - if a user’s question has already been answered about a product, they’re more likely to purchase.

This platform works well with eCommerce platforms, such as Shopify, and has a pricing format based on the number of orders you receive. It’s actually free to use up to 50 monthly orders, so ideal if you’re just starting out.

BazaarVoice

BazaarVoice has been around for a while - and with good reason. The platform is ideal for eCommerce businesses and has been implemented by some of the big players, such as The Body Shop, Macy’s, Pepsi, and Canon. But what makes this platform so appealing?

The platform focuses on UGC. They push the customer’s voice forward and have some solid stats to back up their belief. According to BazaarVoice’s ebook, 47% of shoppers consider online customers reviews to be an influential source of information. Customers have the ability to leave videos and photos too, increasing the likelihood of conversions.

They also focus on providing businesses with the ability to easily respond to consumer reviews, negative or positive, allowing them to follow up once changes have been implemented. They’re also a stickler for innovation and are constantly updating their platform to make it work for businesses.

BazaarVoice is able to integrate with a number of different eCommerce platforms too, including Shopify, Magento, and Salesforce. It’s a complete customer review system.

Reevoo

Reevoo’s focus is on trust - and they’re into it in a big way. Their platform concentrates on gaining ‘real’ customer reviews and not looking at reviews as marketing. Some of their customers include huge names, such as Volvo, Hyundai, Pandora, and Beko. They’re upmarket and high end - and have a review platform to match.

Reevoo looks at the customer experience, rather than just trying to gain a generic review from them. Although customers can review at product level, the focus is on the entire shopping experience, so potential customers can gain real insight into how the buying process will work.

Don’t Forget…

Remember, dependent on the country you’re targeting, there will be specific review platforms for those regions. Think Which? in the UK and Choice in Australia. And don’t forget the behemoth that is Amazon Customer Reviews, ideal if you choose to sell on both Amazon and your own eCommerce platform.

Your eCommerce platform may also come with its own review network - but it’s worth checking out exactly what features this comes with and how well it works. Platforms like Feefo and TrustPilot have a range of features to choose from and can grow with you as your business expands.