01/08/2009

By Scott Thompson

eSpares, having implemented Bazaarvoice's Ratings & Reviews last year, recently tested the impact of customer reviews on the conversion rate of its products.

The online retailer conducted an A/B test to test the impact customer reviews were having on its products and sales. Three randomly selected products - which each had a significant amount of reviews and similar ratings - were used to conduct the trial. Over a period of five months, eSpares randomly served site visitors with either product information that contained review content or product information without review content. The test was run until there was a statistically accurate sample size for all products, and no promotions were run during the testing period.

Results showed that all of the products experienced higher conversion rates when there was customer review information available: one product saw conversion rates significantly increase by 14.2 per cent, while the other two products saw a 6.6 per cent and 6.2 per cent increase respectively. Ultimately, visitors who viewed product information containing review content converted from visitors to buyers between 6.2 per cent and 14.2 per cent more often than those who did not receive product information containing reviews.