Reviews can make or break an online business.
- 92% of consumers now read online reviews before making a purchase;
- 68% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust online businesses more;
- 80% of consumers say that they only trust online businesses with 4-star or more.
What does this mean?
- Nearly ALL online shoppers are looking at reviews before they make a purchase;
- MOST consumers will believe positive reviews, not all, but most will;
- Your business needs to be ranked in the TOP 20% to be considered by 80% of consumers.
What about negative reviews?
- 94% of consumers AVOID businesses with bad reviews.
So, almost ALL online shoppers will avoid businesses with bad reviews.
Managing bad reviews sounds hard. Can you simply prevent people from tarnishing your business reputation by blocking reviews? Not really, because:
- 62% of consumers will NOT buy from websites that don’t have reviews.
Even if you prevent your customers from reviewing your business on your website, there are dozens of review hosting sites out there that are dying to hear what these unsatisfied customers have to say.
So what’s an online business to do? For specific measures, see our article on Review Marketing. The following is simply an honest description of our own experience dealing with negative reviews.
SHOPLAZZA is, first and foremost, an online software platform that provides intuitive tools which help first-time users launch a web store with ease.
Additionally, we are a highly customizable platform that can be tailor-made for online businesses with significant yearly turnover looking to expand beyond the restrictions of other mainstream eCommerce shop-building platforms.
BUT the majority of reviewers that allegedly have had a less than satisfying experience with us have NEVER used our service.
We are not playing word games here, we’ve been suffering from a classic case of mistaken identity. Dissatisfied customers negatively review SHOPLAZZA to vent their frustrations with unscrupulous vendors that abuse our policies, under the impression that we are behind their unsavory schemes.
All this is because the free versions of our web stores have domain names with prefixes containing “shoplazza”, as well as footers that say “powered by Shoplazza”.
Putting your name on everything is a double-edged sword. You get the praise and the blame, the good and the bad, the alpha and the omega.
Our attempts to clarify this misunderstanding about the nature of our business have mostly fallen on deaf ears; review websites stand by their commitment to promote free speech, and individual users seize every opportunity to exercise that freedom.
In response, we’ve been compelled to reexamine the clarity of our messaging so that people don’t confuse us with those that may use our product and services for inappropriate purposes.
While it remains to be seen whether our efforts will pay off, here’s a statistic that you’ll do well to remember when your business comes under attack:
- You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
We are not playing basketball here, but the rules are the same. When the opposing team attacks, you need to play defense. As they say, the best offense is a good defense.
Or is it the other way around?
The internet is a wild place. We simply ask that you don’t shoot the service provider.
