Getting started with product reviews

In a recent blog we talked about how you can encourage users to leave product reviews. Quite often though, when you first enable product reviews in your online store, customers see there are none and can be reluctant to contribute.

The easiest way to get the ball rolling is to add staff reviews; that doesn’t mean pretending to be a customer, but clearly identifying the reviewer as a staff member. In the offline world, staff reviews are common, especially in book stores and music stores etc. and are increasingly being used to both seed the product reviews on the site as well as provide product information, opinion or comparisons that might not be included in the product description.

Another way to add value with reviews is to include a featured product category in your blog. There you can write an extended review and include many more photos that you would on your product page, and by enabling customer comments on your blogs, you add another way to engage with your customers.

So don’t get bogged down waiting for reviews, you can start the ball rolling yourself.