Feature Description: 

• Review display options on the category page and the product page
• Option to hide and style in both places
• Will be a merge on the product page and a snap-in
• Cast your vote and write the review from the product page
• Displayed as rating level in the category listings, click to view the reviews
• Review and moderate in the admin console under customer or catalog menu
• Estimated Time/Cost: TBD
• AmeriCommerce Portion: 1/2
• Customer Contributions:

 

How To Participate:

• Please reply to this post with your interest and your contribution level based on the specs above.  If cost specs have not been provided, please just respond with your interest and that you are willing to participate when further specs are provided.  Feel free to post with clarifications, other supporting text, links and examples.
• If the feature is a large feature, certain customers who need it most will contribute more to feature than some others, this is usually needed to see the feature get started.
• Please specify if you are interested, but do not wish to contribute so we know that you still want/and need this feature.

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Ed Sturrock
AmeriCommerce Product Manager

Wow, this thread started on 9/18/07! I find it hard to believe that I am going to be the first post on this. I feel compelled to share what I know about this:

First and foremost, this feature is a must have so I am in. We need totals on what this is going to cost to develop.

In order for this feature to be worthwhile you must have the following features:

A. The customer must be able to type in their opinions.

B. A Product Rating Scale is important as well as "Would you recommend this product?", yes or no.

C. Ability to email the product info to a friend 

D. There has to be a way to delete posts that are posted for spamming purposes, because you will definitely get these.

I don't know how many of you shop on line, but personally when I buy a product on the net, I ALWAYS read the product reviews, as a matter of fact, I have never bought an electronics/computer item without consulting CNet.com. CNet is probably one of the better sites that provides customer reviews on electronics. I have yet to purchase a product based on customer reviews that did not meet my expectations. Like me, there are many out there that are finding this out and taking their business where reviews are available. SO, yes this ranks way the hell up there!

From personal experience, Reviews sell merchandise. Internet Retailer Magazine considers customer reviews to be a necessity if you want to compete. In my industry not all of us have this ability, but those that do are doing better than those of us who do not. So I consider this very important. I came on board with Americommerce because this was in the planning stages with an ETA of May 2008.

Another important aspect of customer reviews is that it provides dynamic content, something Google and other spiders love, the more content the more it get's indexed, the more indexing by spiders, the higher you will rank in the respective search engines. Customer reviews are an SEO dream. Google looks for sites with dynamic content, customer reviews are excellent for this purpose.

FYI: If you are in the internet retail business, Internet Retailer magazine is a definite MUST read. I think everyone in the industry should be subscribed to the magazine, and it's free. Lots of valuable information in there. The magazine really focuses on web design and it's interaction with making $$$, which is the reason why we are all here.

 I think that Americommerce already has a system in place that will work. If you could use the free hand variant entry, turn it into a site merge, This will allow the free hand window to display. All you would need to do is create a tab under Descriptions called Reviews, then  ""CUSTOMER REVIEW"" could be placed in the HTML editor. Same for a rating scale, whether they would recommend the product or not, and the ability to add a <A href="mailto:" mce_href="mailto:"> tag that will email the page link to whomever the customer wishes, since there is a field for Custom URL, that variable could be used to insert it into the mailto: command. Just a thought.

 I just thought of this, but another cool feature would be for the customer reviews to have a field that automatically merges it with the product on the page. Example: instead of Customer Reviews: it should read Customer Reviews for ______________ product. This is is crucial because Google will index the review specifically for the product in question. Say the product name is "Rapid Printer", the customer review tag would read; "Customer Reviews for Rapid Printer". Google would index that exact phrase. This is great because if someone does a search for "customer review for rapid printer", that will be an exact match taking it directly to your product page where the review is, AND where the product can be purchased. This shouldn't be a big deal because the product name is already a variable that has been entered, this again would be some type of merge code.

 Ed, given that all of the variables needed, product name and custom url are under the General tab, would it be possible to place a checkoff box such as the one you pick when you want the product to show up on the Featured Products section? If it can be done like I am thinking, this should be very feasable since all of the variables needed are under that General Tab. Just an idea.

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Best Regards,
Louis
TackleToyStore.com

We are definitely interested in some review capabilities, I like where BMC is headed in their response, however we may be more interested in integration with a 3rd party review provider such as Powerreviews as opposed to our own review system.

Murdock,

Thanks for your reply. I looked into Power Reviews and while it is a great program, you need to have some serious sales in order to qualify for their program. They can also do it for a smaller company, but the cost is up there. In addition, there are monthly maintanence fees associated with it. The cost may be ok for some, but given the current economy, I much rather have something that won't increase my overhead at this time.

Did you get a chance to speak with them?

 

Louis

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Best Regards,
Louis
TackleToyStore.com

Ed, figuring in on all the features needed, can we have a ball park figure on how much this will cost?

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Best Regards,
Louis
TackleToyStore.com

I met with them at the etail show several months back. They fit in pretty well with us as we are consumer electronics / audio visual oriented. Getting quality, believable reviews is difficult to do if you dont have a significant amount of traffic, so dipping into a large pool of reviews which have some sort of 'authority' (since they are not proprietary to the site they are beign displayed on) has its clear benefits.

 

... We had spent some time simply taking exisitng reviews forproducts ofrm places like power reviews and manually adding them to one of our current sites. It worked, but is not the ideal method to do so.

 

.. I shoukd revisit power reviews to check their offering.

I met with them at the etail show several months back. They fit in pretty well with us as we are consumer electronics / audio visual oriented. Getting quality, believable reviews is difficult to do if you dont have a significant amount of traffic, so dipping into a large pool of reviews which have some sort of 'authority' (since they are not proprietary to the site they are beign displayed on) has its clear benefits.

 

... We had spent some time simply taking exisitng reviews forproducts ofrm places like power reviews and manually adding them to one of our current sites. It worked, but is not the ideal method to do so.

 

.. I shoukd revisit power reviews to check their offering.

I specialize in fishing tackle, not a lot of sites offering Customer Reviews in my industry, yet. One thing you want to be able to do is to weed out the vindictive reviews, and there are a few of those. I have seen that here and there, mainly on bulletin boards where threads seem to lean towards that type of behavior. Typically reviews are within a certain percentage. Personally I would want to have the option to remove reviews that are skewed when compared to others. Say if you have 10 people rating the item between 4 & 5, and then you get one that rates it a 1, along with a written review that trashes the product, I would want the option to delete something like that. I am not sure if Power Reviews offers that option.

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Best Regards,
Louis
TackleToyStore.com

Last I remeber, you had soem control over editing.suppresing certain reviews. I personally think having hte occasional bad review in there is benefical as it looks (and is) more legitimate. Receiving a lot of bad reviews is a good indication to the merchant to investigate yanking the product

Murdock,

 I totally agree with you. What I have found in our industry is that there are dealers/manufacturers that get involved in spamming their products, and at times trashing others. This is why I have concerns over having the ability to disect some of this stuff out. Also, I think that reviews should be limited to those people who made an actual purchase of that product. I have found that many product review programs allow anyone to post a review about any product. A product review should be limited to those who made the actual purchase. This is easily controlled by mandating that the review be written at the store where they bought the product. This allows the merchant to check for validity.

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Best Regards,
Louis
TackleToyStore.com

Good point. Perhaps some sort of email survey that can be sent out after a purchase is made, pertaining to that particular product. When it is returned, it can be pushed into the review section for that particular product. This gives you an automated way to solicit for reviews (possibly offer incentive to compelte) and push back into system. At worst case, it can be manually uploaded once received via survey.

 

Great idea. I like the idea of giving an incentive to encourage customers to write their reviews.

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Best Regards,
Louis
TackleToyStore.com

Very interested in this. Please post estimates.

Mark

We are interested as well.  Reviews are crucial to good conversion rates in ecommerce.

 Necessary elements:

- Some part of the review in the category pages (star rating and number of reviews is typical)

- All reviews on product pages (of course). 

- A method for emailing customers a set time after purchase to review the products they bought.

- permissions to allow only purchasers to review (if desired by admin) 

- "moderator" type features to edit/hide/censor

- Ability for the customer to upload a photo too.  Adds trust to the review.
 

Any updates on this?

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Best Regards,
Louis
TackleToyStore.com

The original post was made in 2/07.... its been about 16 months and there has seemingly been lots of interest.... any word Ed? Thanks!

Murdock,

Back in Jan when I signed up with Americommerce the product reviews were one of the features I asked for, these were to be operational with the May update. Not sure what is holding this up. I believe it's on the agenda, so I don't see it as a dev share.

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Best Regards,
Louis
TackleToyStore.com

Yeah, I have been waiting for this for a long time as well.... This is pretty standard in most shopping carts; I am surprised to see nothing on the radar yet.

There is a new version of Americommerce coming out. Does anyone know if Customer Reviews are in the new version???

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Best Regards,
Louis
TackleToyStore.com

Ed,

What is the status of this feature?
 

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Best Regards,
Louis
TackleToyStore.com

Yeah, whats up with this? You posted the initial message in this thread almost a year ago......

I went ahead and started using a Wufoo.com form in my customer review tab. I thought that was important and that was the only way I could get the ball moving so to speak. Seems to work ok so far. I will have a problem though when the comment count gets too high, since it is a manual system now. It would really be nice to integrate something into the website.

Monte,

My opinion of customer reviews is that in addition to the website's appearance, and overall information, you need something to "close" the sale. It is here where I think the importance of this feature lies. Here is what I have found out so far:

Like you I was looking at temporarily circumventing the lack of customer reviews with a "form" type of fix, but I just didn't and don't see how I could make this work on my end. The wufoo/form format would have been way too time consuming, I have too many products. Each form would have to match the product being reviewed, etc. If I were to concentrate on this, it wouldn't leave me too much time to answer calls and process all my orders. Given the nature of my business, most of my orders are via phone. Although I do get a few online orders, the majority of my sales are off line phone orders. It is important to note, that other than word of mouth, and my regular customers, most of my other phone calls are from those who are on the website as they make the call. Upon answering most say "Hi I am on your website looking at ____________ I was wondering how this would _______" I have always thought that having the review feature would probably enhance my sales by allowing more of these phone sales to be converted to actual online sales, by answering some, if not all of the questions customers have. Mind you, I have no problem talking to my customers, but I am the one and the only one running this show, I do it all, phone, packaging, shipping, accounting, website updates, etc. etc. etc. While on the phone, there are many other calls that I miss (sales?), in addition, this phone time also makes my day go deeper into the night. I am very customer focused, so everything has to ship today, so regardless of what time it is, I must complete that task daily. Working 12 hours, shipping everything, and having twice the sales, would really make me happy! Right now I am working a good 16, and not capturing all the sales. The 12 is a better deal.

Here is what I have done so far: 

This may be of help, and it is what I have done, although not complete, it has been good as far as sales go. Until this feature is available in full format through AC, in lieu of the wufoo type form I have opted for a special tab on all products which I call my Buyer's Guide. Under this tab I explain the product, it's advantages, as well as my personal experiences with it. Under this tab I have answered those questions that I typically get when someone calls about that specific product. Although I have not had time to place a buyer's guide on each and every single product, this "band aid" has helped and has made a difference. As quoted on Internet Retailer mag, and a host of other e-tailing publications, I can now see how customer reviews really impact online sales. I had my hopes high that this feature would be available a few months before the holidays. I say a few months because realistically it takes a while for these reviews to populate a good portion of the products. Given the proximity of the holidays, there is insufficient time for this to get established, however I am confident that AC is working on this, along with all the other requests, and that 2009 may give us this feature. My experience with AC has been excellent they have always come through with what I have requested. I am not sure what is involved in getting this to work as we need it to, however when done, I am sure it will fulfill all the needs, as the other new features have. Personally I am tickled pink with Google Checkout, this has been very good for me and it is working very well.

This is what I have learned thus far, and where my most important questions lie: 

I have found that most people who make phone calls call to find out about the product and whether it will benefit them and meet their needs, this is how the sale is closed. By just providing this information my phone conversions are over 92%. I would say that a good 90% of the calls I get are from customers who need just a tad of re-assurance on how good the product is. However I do have to wonder: How many potential customers are not making the call? Where are these "potential sales" going? Other e-tailers? Retailers? Given the current economic crisis, this is the part that I worry about most, and where I think those customer reviews not only close the sale, but capture those "other" sales that are not happening.

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Best Regards,
Louis
TackleToyStore.com

Where's Ed in this discussion. I, too, would love to see product reviews become a feature and am surprised it hasn't shown up yet.