No matter what business you are in you have to stand out among the competition. If you don’t sell the absolutely exclusive product, you have «to fight» for the customer anyway. While choosing the product in brick-n-mortar stores, customers can test the physical and ergonomic characteristics, colors, and eventually, the packaging. But while choosing the product online, the client is affected by completely different factors. The value is the product card, the presence of photographs from different sides, video reviews, and extremely important is the availability of social proof.
70% of Americans responded that they always look for reviews about the product before purchasing. It means that social proof is an extremely important marketing asset. And you as a company providing exceptional service have to take care of providing the most valuable information for customers for helping them to make the right choice the easiest way.
Why do customers pay attention to social proof? This is a psychological phenomenon in which people rely on the opinions or actions of others to inform our own. In order for such a powerful marketing tool to work in favor of the merchant, it is necessary to provide users with the opportunity to share their impressions, opinions, photos, etc.
What are the ways to work with social proof?
Social proof from customers
Customers ’reviews can be added to the main page, like the way PrintKick does
as well as on the product page itself, as on Fun&Function site.
97% of users indicated that online reviews influence their purchasing decisions. Therefore, it is worth paying special attention to adding this feature to the site.
Social Proof in the Search Bar
Users will definitely pay attention to products that are most in-demand among others. You can select a separate section for popular products or display them directly in the search bar as BabyPark did.
Photo/video social proof
Products whose quality is confirmed by real photos and videos of users become the most popular. Indeed, in this case, the probability of avoiding such a popular effect as “expectation-reality” is minimized. 22% of users return products just because the goods received do not match the way they were presented on the site. So, this type of proof is a way to increase the store’s reputation. A good case of working with this type of proof is Aliexpress.
Experts’ social proof
Retailers that sell some specific products such as toothpaste, vitamin supplements, or different items that are hard to choose by themselves can add expert reviews to the site. Customers follow leaders’ opinions. In order to make it easier for users to choose, the retailer can add the opportunity to get expert advice on the site, as Brooklinen did.
Summing up, it is worth noting that the presence of positive reviews becomes more important than the ability to save money when buying. Buyers are willing to pay 31% more if sellers have excellent reviews.
If you want to use social proof as a marketing asset, contact an experienced ecommerce solution partner. He will help to choose the most suitable approach that will most accurately fulfill your tasks and increase the number of online orders.
useful and valuable details you shared, thanks for the important blog post. It helped me a lot.