AdAge reports that Wal-Mart has finally agreed to let consumers rate products on its website - a far cry from their faux 2.0 shenanigans of the past few years (the fake blog, the creepy teen MySpace site, etc.)
They're touting the empowered customer as the driver of this decision, quoting research in the article that 80% of shoppers have more trust in brands that feature reviews and that 75% of shoppers say it's extremely or very important to read customer reviews before making a purchase. And, peer reviews, the study found, are preferred over expert reviews by a margin of 6-to-1. All highly consistent with the findings of our own WebDotDigitas study as well as other research we've seen (both quantitative and anecdotal).
Perhaps retailers (like Wal-Mart) have unrealistic fear about negative feedback's impact on their business. According to Wal-Mart's research, "positive reviews outnumber negative ones by a factor of eight."
Looking at a few representative reviews on WalMart.com, they seem legit - reviewers are asked for high level demographic info as well as how long they've owned the product and how frequently they use it.
Might this all be just an elaborate way to goose search results? The AdAge article continues:
"But all Web 2.0 good vibes aside, the real benefit may turn out to be how it affects the performance of the Wal-Mart online store and the goods its sells in search-engine rankings, a crucial factor in the performance of online retailers. The reviews give Wal-Mart thousands of additional pages of content to be indexed by major search engines, which look favorably on unique content, such as reviews, compared with pages with basic product details that any retailer could have."
PS - check out this consumer content about a particularly "rough" Wal-Mart location in South Carolina; maybe Wal-Mart figured it could head off stuff like this by "channelling" consumers to play nice within its boundaries
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