What You Need to Know in Under 5 Mins
When you’re managing marketing for a toy brand, you need to know where you stand among the competition. Enter: ratings and reviews, a treasure trove of customer insights regarding your toys and those of your competitors.
Reviews are also a powerful tool for driving more traffic to product pages and then converting that traffic at a higher rate — if you know how to use them to stand out from the competition.
Got 5 minutes? Perfect. Watch the video below or read on to learn what you need to know about ratings and reviews for the toys category.
Review Benchmarks: Toys
The following benchmarks come from an analysis of Toy product pages.
71.6%
Review Coverage
4.7
Average Star Rating
112
Average Review Length
59
Reviews per Product
42.7%
Average Media Coverage
Monitoring the above metrics can help you ensure you’re generating both review quantity and review quality — the essential cornerstones of any high-impact UGC strategy.
71.6% of the toy products we analyzed have at least 1 review. This is a great starting point, but given the conversion lift of having just 1 review (see the next section), it is critical that brands strive to collect reviews for all the products on their site.
This is just below the sweet spot we recommend for the optimal conversion lift. Our research shows that products with ratings between 4.75 – 4.99 stars have the highest conversion rates.
Longer reviews tend to have higher conversion rates, as they provide richer detail and more relevant information for shoppers. We recommend a stretch goal of 500 characters for the maximum uplift.
The average toy in our analysis has 59 reviews. Consumers are split on the ideal number of reviews per product, with 57% being okay with a product having a review count in this range. But, 43% want to see more than 100 reviews per product. The bottom line? Consumers are always looking for more reviews.
42.7% of the toys we analyzed have at least one user-generated product image or a video. It’s wonderful to see shoppers sharing their child playing with your toys! Increasing this percentage can work wonders for your conversion rates, as visitors who interact with user-generated photos and videos are 103.9% more likely to convert.
How Review Volume Impacts Conversion for Toy Brands
Brands always ask us, “How many reviews does a brand really need on all of their products?”
The short answer is, “As many as possible.” And it’s for one simple (but powerful reason): the more reviews a product has, the more likely it is to be purchased.
Take a look at this chart, which shows the lift in conversion when a customer sees a product page with a certain number of reviews displayed vs. a product page with 0 reviews.
As you can see, there is a direct relationship between review volume and conversion lift. 59 reviews per product is the benchmark for the Toy category and a great number to work towards.
But, once you reach 59 reviews, you’ll want to keep on going. There’s a big lift once you pass 100 reviews. And once you pass 1,000 reviews, the conversion lift skyrockets. So, take a cue from Buzz Lightyear and shoot for infinity and beyond!
What Makes a Great Toy Product Review?
Review volume is important, but so is review quality. Let’s take a look at what makes a great review for a toy.
This review answers a lot of questions potential customers may have, including:
- What does this toy do?
- What are the pros and cons of this toy?
- Does it work with other toys?
- Who is the reviewer, and who did they purchase the product for?
That last question touches on one of the major trends we see in the toy category: gift buying. The toy category is unique in that, often, the reviewer is not the end user of the product. Many of the people who are purchasing your toys may not be at all familiar with your product, or even your brand, so they’re looking for guidance on what to buy.
This is precisely why review quality is so important for the toy category. Reviews can educate your customers on how a toy works, what kinds of children will like playing with it, and more. The depth of a review — both in featured information like the “Pros” and “Best For” elements as well as the review itself — is hugely important for toy shoppers.
How to Collect Toy Reviews That Convert Browsers Into Buyers
Now that you know the kind of feature-rich reviews you want for your toys, the question is, how do you go about collecting them?
At PowerReviews, we recommend including custom questions on your review forms to maximize the actionability and relevancy of the type of information collected. We call these Merchant-Specific Questions, or MSQs. We’ve found that questions like “Who did you purchase this for?” and “What occasion did you purchase this for?” can be particularly helpful for the toy category and all the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, family friends, and more who are buying toys for the little ones in their lives.
When designing your review collection form, be thoughtful and intentional about what kind of data you want to include so your customers can access all of the information they need to make an informed purchase. Be careful not to make the forms too long, though. We find that 8 questions is the sweet spot. Once a form becomes much longer than that, we see a higher rate of abandonment.
Next, think about how you can display this information to help shoppers who are reading the review. For example, you might elevate the pros/cons list higher up on your product page, in order to give people a quick glance and invite them to read more of your reviews.
Don’t forget to add a character counter to cheer people on toward leaving longer, more detail-rich reviews!
Once you have your review form and display optimized for maximum impact, it’s time to go out and collect those reviews!
Try:
- Sending post-purchase email
- Asking for reviews on receipts and invoices
- Including review requests in your product packaging
- Asking for reviews via text or social media
- Hosting a review sweepstakes or contest
- Offering loyalty points in return for a review
- Running a product sampling campaign
Bonus Step: Syndicate Your Reviews for Maximum Impact
Let’s say you’ve collected loads of great reviews, and they’re all on your website. That’s great if you’re a strictly D2C toy merchant.
But, if you sell through more channels than just your website, then you need to make sure your reviews show up in all the places your customers are shopping, from Amazon to Target.
This is where review syndication comes in. Your customers write a review once, and then — through the magic of UGC Syndication by PowerReviews — your review appears on multiple retail websites.
With syndication, one product review can easily turn into two, three, four, or more! When setting up review syndication, think about the retailers that are going to have the biggest impact for you — e.g. the highest traffic sites where you tend to make the most sales — as those are the ones where you’re going to enjoy the biggest returns.
Think about it this way: there is a huge amount of traffic on your biggest retailer sites – potentially many times more than your lower impact retailers. So it follows that you should focus on optimizing your presence there – both from a review volume and a review quality perspective – to ensure you stand out in an environment where competition is likely fierce.
Ready to have fun with reviews? Help consumers discover your toys with the power of ratings and reviews. Contact PowerReviews to learn more about how UGC can grow your business.
