Online Grocery Shopping is Growing – and Ratings and Reviews are Key
Now, let’s take a closer look at what online grocery shoppers want in terms of reviews – and how brands and retailers can meet those expectations.
Grocery Products for Which Reviews are Particularly Important
Online grocery shoppers want to be able to access product ratings and reviews for many different types of grocery products. But again this year, a few categories rise to the top: personal care, home care, non-perishable foods, and frozen foods.
It is interesting to note that interest in reviews has increased year-over-year across nearly all grocery product categories.
Where Online Grocery Shoppers Want to Find Reviews
While online grocery shoppers want to read reviews, most aren’t willing to look hard to find this content. Again this year, the vast majority – 85% – of online shoppers want to be able to access reviews directly through the grocery service or app they use to shop.
Helpful Components of Grocery Product Reviews
Online grocery shoppers value many aspects of ratings and reviews. The average star rating and a customers’ opinion on specific details relevant to the product top the list. 68% of online grocery shoppers indicate these are factors they consider useful when deciding whether or not to purchase a product.
A significant (and growing) portion of online grocery shoppers also feel other types of UGC are helpful when making purchase decisions, including customer Q&A (50%), customer-submitted imagery (47%), and customer-submitted videos (24%).
Ratings and Reviews are Important Across All Product Categories
Online shoppers want to be able to access ratings and reviews for a wide range of grocery products – from personal and home care to non-perishable and frozen foods – and everything in between.
Brands and retailers must make it a priority to collect ratings and reviews for all types of grocery products.
Of course, star ratings are important; 68% of online grocery shoppers find this information useful. However, written commentary is equally important. 68% of online shoppers find it valuable to read customer opinions about their experiences. Be sure to collect both.
The ultimate goal is to collect a high volume of reviews across all grocery products. After all, 63% of online grocery shoppers pay attention to the volume of reviews for a product. The more reviews a product has, the more credible it seems.
Consumers Don’t Want to Look Hard for Ratings and Reviews
Nearly all online grocery shoppers read ratings and reviews at least sometimes. However, they don’t want to spend a lot of time looking for this content. The vast majority – 85% – want to be able to find ratings and reviews directly through the website or app they use to purchase grocery products.
Be sure to prominently display ratings and reviews on your website and homepage. If you don’t, shoppers are sure to look elsewhere.
As an added bonus, displaying ratings and reviews on your website can improve your ranking on search results. This is important, as 36% of shoppers look for reviews on search engines.
Other Types of UGC are Increasingly Important to Online Grocery Shoppers
Ratings and reviews are an important tool for online grocery shoppers. But brands and retailers shouldn’t stop there.
Today, 50% of online grocery shoppers say it would be helpful to see customers’ questions and answers on the product page. So consider incorporating a Q&A section onto your product pages.
In addition, nearly half (47%) of online grocery shoppers find customer-submitted imagery helpful – and 24% feel this way about customer-submitted videos. Start collecting visual content as part of reviews. The presence of this content will help future shoppers make confident purchase decisions.