User reviews increase sales by 26% at NetShops

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 by Greg Howlett

User reviews increase sales by 26% at NetShops

In a study conducted by NetShops along with the University of Nebraska, product sales increased 26% as a result of implementing user reviews.

NetShops is a niche online retailer that owns about 156 retail sites including Hammocks.com and Dartboards.com. It reports revenue of well over $100 million.

The methodology of this study is interesting. NetShops essentially compared the growth rates of products with reviews to those without reviews and found that sales of products with reviews grew much faster.

NetShops uses PowerReviews to collect their reviews and claims that they recouped the implementation cost for the program within a few weeks.

In my opinion, an A-B split is a much more accurate way of determining the impact of reviews on sales. At Vitabase, we use reviews collected by health supplement reviewer NutritionalTree. Here is a report of a A-B split test done by them that shows that reviews increased conversion by 67% and revenue by 80%.

While I suspect the NutritionalTree numbers are a bit high, I trust their methodology more. Regardless, both studies show that implementing user reviews are a worthwhile investment for retailers.

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5 comments on “User reviews increase sales by 26% at NetShops”

Ed Kohler Says:

July 4th, 2007 at 1:23 pm

I question the methodology too. Best sellers tend to have more reviews, so that could be the correlation here.
Steven Bradley Says:

July 4th, 2007 at 2:45 pm

I’d have to question NetShops methodology too, though I suspect even with better testing procedures they would have found the same thing. Maybe different numbers, but still an increase in sales when using user reviews.
Fitness guy Says:

July 5th, 2007 at 1:40 pm

I have to agree that their results would be skewed if not performed on the exact products and not just type of sale. Also, I would be suspect of their results if there ranking service not a free service and the results are a selling point.
10,000 Marshmallows Daily Links 2007-07-05 - 10,000 Marshmallows - Marketing Accountability: How to eat 10,000 Marshmallows Says:

July 5th, 2007 at 3:04 pm

[...] Marketing Pilgrim: User reviews increase sales by 26% at NetShops “In a study conducted by NetShops along with the University of Nebraska, product sales increased 26% as a result of implementing user reviews.” [...]
Noscar Milde Says:

May 21st, 2008 at 4:58 am

Of course user reviews had a massive impact on Vitabase! Look at their product information pages- if you take the reviews out of the mix there’s basically nothing left.