A recent guest column at AuctionBytes.com suggests using customer reviews to generate new sales.

If you’ve done any shopping online, you probably do it as well: browse through the reviews associated with a product to find what other shoppers who have purchased it have to say. And it’s easy to do:

Inviting your customers back to write a review after a purchase by sending them an email (commonly called a post-transaction follow-up email), is the proven method to generate the most reviews on your site from a very credible source – your own customer community. One of our clients was able to increase their review volume by 26 times their average review collection rate by implementing the follow-up email.

Our recommendation is that clients send the follow-up email to all past purchasers from the previous 6 months prior to launching reviews on their product pages. Within the first month, 20% of all total SKUs should have at least 1 review, with 100% review coverage for top sellers.

A study conducted on Netshops (now known as Hayneedle) reveals that the number of reviews per product drives sales uplift, with 4-7 reviews per product being enough for 75% of shoppers to “have sufficient confidence to judge the product” (etailing group study of 1200 typical internet shoppers).

And if you’re fearing negative reviews, don’t. These are actually one of the strongest tools you could generate for your business, uncovering weaknesses and ways to greatly improve what is already working.

Source: AuctionBytes.com