The end of fake reviews? Hotpoint, Sharp and Toshiba to publish unedited, ‘good and bad’ customer opinion on their sites

9th October 2009

Leading consumer electronics manufacturers will now publish only genuine customer reviews on their web sites – both good and bad. Hotpoint, Sharp and Toshiba join Brother, Cannon, Indesit, Kodak and Kaspersky as the most recent brands to partner with Reevoo, a trusted shopping advice provider, to supply genuine customer reviews for their European ecommerce sites.

With ratings and reviews now the second most important site feature behind search †, customer reviews have become a focus for manufacturers. Reviews boost conversion rates on average by 10 per cent ‡ while engaging customers and building brand loyalty.

Presented with the opportunity to significantly increase online sales, manufacturers still face the challenge of providing an adequate volume of user-generated content to accompany their product data. Recent cases of astroturfing and the posting of fake reviews have also highlighted the need for better control over the provenance and impartiality of customer reviews.

Brother, Cannon, Hotpoint, Indesit, Kodak, Kaspersky, Sharp and Toshiba are just a few household names that have teamed up with Reevoo to provide them with genuine reviews to accompany products on their web sites. Unlike other shopping advice and review sites, Reevoo collects reviews only from people who have purchased a product and publishes them, unedited, on manufacturers’ sites.

Matthew van Gessel, head of ecommerce at Sharp said, “Sharp recognise that product
reviews are an increasingly important part of the buying process for many consumers, especially when it comes to new, innovative technologies such as our latest Full Screen LED TVs. Sharp is committed to engaging with our customers and helping them make informed purchase decisions. This is why we look at Reevoo as a route to improving adoption of new product ranges and increasing conversion rates across our e-commerce platform.”

Reevoo’s process of sourcing customer reviews ensures that all reviews are from real people who have bought the product they are asked to review. The company solicits feedback across Europe and publishes reviews in 26 languages.

When a shopper purchases an item from a Reevoo partner web site, Reevoo sends a co-branded email to the purchaser inviting them to complete a questionnaire tailored to the product that they have purchased. Purchasers click through to the questionnaire, share their experience of the product, and submit it to Reevoo.

As many as 20 per cent of contacted shoppers return their reviews. Reevoo vets the completed questionnaire and adds it to the pool of reviews of each product. All reviews, whether positive or negative, are published. Only reviews with inappropriate content are removed.

“Customer reviews have become an integral part of the purchasing process for consumers. It’s great to see that manufacturers have embraced them and are determined to provide shoppers with accurate, unedited customer opinion, regardless of the reflection on their product,” said Richard Anson, CEO, Reevoo.

Reevoo retail partners will each display the “100% real reviews” badge to assure consumers that all of the customer reviews on their sites are genuine. Reevoo also aggregates all reviews across their network of partners, which results in retailers sharing hundreds of reviews across thousands of products.

† Jupiter Research, “Retail Marketing: Driving Sales through Consumer-Created Content”

‡ Reevoo average conversion uplift across network, July 2009

Want to know more?

Enter your company details below and we’ll get back to you within a day.

If you’d prefer an old fashioned chat (we like those) give us a call on +44 (0)20 7654 0350

All fields are required