When it comes to researching a product, online user ratings and reviews carry a lot of clout. A recent study by Lightspeed Research indicates that 62% of respondents read online reviews before making a purchasing decision. As the mother of two young children, I always check out a product’s reviews before adding it to my cart. Reading the “field testing” experiences of the latest stroller by other moms is much more important to me than looking over the manufacturer's product specs (i.e. Will that cup holder really hold a Grande latte?).
 

 

Regardless of whether I’ve bought online, or made a purchase in-store, I expect to be able to share information with others on a company’s website in the form of ratings and reviews. Recently I wrote a review of a product that didn’t quite meet my expectations and that I ultimately ended up returning. I noted that the manufacturer and the store were wonderful to deal with – it was the design of the product that just didn’t work for me. A few days later, I was back on the company’s website and I looked to see if my review had been published. I was a little surprised to see that it hadn’t been. That’s when I started to notice that NONE of the product ratings were less than 4 stars, and there wasn’t one written review that could be perceived as negative. Considering that this is a large and well known company, I was very surprised that they would censor user generated content.

 

The most important aspect of consumer reviews is that they are trusted since they supposedly come from an unbiased source (the customer). If a company is going to handpick the reviews that appear on their site, it casts suspicion on the validity of the reviews that they do choose to publish. Is it better to portray impartiality, or maintain control over user generated content? Considering the correlation between the number of reviews per product and sales for that product, it appears that the advantage would be to have the highest number of trusted reviews, even if those include lower ratings.