How to Use Customer Reviews to Boost Sales in Your Dropshipping Store

The success of any business lies with customers. In dropshipping, your direct and personal interactions with customers are very limited, making it quite hard to build trust. But without trust, it’s hard to generate sales. This is where reviews come in—you can use them to earn the trust of your target customers!

But how?

In this blog post, I’ll explain how you can leverage them to level up your sales and, in turn, profitability. I’ll also share some tips on how you can encourage your customers to leave reviews about your store, service, and products. Use these details to guide your strategies from now on!

Importance of Customer Reviews in Dropshipping

According to Reputation, 54% of customers trust reviews more than they trust the advice of their family and friends. This means their decision to buy or not often depends on what they read in other customers’ reviews. Aside from being deciding factors, customers matter in dropshipping because of the following:

They Build Trust and Credibility

Trust is the ultimate foundation of any successful e-commerce business. In dropshipping, customers can’t physically see, touch, or test your products before buying. So, they rely on the experiences of other shoppers. Positive feedback reassures them that you’re reliable and can be trusted. With that credibility, you can attract more customers and stay above your competitors.  

They Provide Valuable and Informative Feedback

Many customer reviews provide valuable insights about your products and store, your strong and weak points, to be exact. You can find unfiltered feedback on their shopping experience with you. This is why, aside from providing valuable information to other online shoppers, reviews also offer feedback for areas where your store can improve. You can analyze and monitor your reviews to determine what you’re lacking or doing wrong in the eyes of your customers. 

They Help With SEO and Online Visibility

Customer reviews can impact a store’s search engine optimization (SEO). When search engines such as Google rank websites, they take into consideration reviews. The more reviews you have, the more data search engines can crawl, increasing your chances of ranking higher in search results. Reviews containing relevant keywords also help rank your store higher when customers are searching for those keywords.

These are all organic ways to improve your visibility. As a result, you can gain more traffic, which can result in higher sales.

2 Best Ways to Encourage Your Customers to Leave Reviews

If you believe you lack enough customer reviews to use, here are some methods to get more: 

Use Check Out to Get Reviews

This is the easiest and quickest way to get reviews for your store. When your customers reach the confirmation page of your checkout process, you can ask them why they chose the item. This can be in the form of a pop-up or a form on the page.  

This works because almost 100% of those customers will leave a review. After all, you asked them immediately. Even if it’s just a statement, a review is still a review. You can expect most of these reviews to be about your pricing, offers, and even excellent customer support.

Send Them Follow-Up Emails

This is a traditional way of getting reviews, and it works. After your customers buy something, you can email them to express gratitude and request a review. Ask for image reviews, video reviews, or text reviews. You should also provide a direct link to the review or product page to facilitate their access. 

You can set this up as a system. One way to do it is by using an email autoresponder that will automatically send these emails. Alternatively, you can have a team member call your customers to gather feedback and request reviews. 

Pro Tip: You can offer your customers small incentives, like discounts, in exchange for their review. Ensure your proposal is explicit and that the evaluation doesn’t need to be positive.

Ask Your Customers At the Right Time

Sometimes, timing is everything, even in asking for reviews. Some customers prefer that you inquire when they're most likely to feel content with their purchase. This typically happens soon after they get the product, when the thrill of acquiring something new is still alive.

However, this still depends on the product you sell. Does it require time to use? This is more common with skincare products or electronics. For these types of products, it’s advisable to hold off a bit longer before requesting reviews. That way, they’ll have extra time to form a more authentic and tailored opinion about your products.

How to Use Customer Reviews to Boost Your Sales

There are different ways you can leverage these reviews to get more sales. You can try the following strategies: 

1. Highlight Them on Your Product Pages

The most basic way to use them is by highlighting them on your product pages. Remember, product pages are also your sales pages. They’re where your customers go to decide. 

Although having a dedicated page for a collection of reviews is beneficial, incorporating reviews onto the product pages would be more effective. This will simplify the visibility for customers, allowing them to gain insights and make decisions more easily. So, after your customer leave check out reviews, you can immediately display them on their respective product pages. 

2. Use Them For User-Generated Content Campaigns

User-generated content (UGC) is valuable as marketing material. You can turn these customer reviews into UGC marketing campaigns. So, encourage your customers to share photos or videos of themselves with your products on social media. You can then use them on your social media channels and online store.

When other online users see other people enjoying your products, they’re more likely to want to buy too. This will also help create a sense of community around your brand.

3. Analyze Them For Valuable Insights

As I’ve mentioned above, customer reviews provide valuable insights. So, don’t just collect them—analyze them. Then, based on your analysis and data, you can use it to make changes. 

At the same time, you can use the reviews to promote your products differently. Based on what they say, you can use those words and reasons to improve your product descriptions and promotions. For instance, if many reviews indicate that the items they got are smaller than anticipated, you might adjust your sizing chart for greater accuracy. This can make your listings more convincing and relatable to other customers.

With insights straight from your customers, you can identify all the ways you can increase trust, boost conversions, and stand out from your competitors.

Conclusion

Customer reviews aren’t just about reputation—they’re also powerful tools for boosting sales. As a recap, here are different ways you can use them for this purpose: 

Need more help with your sales and marketing? Join my free webinar to get access to proven strategies that will help drive your business to success!