Consumer Reviews Key to Shopping Behavior

Do you discount the anonymous, semi-literate rantings on review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor when it comes to make a dinner or hotel decision? Or do you rely on them utterly? If you said the latter, you're in the majority: A new study shows that online reviews have a substantial impact on where people eat, sleep, and even get checkups, as well as how much they'll pay.

ComScore's just-published study shows that an average 24 percent of Internet users check up on offline service providers (including restaurants, hotels, airlines, auto service shops, home repair/improvement, doctors, and lawyers) before patronizing them. The figures are highest with restaurants and hotels, which about 40 percent of net users research before making a reservation.

But across the board, people who checked on user reviews said they had a significant influence on their purchase: Between 73 and 87 percent of review readers said those reviews had a big effect, and in fact most noted that average user reviews had even more of an impact than professional reviews. As well, services that had the highest consumer ratings actually merited higher payouts: Consumers were willing to pay almost 50 percent more for a "five star" meal than a "four star" one.

Bottom line: If you're selling something, whether it's a product you're shipping or just a hamburger you're handing off to a local, it's important to court the favor of Joe Average, who's probably got something to say about it. The average shopper is willing to pay 20 percent more for services that are rated at the top of their field than those a notch below, and that alone can make or break a business.

LINK: Online Consumer-Generated Reviews Have Significant Impact on Offline Purchase Behavior