Internet Entrepreneurs Blog

SportsOneSource posted an article last week about how online reviews are helping to drive sales at REI. From the article:

Customers of Recreational Equipment Inc. who submit online reviews of gear they’ve bought at the retail co-op purchase at a 26% higher rate than non-review readers, according to the vendor who helped implement the online feature.

Now this is a little confusing since it sounds like the study compares purchase rates of folks who submit online reviews with folks who don’t read online reviews. There’s certainly a difference between submitting and reading reviews but based on the article title I’m going to assume they are actually comparing purchase rates of review submitters to non-review submitters.

Now, the finding is that review submitters are more likely to purchase than non-review submitters, but I’d argue that folks who purchase recreational equipment probably have experience with said gear and are interested in sharing their thoughts. Not only that but those who purchase ALOT of recreational gear are probably ENTHUSIASTS who enjoy discussing the merits of various products. If I own three sleeping bags I know enough to write a helpful, meaningful review, and I’m more likely to share my thoughts.

So does submitting a review make me more likely to purchase or does purchasing make me more likely to submit a review? I’m pretty sure it’s the latter but then again that probably won’t help me sell online review software

Update: I reread the article and had another thought. Maybe the finding is that folks who 1. bought an item in store and 2. later went online to post a review were 3. 26% more likely to make a purchase online than someone who didn’t read the online reviews. Again, still comparing apples to oranges (submitting to reading) but it seems like the argument is that by going online to submit a review 1 out of 4 folks are hanging around to make a purchase. Then again, it’s tough to make an online purchase if you don’t visit the website in the first place. Or maybe people went online to say how much their purchase sucked and then proceeded to purchase a competing product, later returning the first purchase in store

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 6:29 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.