Word or mouth advertising is the most powerful advertising you can get. If someone tells their friend a positive review about your store, the friend will be more willing to make a purchase from you. In the online world, you can also use reviews to entice people to buy and build customer confidence.

With so many different online stores out there competing against you, you need an edge to attract more and more customers. Customer reviews are a perfect way to accomplish this. They allow customers who have already placed an order to rate their experience shopping at your store. How was the shopping experience? Did the product arrive on time? Was the sites customer service up to par? Potential customers love to read what previous shoppers have to say. This will provide a huge boost to customer confidence and definitely increase sales.

The best place to let customers review your store is a website called Shopzilla. Shopzilla is a PPC shopping comparison site, but it also has the ability to let customers to submit reviews of your store. The best part about it is that it is free. You do not need to use their shopping comparison engine in order to let customers review your store.

The following information was taken directly from the Shopzilla.com website. You can read full instructions here.
How to Get Started
Getting started is easy. Follow these three simple steps:

1. Create Shopzilla Merchant Account - It's free and there's absolutely no obligation. To create your FREE Shopzilla Merchant Account, click here.
2. Invite your shoppers to provide their feedback. We've made it easy for you to invite your shoppers to provide feedback about their shopping experience at your online store. All you have to do is add three lines of HTML to your order receipt page.
3. Collect the minimum number of surveys to become Customer Certified. For specific information on Customer Certification requirements, create a free Shopzilla Merchant Account.

As a Customer Certified Merchants you will be able to:

• Keep your finger on the pulse of your customer base with complimentary daily Vital Signs (your customer comments and performance ratings) accessible through the password-protected Business Services site.
• Access the full array of tools available on Shopzilla Business Services website.
• Give prospective customers added confidence by displaying the BizRate.com Customer Certified medal on your site.

To Get Started, create a FREE Shopzilla Merchant Account. Click Here.

Once you have signed up for your free account, you should use the HTML code they provide to you and place it on your invoice screen. This will allow customer who just purchased to review their experience.
However don’t just stop there. These customer reviews are very valuable to your business. People from all over the internet will read these and make a decision whether or not to make a purchase from your store. You want to encourage your customers to review your website.  Send out an email campaign to the customers who purchased in the previous two weeks. Offer then a coupon to rate their shopping experience. This does two things. It entices them to complete a review which is the ultimate goal, but because you are offering them a coupon, some of them will even come back and make another purchase. Now that is creative marketing.

Also place the icon the give you on your website. This will allow current shoppers to read reviews about your store.

Negative Reviews – Some people might be asking the question, “What do I do about negative reviews” Lets face it sometimes a customer is going to have a bad experience. Maybe their email went into your junk folder or maybe the product didn’t arrive when they wanted. Whatever the reason, Shopzilla gives you a chance to respond to a negative review so you can explain what went wrong. Also this will keep you honest and make you strive to reach a higher level of customer service.

Every e-commerce store should be using customer reviews to help increase sales. They are very effective and will really have a positive impact on your overall customer conversion rates.

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About the Author: Brennan Heyde is an e-commerce consultant working in San Diego, Ca. He specializes in online marketing and SEO for e-commerce.  Have a struggling e-commerce website? – Contact Brennan today for a site analysis.