PowerReviews.com - Sell More With Customer Reviews

PowerReviews aims to help retailers improve their sales and buyers improve their chance at buying good products. According to studies, most people do online research before buying a product online, and seek out customer recommendations when making purchasing decisions. But that research often takes a lot of time and its filled with gaps. One way to fill in that gap is to have objective customer reviews on the retail site itself. PowerReviews offers a fully-managed service for retailers that captures, moderates and displays customer reviews & recommendations to convert more shoppers, and attract new shoppers to a website. They also offer a customer-guided merchandising approach that increases conversion at every step in the shopper’s research process, utilizing the authentic input from real product users to guide the shopper each step of the way. Used wisely, this site helps the buyer and the seller increase their success. The site itself was professionally designed and managed, and easy to navigate.

Online shopping is still pretty difficult...not actually adding to cart and checking out, but figuring out what to buy and where to buy. Sure, it's easy as pie to buy books, music or electronics because of all the sites that serve those categories. But think of how difficult it is to figure out the best backpack for a weekend to Yosemite, quiet dishwasher for a small house, or a portable air conditioner for your bedroom. For many types of products, most people don't even think of researching online. They go straight to their local department or specialty stores. Great for those stores...but why is it so difficult online? Why can't we go to one place to read all about the latest trends, read customer recommendations and THEN decide where to buy? It's done in electronics and computers, why not all the other categories? The reality is that today customers only have a few, limited research options: Amazon.com, CNET, Epinions, and various search engines...all of which have major gaps or shortcomings. Well, we think that there should be a better way to research products online (which, by the way, most of us do before making ANY purchase). We believe that: Customers should not have to leave a retailer's site to read reviews on Amazon; Customers should not have to trudge through tons of search results to find that rare nugget of useful information; And customers should not have to visit the store to get an unbiased product recommendation.

What online retailer doesn't want to improve sales? What online shopper doesn't want feedback and advice on the worthiness of products they might purchase? This site is an excellent resource for retailers to integrate into their online store, thereby increasing sales and consumer satisfaction. It's one of the win-win situations that should be utilitized everywhere. (And, given the high traffic volume, is being utilized in many online stores).

Are the customer reviews objective and valid? I am only a tad nervous about the store having control over the reviews...do they only post good customer reviews? Or are these reviews like the movie reviews you see which take phrases out of context and make you think reviewers liked the movie when they didn't? As a shopper, I do value customer opinions, but I hope they are genuine and not slanted to only show me the good stuff.