There have been many exciting research moments for our industry in the past two years:

• When we discovered the Ratings J-Curve, including how it looks for apparel (a category that many expected not to follow the J-Curve trend)

• When Jupiter and Forrester showed how many shoppers read reviews (77% and 70%, respectively)
• When MarketingSherpa showed how many consumers preferred sites with reviews (58%)
• When we showed how negative reviews have a bigger positive impact on conversion than positive reviews and how smart retailers think about negative reviews
• When we worked with the Keller Fay Group to find out why consumers write reviews (primarily, to help each other) and how many of them are buying offline and then reviewing their purchase online (66%)
• When comScore and The Kelsey Group showed how online reviews impact offline purchasing (released this week)

• When we discovered how Ask & Answer impacts conversion (up 22%), how many users participate in questions and answers even though it is such a new medium in eCommerce, and how clients like The Home Depot are leveraging this new offering to differentiate and benefit their customers
• When we saw how reviews impact customer acquisition and documented our extensive findings in a whitepaper
• When Nielsen announced that consumer recommendations are the most trusted form of advertising (78% trust versus 34% for search-engine ads)

• When Deloitte (one of my former employers) showed how many consumers are influenced by reviews (82% of those that read them)

And this new holiday tradition is another major finding.  It shows just how much influence reviews online are having on offline shopping behavior.  This especially hits home for me because when Brant and I started this company in May of 2005 only around 10 retailers in the U.S. (including online-only, like Amazon.com) had reviews.  Now MarketingSherpa reported that 43% of retailers do (as of Feb-07).  That is having a broad impact on consumer expectations – reviews are quickly become a must-have for retailers and a norm for online shopping.

Most of these are intuitive findings and could be easily dismissed as "obvious".  But data informs strategy, as I learned so many times while working with clients as the founder of Coremetrics.

So, what do you do with this new data?  Here are a few ideas:

• Promote reviews for the same products featured in your Thanksgiving circular on your home page the week of Thanksgiving – this will make it easy for the 70 to 77% that are seeking reviews (and the 82% that are influenced when they read them) to realize that you have them

• Send an email about reviews on Thanksgiving morning with a subject line like, "Read Thousands of Customers' Reviews Before You Go Shopping on Friday".  In that email, feature the same products or categories of products that you have in your Thanksgiving circular
• Create distinct shopping paths linked for your home page such as "Our Best Friday Deals on Customer Top-Rated Holiday Gifts" and so on for all of your major categories featured in your in-store (and online) sale
• Push reviews again on Cyber Monday – both in email and on your home page – but with a distinct focus on online shopping
• Put top-rated circulars in your stores for greeters and category managers (like HD TV) to hand out to help in-store shoppers
• Feature reviews in your print circulars so that readers know that your site has reviews before they go online to research them

Want more?  Watch the holiday webinar that our Community Management team recorded.  And please don't forget to tell us your ideas as well!

And, finally, please support the Ray M. Greenly Scholarship Fund this holiday season by shopping at Shop.org's Cyber Monday portal.  All proceeds go to honor a great man that I had the pleasure of working with.  He helped grow Shop.org into the great organization that it is today.  And you will be helping to fund the future visionaries of the eCommerce industry.

Specifically, the study looks at the influence that online consumer-generated reviews for offline services (e.g., restaurants, hotels,  automotive, medical, legal, etc.) has on purchases of those services. 

• Nearly 25% of surveyed Internet users reported reading online reviews prior to paying for an offline service!  
• Online reviews were a significant purchase influence for approximately three-quarters of review users in all eight offline service categories.  Hotels ranked the highest at 87%, while legal services ranked the lowest at 73%. 
• Impressively, 97% of users that attributed their purchase decision to a review felt that the review was accurate. 
• Review users felt that reviews from fellow consumers were more influential than those authored by professionals. 
• Depending on service category, users were willing to pay from 20% more (home) to 99% more (legal services) for services with a consumer quality rating of 5-stars (Excellent) versus just 4-stars (Good).

These are amazing statistics.  The Web is still primarily a research medium but multi-channel brands still struggle to quantify the impact that online content has on offline purchasing behavior.  Reviews are a useful bridge, since both online and offline purchases can be attributed back to specific reviews using web analytics tools, buyer surveys, customer feedback at the point-of-sale, and other means. 

While many local service providers may struggle to engage their customers to review their purchases online, due simply to size and scale challenges, the global and national brands behind those local providers – major restaurant and hotel chains, automotive service franchises, healthcare providers – should take steps to empower their local business affiliates with tools to capture consumer reviews and measure their influence.