Amazon Experiments With One-Tap Rating Option for Customers

A staggering 79% of consumers go to Amazon to check product reviews before making a purchase, while nearly one-third (32%) go to a search engine like Google and 25% go to a retailer website. Moreover, 82% of consumers who shop on Amazon daily check reviews on Amazon before buying.

Why does this matter? In September, Amazon began granting select shoppers the option to leave a star rating without a product review. The “one-tap” capability is likely very appealing to those consumers who want to share their opinion about a specific product, but do not have the time or interest to write a full review, which has historically included a review title and content within the review itself. 

With the new option, customers solely need to select the star rating of their choice and a green checkmark will populate, confirming the rating has been submitted. They will also have the ability to expand on their feedback later on by adding a full review, photos, or video. 

On product detail pages, you can now see a cumulative total of customer reviews as well as ratings, with the latter referring to feedback left without a written review. The rating system is 1 to 5 stars, with 5 stars indicating the highest level of satisfaction. 

Customers can access the ratings from the “Your Orders” page on Amazon, by going directly to a product detail page, or by responding to solicitations sent to them from Amazon. According to TechCrunch, Amazon confirmed the new feature is an experiment, not a public launch.

We know that customer reviews help you understand the customers’ sentiment about your products, where you have room for improvement and optimization, and what value-added features and benefits consumers resonate with the most. In addition to that, customers use reviews as social proof to inform their purchase decisions and buy from authentic, credible brands and retailers, so this new rating system has the capacity to help drive ratings — and potentially incremental reviews — on the marketplace.