People trust things that others have purchased more of than those with less sales. Since we generally can’t see sales numbers directly, if a product has 100 reviews, and the one next to it only has 10, people will gravitate towards the one with 100 reviews even if the rating is slightly lower. It’s like we don’t trust our own judgement because we’re working with limited information, but those other guys must be on to something.
So reviews are valuable from a manufacturers perspective in the same way Bestsellers lists are to publishers. It shows others made the same decision and makes us feel more confident we’re making the right choice as well.
By the same token, people will go where there are more reviews to see a consensus. For example you may have looked at something on Amazon for the reviews, even if you don’t intend to buy it there, because you know there will be a lot of them. Now if you were just going to check reviews and it happened to be 10% cheaper on Amazon too, then you’d probably go ahead and order while you’re there. But you also tend to think of stores with more reviews and having more authority in a particular area.
So reviews are valuable for the retailer as well.
It’s considered standard practice right now to request reviews automatically after a certain number of days. I’m not a fan either, but I appreciate the reviews others provide, so I’m not sure why.
Thinking it through, it feels like a (small) intrusion because of the wording most use when asking for the feedback. Also, deep down, I wish I wasn’t being tracked and measured with every purchase and things like those follow ups remind me that I am.