No matter your chosen online marketplaces, reviews can carry a huge amount of weight. Positive reviews tell customers that your products are worth purchasing, while negative ones drive away shoppers. Some customers are even unlikely to consider products that don’t have reviews. If there’s no record of customers’ experiences with your products, this could also lead to diminished brand visibility. With this in mind, driving reviews when selling on Walmart’s marketplace can be a key element of success.
Learning how to get seller reviews on Walmart’s online platform can make all the difference in achieving your goals, ultimately helping to elevate your brand in the best possible way.
Key takeaways
- Walmart Marketplace reviews can play a large role in how customers perceive a product, whether good, bad, or neutral.
- Sellers don’t have to wait for reviews to appear organically; brands can put together strategies designed to encourage customers to leave reviews when they may not have otherwise.
- Every aspect of your presence on the Walmart marketplace, from product descriptions to videos and images, can influence a customer’s decision to both make a purchase and leave a subsequent review.
Why are Walmart Reviews important?
Reviews can assure other people that your products are worth buying—or whether some of the products you’re selling aren’t a benefit for your business. Positive reviews can convince customers to buy now, while no reviews or bad reviews can send their own negative message.
While not all Walmart reviews are trustworthy or accurate, the reviews left on a product can be a way to guide a customer’s decision-making process. A string of positive reviews showcases a history of customer satisfaction, which sends a clear message: this product is likely worth buying. Conversely, multiple negative reviews communicate that there was something lacking with the user experience, and future shoppers will take this to heart, and their wallets. No reviews might seem like a product is neutral, but can also point to a product that’s untested. While this doesn’t necessarily mean the product is bad, customers often don’t want to take a risk with their hard-earned cash if they don’t have to.
Nearly 100% of online shoppers read reviews before making a purchase. Further, nearly 50% of buyers treat reviews the same as a recommendation from a friend or family member. In addition, research shows that a large portion of millennial consumers don’t trust paid advertising, so reviews are often seen as the most authentic way to promote your products.
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Where do reviews appear in Walmart Marketplace?
On the Walmart marketplace, star ratings are either to the right of a product when on desktop, or below a product image when on mobile, giving shoppers an instant snapshot into customer perceptions. The reviews themselves are further down the page, but clicking on the “reviews” button next to the star rating will navigate users to this section.
Walmart uses an algorithm to determine the most helpful positive review and the most helpful negative review. While showcasing both good and bad perspectives is not necessarily beneficial for a seller, this approach is more focused on the buyer. Other reviews are listed below and can be organized by star rating or sorted by options like Most Relevant, Most Helpful, and Highest Reviews.
How to get reviews on Walmart Marketplace
Have no reviews, bad reviews, or a mix of reviews that isn’t meeting your needs? Working to build up a base of better reviews can turn a bad image into a profitable one, improving the likelihood that shoppers will choose your products first. Keep these strategies in mind when creating your approach:
1. Sell amazing products
The best way to gain customer reviews is to sell products that meet or exceed customer needs and expectations. While you can’t please everybody, products that are able to provide a positive user experience will stick in a customer’s mind. As such, while it’s important to chase reviews, you should put more of your energy into delivering a great customer experience across the board. Let your products speak for themselves, and the reviews will come in time.
2. Send email follow-ups
If shoppers have opted in for Walmart to send them emails, they will get an email three days after purchasing an item on the marketplace. However, customers aren’t always going to rush to leave reviews after opening their purchase; many need time to use it and assess its performance over time. As such, one of the best ways to put your brand front of mind is to send an email several weeks after your product has been delivered. This is a good way to remind those who planned to leave a review but forgot and prompt customers who may not have considered reviewing at all.
3. Sign up for the Review Accelerator Program
If you have just started selling on Walmart’s marketplace, the Review Accelerator Program can be a helpful way to secure a targeted number of reviews on your products. Once enrolled, you can select the items you’d like to be used in the program. Customers who buy these products will be asked to write an honest review and when they do, receive a digital reward to be used on Walmart’s marketplace. Keep in mind that you’ll be charged a fee per review, and there will be an “Incentivized Review” badge on the review posted.
4. Use product inserts
If you’d rather not directly contact customers—or if you want another way to reach out—using product inserts can be a great chance to make leaving a review easy. If you include promotional material in the boxes you send out, like pamphlets about how to use your products or cards with more information about your company, this can be a great opportunity to remind them to review.
Many shoppers appreciate little gestures that go above and beyond, which is exactly what a product insert can do. With a friendly note, a little product information, and an invitation to leave a review, you can create a more personal connection with a buyer.
5. Provide excellent customer support
Not every sale will go perfectly; at a certain point, customers are going to have questions and concerns and will need to follow up with your brand about them.
When this happens, your goal should be to provide the best customer support possible.
- Ensure your discourse with customers is polite and professional.
- Respond promptly to show you’re serious about providing support.
- Do your best to assist customers with whatever they’re looking for, even if it seems unreasonable or hard to understand.
The response you give can impact how customers talk about your brand and the future sales that come from customers sharing experiences. Further, if a customer who hasn’t yet left a review contacts you, that experience could determine whether they will leave a review at all. Ultimately, it shouldn’t be surprising that a negative, confusing, or exhausting back-and-forth encounter could prompt them to leave angry feedback in response.
Where possible, provide multiple avenues for contacting your brand. Not everyone likes to get on the phone with a company, so email and website contact forms can be great alternatives.
6. Reply to negative reviews
Following up in a positive manner is essential. In turn, this will show future customers that you care while giving you a chance to address the problem that others may want to avoid. One study found that 90% of consumers are more likely to overlook negative reviews if a seller responds appropriately.
When responding to negative reviews:
- Apologize sincerely. Even if the claim a customer is making sounds unreasonable or preposterous, show that you care about the customer’s experience regardless.
- Provide a way to contact you. This can be a phone number, an email address, or a link to a contact form on a company website.
- Promise a way to attempt to make things right. This can be specific, like a product refund or offering a replacement free-of-charge, or high-level, like offering help of some sort if the customer follows up.
- Keep your cool. Stay calm, polite, and professional with every interaction. Showing frustration, no matter how bad the review, will reflect poorly on your brand and show potential customers you don’t care to support them after they make a purchase—if they make one at all.
This may seem like it will cut into profits, especially if it means you’ll have to accept a return, refund money, or otherwise compensate a customer, but this can actually be a way to build the reputation of your store on Walmart. Buyers can see your store’s reputation on the marketplace, and even if you have no reviews on a product, having good ratings overall may be of comfort to the customer.
Read more: Selling on Walmart vs. Amazon
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What makes a good Walmart review?
While positive star ratings are helpful in the world of reviews, a good review goes beyond the surface and bolsters your brand’s reputation. Understanding what a good review entails can help you know what to showcase and what content would be best to use in advertising or include in product inserts.
Here are the most important elements in identifying a good review:
Detailed information
When it comes to reviews, the more information, the better. The best reviews are detailed, with information about how a product was used and what specifically worked well. For example, if you sell T-shirts, a good review would include information about how well the shirt fits, the fabric it’s made out of, how it looks after washing, and whether the color in real life matches the photos from the listing.
Images and videos
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. While not all platforms allow for images or video, reviews that include these extras can communicate a lot more than text alone. Images can show:
- What products look like upon arrival,
- The scale of an item,
- Whether the pictures in the product description are accurate, and
- Demonstrate things like fit, function, and ease of use.
Brands can say that their products are high quality, but images in a review can verify those claims for other shoppers. Quality photos can also provide additional context that you may not know your customers are interested in, like the texture on a piece of clothing or a specific input on a sound system.
For sellers seeking good reviews, this can be a bit of a double-edged sword. If products don’t live up to descriptions, there’s no way to hide from video or photographic proof. However, for brands focused on quality products and strong service, you have nothing to worry about.
Verified purchasers
The verified purchase distinction indicates that a reviewer is speaking about a product they actually paid for and presumably used. On most sites, anyone can leave a review, whether truthful or not, but a verified purchase stamp can reassure potential customers that that buyer has first-hand knowledge of the product.
In summary: Reviews are key to profitable growth on Walmart
Whether you like it or not, reviews play a huge role in your reputation as a Walmart seller. Establishing a reliable brand is essential in attracting the right customer feedback to give you unparalleled legitimacy.
Building a solid review base can seem like a struggle at first, but with the right strategy in place, you can encourage positive feedback future buyers can count on. Sell the best products you can and respond to negative reviews politely and professionally, and you’ll be able to grow your business across one of the fastest-evolving eCommerce marketplaces in the U.S.
As you launch your products and build your customer base, Trellis’ Walmart advertising software can help. Reach out to us to learn more about what our platform can do for you and your brand.
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Frequently asked questions
Reviews on Walmart’s platform do not need to come from someone who actually bought a product. However, verified purchasers are flagged with a green “Verified Purchase” label so that customers know they’re reviews are trustworthy. As a result, these reviews are the most valuable to customers.
In general, no, Walmart will not take down bad reviews that appear to have been left in good faith. If a review is deemed to be malicious, like threatening violence or revealing personal information that could be damaging, Walmart may be willing to take action, but otherwise, reviews aren’t interfered with to provide the most authentic experience possible to shoppers.
Negative reviews happen to all companies sooner or later, so it’s best to address them head-on
Getting Walmart reviews largely depends on the caliber of products and the review strategies a seller has in place. Poor-quality product pictures, minimal product descriptions, and no intentional strategy to secure reviews can make the process very challenging.
On the other hand, detailed descriptions, high-quality photos, and a marketing plan in place will grow your customer base and increase the chances of positive reviews. Brands that actively engage in ways to get reviews, like email follow-ups and the Review Accelerator Program, will likely be more successful in enticing customer feedback.
