Showing prospective buyers how other people have bought from you and been happy makes it far easier for prospects to go ahead and buy. Even when one person says something negative, that only lends credibility to the other positive reviews. The Dell Hell epsiode is a shining example of that.
However, a new trend of comments shows how online reviews may be breaking out and having an effect on the real, physical, bricks-and-mortar world. Take this entry from Dave Winer's blog:
The thing I like best about shopping at Amazon are the user comments. They really are good. And I often base purchasing decisions on what the other users say. It got so bad that when I went shopping at Fry's for some sound equipment I fumbled around until I realized what I was missing was the advice of other shoppers. I did the unfair thing, listened to a bunch of stuff and then went home and bought what I liked and what the others liked, from Amazon.
With online reviews as a known, often-used tools, the lack of that quick, ready and assuring "other people's opinion" may well hurt established retail stores. When combined with the ability to use your mobile phone as a bar code scanner and check online prices, retail stores may well have to add something to their physical displays and environment to give the buyer the opinions they're looking for.
Perhaps this is a good chance for retailers to convince an in-store buyer not only that the item is the right one for them, but other customers have liked the retailer's service so much they don't mind paying higher prices than those available if they shopped around on the Internet.
