Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

For well over a decade, consumers have increasingly turned to online review sites to vet purchase decisions before they buy. Take a look at the top trafficked sites on the web, and it’s no shock to see consumer review sites by the likes of Amazon and Yelp both squarely in the top ten.

In fact, reading reviews prior to purchasing has become so ingrained in American consumption habits, 55 percent of all shoppers say online reviews influence where and how they spend their hard-earned cash.

Why then, when every person on the street checks a review site before buying a coffee, is it such a surprise to the software industry that consumer reviews actually matter in their space? In an industry generally considered “innovative,” product reviews are a shockingly late-adoption....