Third party ratings and reviews
Each modern e-commerce site typically use ratings and reviews.
In the open-source CMS world we can most likely find a plugin for free or for a reasonable price that will show 5 or 10 star rating.
In the corporate world where customizations and site design ethics supercede, these become individual components managed by third party ratings and reviews vendors such as Power Reviews or Bazaar Voice.
Capabilities of open-source components will vary, require in-depth analysis and almost always require some level of customization. Third party integrations, on the other hand, will indubitably cost considerably more.
Most third party vendors will have some common items to display customized ratings and reviews sections like the starts or other graphics to visually represent the ratings with optional links to write or view the actual ratings; a possible summary section of the ratings and reviews below the product; a main reviews section with the latest reviews that often has other customizable visual representations dependent on product properties; and a mechanism for writing the reviews.
Most advanced integrations often include a link that can be emailed to visitors who buy a product integrated into a mechanism for writing the reviews without having to log in through the main website; a method involving FTP automation and integration of ratings and reviews into the appropriate areas on the site to facilitate SEO; and a method to share individual reviews (in addition or regardless of other sharing integrations) with other social media components.
While not cheap, depending on the emphasis a corporate entity deems appropriate to the propagation of their merchandise, these third party vandors can truly boost the sales (depending on the quality of the products, of course.
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