Combining the power of headless commerce and reviews

Headless commerce creates a speedy customer experience. Reviews build trust and instill buyer confidence—when used together, this duo is a powerful force.

Headless commerce allows merchants to separate backend systems from the frontend of their website. Decoupling has many benefits, including eliminating a potentially clunky user experience and time-consuming updates. It also helps merchants improve eCommerce KPIs including conversion rate, average order value, and cart size.

By leveraging content and using a robust platform on the backend, merchants can incorporate customer review software and other third-party applications to enhance the user experience even more. Combining headless commerce with the power of reviews improves the overall onsite experience, builds customer loyalty, and drives sales.

Why reviews are so important

Reviews, along with other forms of social proof, instill buyer confidence and tackle objections at different stages of the sales cycle. Leveraging reviews can:

• Build trust: 91% of 18-34 year olds trust online reviews as much as they would those coming from friends or family. Understanding the importance of brand loyalty is crucial for success.

• Tackle objections: Reviews provide insight into products that shoppers can’t see or touch before they buy.

• Increase sales and reduce friction: 93% of consumers say that online reviews have an influence on their purchase decision-making.

• Boost average order value (AOV): Reviews give customers the confidence they need to increase their purchase value and buy more products. For example, D2C baby brand Freshly Picked increased their AOV by $11 using reviews.

Reviews are versatile too. They can be used to enhance product listings, gain a deeper insight into your customers’ wants and needs, and level up your external marketing efforts, such as email campaigns and social media ads.

Having more than 50 customer reviews on a product page can increase conversions by as much as 4.6%, while adding social proof to abandoned cart emails can also achieve a lift in conversions. Nimble Activewear, a luxury gym apparel company, was able toincrease their abandoned cart CTR by 6% with the simple addition of reviews, while dog food brand WAG used customer data from their reviews to segment subscribers and send personalized email campaigns.

The importance of reviews in headless commerce

D2C beauty giant ILIA Beauty is a prime example of a leading eCommerce merchant leveraging both headless commerce and reviews. The team put up big numbers after going live with a composable headless commerce platform including a 20% increase in developer deployments, a 48% decrease in mobile load time, and a 46% decrease in desktop load time.

The ILIA team uses the Nacelle-Okendo integration to collect an ongoing stream of reviews without sacrificing the speed of their site. Even pages with thousands of reviews still load quickly, keeping conversions consistent and customers happy.

Another brand leveraging the power of Nacelle and Okendo is Men's grooming brand Ballsy. Ballsy saw huge success combining reviews with a headless infrastructure. They switched over to a headless progressive web app (PWA) to speed up their page load speed and dramatically reduce their payload (down 50% compared to their competitors).

Marrying headless commerce with reviews led to a 28% increase in conversion rate for Ballsy and reduced page load speed to 1.4 seconds.

How to display reviews on your website

1. Dedicated reviews page

Direct shoppers to a single page on your site that brings together all the social proof you have. 47% of consumers read reviews while on a website before adding anything to their cart, so make it easy for them with a dedicated page. Add another layer by allowing customers to filter reviews based on their needs, attributes, and interests.

Knix’s review page invites shoppers to choose what kind of products they’re interested in.

2. UGC-led media galleries

Shoppers no longer trust the polished marketing photos brands push out. Instead, they crave customer photos that show real-life people using real-life products. Gathering together reviews and visual UGC into a media gallery provides customers with a realistic insight into your products—something that’s crucial when shopping online.

Nimble Activewear’s media gallery is pulled from Instagram and allows shoppers to “shop the look” straight from the site.

3. Attribute filters

Not all customers are the same. After scrolling through a gallery of UGC, shoppers will want to know if a product is right for them. Adding attribute filters to your reviews, like height, size, or skin type helps potential buyers determine if a product is a good fit.

Australian fashion brand Beginning Boutique also uses Okendo to filter reviews based on customer size and age.

Combining reviews with headless for eCommerce success

Headless commerce can improve customer experience by creating lightning-fast page load speeds, performance consistency, and more. Reviews also dramatically improve the customer experience by providing social proof, tackling objections, and reducing friction in the buying process.

Combining the two for a fully functional and flexible online store is a must for staying ahead of the competition and increasing conversions.

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