September 22, 2009 | Marketing | Andrew Kamphuis

5 Stars Dominate Ratings (in Video and Wine)

Youtube blogged earlier today how Five Stars Dominate Ratings. I quote: "great video prompts action; anything less prompts indifference." And in their blog they posted the graph on the right.

I wanted to compare how closely YouTube's ratings match how consumers rate wine. We pulled the data from all of the websites on our platform using our 5 star rating widget. Almost 50% of consumers rated the wine at the full 5 stars. (The full results are in the graph on the right).

A couple of objection we hear from clients about allowing consumer ratings and reviews are:

What do we do if there is a negative rating or review; and
Not all consumers rate wine on the same scale (for some 3 out of 5 might mean it was good, while to others it means mediocre)

The statistics above basically coincide with what we have often thought. There are very few negative consumer reviews (less than 10% of ratings were 1 or 2 stars) and there are an overwhelming amount of positive ratings and reviews.

More importantly, we know that ratings and reviews will increase conversion other industries report 20-50% increase in conversion). So while YouTube debates the merits of its 5 star rating system for video, to me a 5 star rating system on a winery website makes a lot of sense.

What do you think?

Comments

Kristina

@ Sep 25, 2009 at 2:47 PM

Among reviewers of movies, TV shows, theatre, and music, the 5 star system is the most popular classification system. I have noticed some major retailers who have added two decimal points to their5 star system (example 4.19 stars) however this is really only applicable when you are receiving a high number of reviews per item which probably isn't going to be the case for smal wineries. In my opinion, the 5 star rating system works. I think most people recognize it and understand it . Not much room for any detrimental misinterpretation.

Commenting has been turned off.

Get the blog by RSS