Ratings and reviews edge out deals when it comes to online purchasing decisions

What happened

New research from InfoTech Research finds that online shoppers weigh ratings and reviews more heavily than promotional deals when deciding what to buy, according to reporting by Customer Experience Dive. The study's findings suggest that price-based incentives, long treated as a primary lever for conversion, are being outweighed by social proof and perceived credibility of product information.

InfoTech Research's Julie Geller linked this shift to the accuracy of what brands publish about their own products. She warned that inconsistencies in basic product details can undermine shopper confidence well beyond the item in question, noting that if a brand cannot get its own facts right, customers may start to question its reliability more broadly.

Why it matters

For experience and commerce leaders, the finding reframes conversion strategy: discounting alone is losing its power to close a sale when buyers can cross-check claims against reviews, ratings and other shoppers' experiences in seconds. Trust signals — accurate specifications, consistent descriptions across channels, and visible, credible reviews — are functioning as a more decisive purchase driver than short-term price cuts.

This has direct implications for how retailers and brands allocate investment. Rather than defaulting to promotions to move product, the research points to a need for tighter operational discipline around product data, review management and transparency — treating information integrity as a growth lever rather than a back-office housekeeping task.

The Renascence take

The headline finding is really a story about trust economics, not marketing tactics. When ratings and reviews outrank deals, it signals that buyers are pricing in credibility risk before they price in cost savings — a discount cannot compensate for doubt about whether the product is as described.

Most organisations still treat product-page accuracy as a compliance detail and reviews as a marketing asset to be curated rather than trusted infrastructure to be maintained. The real lesson here is behavioral: a small, discoverable factual error does more damage to conversion than a competitor's price cut, because it activates suspicion that generalises across the whole brand relationship. Operators serious about this finding should audit product data consistency across every channel and treat review integrity — not discount depth — as the next frontier of competitive differentiation.