There’s a lot of great buzz around consumer reviews lately, as more market researchers and retailers see the benefits of giving customers a public voice. I had a great exchange of ideas recently with Paul M. Banas who writes a top content marketing blog Insight Buzz on the topics of consumer reviews and social elements of online retail.

There have been many studies done on the influence of consumer reviews, such as the Deloitte stats Paul pointed out: “we find the 82% of online shoppers who read reviews say reviews have a direct influence on what they buy, either changing their minds on which product to buy or to provide reassurance on purchasing their original choice.”

This leads into what kind of consumer reviews people trust and why. Jeremiah Owyang delves into this in his post citing a study that shows people trust the opinions of their friends or acquaintances who have used the products themselves most, and the opinions by bloggers least:

So when it comes to consumer reviews, it’s interesting that people trust consumer reviews on a retailer’s site (60%) more than consumer reviews on a content site (52%). Buzzillions is in an interesting mix between the two, since we aggregate consumer reviews from all of our retail clients, yet we are considered a consumer reviews site.

The stats show that consumer generated reviews overall are trusted a lot more than editorial/expert reviews, discussion boards, and especially reviews by bloggers, and Jeremiah emphasizes the need for product manufacturers and marketers to recognize this as a big priority.