How often do consumers read reviews? How much of an impact do reviews have on consumers’ purchasing decisions?

I answer both of these questions and more in our latest roundup of statistics for online reviews.

Most stats come from BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey, but I included a few other sources as well.

The Latest Online Review Statistics

1. 71% of consumers read online reviews regularly when researching online businesses. (BrightLocal)
2. 42% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. (BrightLocal)
3. 40% of consumers read reviews from at least two sources while browsing local businesses. (BrightLocal)
4. 24% of consumers say the reason they don’t leave a review is because the experience wasn’t noteworthy enough. (BrightLocal)
5. 52% of consumers describe positivity as being the most important review factor. (BrightLocal)
6. 33% of consumers expect businesses to have a minimum of 20 and 49 reviews in order for them to trust them. (BrightLocal)
7. 87% of Gen Z shoppers purposefully seek out websites that have customer reviews. (Power Reviews)
8. 83% of consumers primarily read reviews on Google. (BrightLocal)
9. 71% of consumers say that a good Trustpilot score makes them more likely to buy from a brand. (Trustpilot)
10. 48% of consumers read business reviews from local news sources. (BrightLocal)
11. 3% of reviews on Amazon are AI-generated. (Pangram)
12. 44% of consumers have mostly seen fake reviews on Amazon. (BrightLocal)
13. 46% of consumers will assume a review is fake if they suspect it was written by AI. (BrightLocal)
14. 68% of consumers are worried about fake user-generated content (UGC), like fake shopper images. (The Bazaar Voice)

General Statistics for Online Reviews

1. 71% of consumers read online reviews regularly while browsing local businesses

BrightLocal includes this question in their Local Consumer Review Survey every year.

This year, they discovered that 71% of consumers read online reviews regularly as they browse the web for local businesses.

Here’s exactly how consumers answered in the 2025 edition of the survey:

• Always – 29% of consumers read online reviews this frequently while browsing local businesses

• Regularly – 42%

• Occasionally – 26%
• Never – 4%

This is a 4% decrease from the previous year when 75% of consumers reportedly read reviews regularly.

Interestingly, the “Always” and “Regularly” responses experienced a sharp decrease between the 2024 and 2025 editions of the survey while the “Occasionally” and “Never” responses increased.

It seems that although online reviews are still very important to the majority of consumers, consumers are starting to rely on them less.

Source: BrightLocal

Related: The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Online Reviews

2. 42% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations

BrightLocal asked consumers to compare how much they trust online reviews in comparison to how much they trust other sources.

42% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations from friends and family.

29% trust reviews as much as recommendations from social media influencers they follow, 27% trust them as much as articles written by top experts, and 26% trust them as much as influencers within their local communities.

Source: BrightLocal

3. 40% of consumers use at least two review platforms while researching local businesses

According to BrightLocal’s survey, the majority of consumers look up reviews on two review platforms before deciding to purchase from businesses:

• Two – 40% of businesses look up reviews from this number of platforms before deciding to buy from businesses

• One – 27%

• Three – 22%

• Four – 6%
• Five or more – 6%

Source: BrightLocal

4. 24% of consumers choose not to leave reviews because the experience was not noteworthy enough

Here are other reasons consumers choose not to leave reviews:

• Experience wasn’t noteworthy enough – 24% of consumers claim this as a reason for not leaving reviews

• Don’t have the time – 17%

• Don’t want to create an account – 16%

• Don’t feel like review would make a difference – 10%

• Get too many requests from businesses – 9%

• Review process is too complicated – 9%

• Don’t know what to write in a review – 6%

• Can’t always remember the experience enough – 5%

• Don’t want to share personal details – 1%

• Just forget – 1%
• Other – 2%

Source: BrightLocal

5. 52% of consumers describe positivity as being the most important review factor

Out of all review factors BrightLocal consumers gave consumers as options, 52% chose options related to positivity as being the most important review factors.

Specifically, the majority, or 53%, said the most important review factor is a “review that describes a positive experience.”

51% said the most important factor is a review that has a high star rating.

These are all of the options BrightLocal gave consumers as well as how many voted for each:

• Review describes a positive experience – 53% of consumers said this review factor is important

• Review has a high star rating* – 51%

• Review was posted within the last month – 47%

• Business owner responds to reviews – 46%

• Review was not posted anonymously – 41%

• Review has no spelling or grammatical errors – 35%

• Other users have engaged with the review – 31%

• Review is long and detailed – 28%
• Reviewer has left reviews for other businesses – 23%

*Another question from this survey revealed that the vast majority of consumers, or 38%, say businesses must have an average star rating of at least 4 stars in order for them to find them trustworthy.

Source: BrightLocal

Related:

• How to Respond to Positive Reviews
• How to Respond to Negative Reviews

6. 33% of consumers say a business needs between 20 and 49 reviews in order for them to trust them

BrightLocal asked consumers about the number of reviews a business must have in order for those consumers to consider those businesses trustworthy.

The company gave respondents a few different ranges to choose from:

• 20-49 – 33% of consumers say businesses need this many reviews in order for them to trust them

• 50-99 – 22%

• 0-19 – 16%

• 100+ – 14%
• Review count has no impact on trust – 15%

Source: BrightLocal

Related: How to Ask Customers for Reviews

7. 87% of Gen Z consumers specifically seek out websites that have customer reviews

In Power Reviews’ survey, they discovered that Gen Z shoppers are most likely to purposefully shop on ecommerce websites that have customer reviews.

Gen Z is described as being individuals who were born between 1997 and 2012, meaning the oldest members of this generation are just shy of 30 years old in 2025 and the youngest members are almost old enough to enter the workforce (you can legally work at 14 in my native Wisconsin, for instance).

Other generations are less likely to exclusively shop at websites that have reviews, but it’s still quite important to them regardless:

• Gen Z – 87% of this generation are most likely to specifically seek out websites that have customer reviews

• Millennials – 81%

• Gen X – 70%
• Baby Boomers – 63%

Source: Power Reviews

Statistics for Popular Review Platforms

8. 83% of consumers read online reviews on Google

BrightLocal’s survey revealed Google as being the most popular platform consumers read reviews on:

• Google – 83% of consumers read reviews on this platform

• Yelp – 44%

• Facebook – 40%

• Tripadvisor – 22%

• Better Business Bureau – 20%

• Apple Maps – 14%

• Trustpilot – 11%

• Angi – 8%

• Healthgrades – 7%
• Yellow Pages – 6%

Google’s number is an increase from 2024’s 81% but a decrease from 2023’s 87%.

Source: BrightLocal

Related: How to Get More Facebook Recommendations

9. 71% of consumers agree that a good Trustpilot rating makes them more likely to buy

Through research conducted by London Research and reported by Trustpilot, it was revealed that the majority of consumers, or 71%, agree that a good Trustpilot rating makes them more likely to buy from a business.

Only 3% of consumers disagree.

Source: Trustpilot

10. 48% of consumers find business reviews from local news sources

BrightLocal asked consumers about other sources they use to find business reviews outside of dedicated review platforms.

According to their data, a surprising majority rely on reviews found on news sources in their area, such as local news sites:

• Local news – 48% of consumers use this as an alternative source for finding business reviews

• YouTube – 34%

• Instagram – 31%

• TikTok – 20%

• Reddit – 20%

• Local bloggers – 17%

• Twitter (X) – 13%

• Threads – 7%
• ChatGPT – 6%

Local news’ rate increased by 5% from 2024’s rate of 43%. YouTube’s rate increased by 2% from 2024’s 32%.

Reliance on other sources decreased by 2-3% each.

Source: BrightLocal

Statistics About Fake Reviews

11. 3% of reviews on Amazon are written by AI

Pangram is a developer of software that’s designed to detect AI-generated content on the web.

The team behind the company analyzed over 30,000 front-page product reviews on Amazon from 500 of the site’s best-selling products.

Here’s what they discovered:

• 3%, or 909, of the reviews they studied were written by AI
• 93% of first-page, AI-generated reviews had “Verified Purchase” badges*
• 74% of reviews that were written by AI had 5 stars
• Only 59% of human-written reviews had 5 stars
• 10% of AI-written reviews had 1 star
• 22% of human-written reviews had 1 star

*Review farms are using refunds to game review systems. Most ecommerce sites allow you to keep your verified purchase badge for a review even when you receive a refund for a product. Tech experts have proposed using blockchain technology to enforce the authenticity of reviews.

It should be noted that Pangram used their own AI detection software for this study, and AI detectors in general are infamous for outputting false positives.

The company claims their own false positive rate to be 1 in 10,000.

Out of curiosity, I decided to test the tool on a few articles I’ve written. The tool was able to accurately detect each one as being 100% human written.

Source: Pangram

12. 44% of consumers have seen fake reviews on Amazon

BrightLocal asked consumers where they’ve seen fake reviews on the web.

The majority, or 44%, say they’ve seen fake reviews on Amazon:

• Amazon – 44% of consumers have seen fake reviews on this site

• Google – 40%

• Facebook – 37%

• Yelp – 23%

• Tripadvisor – 13%

• Apple Maps – 10%

• Better Business Bureau – 9%
• None of the above – 24%

Source: BrightLocal

13. 46% of consumers suspect reviews might be fake if they were written by AI

Along with AI detection tools, consumers are getting better and better at being able to detect AI-generated content outright.

As such, the way a review was written is the number one signal consumers use to determine if a review is fake.

Specifically, 46% of consumers will assume a review is fake if they suspect or confirm it was written by AI.

Here are other signals consumers use to determine if reviews are fake:

• Written by AI – 46% of consumers use this as a signal to determine if reviews are fake

• Review seems paid or incentivized – 42%

• Praise is over the top – 36%

• Review is one of few positive reviews when most are negative – 31%

• Reviewer is anonymous – 31%

• Other reviews have similar content – 29%

• Negativity is over the top – 27%

• Review has few words – 24%

• Business owner claims the review is fake – 20%

• Overuse of capital letters – 19%

• Review is one of few negative reviews when most are positive – 16%

• Reviewer has no profile picture – 14%

• Review mentions staff by name – 9%
• None of the above – 5%

Source: BrightLocal

14. 68% of consumers are also concerned about fake user-generated content

In The Bazaar Voice’s report on trust signals, they discovered that 68% of consumers are also concerned about fake user-generated content (UGC) attributed to reviews:

• Fake shopper images – 69% of consumers are concerned about this type of UGC being faked

• Fake social media content – 69%

• Fake shopper videos – 68%
• Fake Q&As – 66%

Source: The Bazaar Voice

Sources

• BrightLocal – Local Consumer Review Survey
• Power Reviews – Power of Reviews Survey
• Trustpilot – London Research Study
• Pangram – Study of Amazon Reviews
• The Bazaar Voice – Trust Signals Report