• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 6, 2009

EBay's ProStores, geared toward supporting customizable online stores for small and mid-sized businesses, has begun to offer PowerReviews Express, an application that lets merchants populate their product pages with customer reviews.

PowerReviews Express's review feature aims to keep potential customers from having to leave ProStores merchants in order to find reviews on Amazon.com and other sites. For the approximate 40,000 companies on eBay's platform, it takes a few simple clicks to get started, according to Darby Williams, VP of marketing at PowerReviews,

"EBay's ProStores ecosystem can help when using PowerReviews Express because the biggest benefit in sales lift comes when you have enough reviews on the page to give consumers the confidence that they are getting a scoop on the products and services," Williams said. "You don't want consumers to think the reviews are from family and friends (of the seller)."

ProStores began offering PowerReviews Express about two weeks ago. Today, the package sells for roughly 20% off the $80 package price. The company is offering a 30-day free trial. About 18 merchants are running the platform, but PowerReviews is working to educate online store owners on the review application.

Major online retailers have seen success. Larger retailers such as Ace Hardware, REI, Staples and Toys R Us have installed a similar PowerReviews platform.

For instance, NetShops, which operates 156 specialty online stores in home and lifestyle, began using tag-based customer reviews from PowerReviews in November 2006. By May 2007, NetShops had collected 19,500 reviews on its network of Web sites, averaging three reviews per product, according to a white paper.

A study conducted by the University of Nebraska at Omaha on the effect of customer reviews on product and analyzed sales in 546 product categories from May 2006 to May 2007 found that PowerReviews contributed to NetShops' 26% increase in product sales.

Some of the features include Review Snapshot, an at-a-glance review summary; Verified Buyer, a feature that builds consumer confidence with credible reviews; and Content Moderation Services, a tool for the merchant that wants to monitor the chatter.