95% of Russians Read Online Reviews Before Buying Products and Services

Posted by By Dan Taylor 1 Min Read

A recent study by Avito revealed that 95% of Russians rely on online reviews when deciding on goods and services. This trend highlights the growing importance of consumer feedback in purchasing decisions.

The study showed that 68% of internet users consistently check reviews before making a purchase. This helps them find the best offers.

Meanwhile, 16% of respondents turn to reviews when they are unsure about a product or service. Another 11% read reviews based on their time and mood. Only 2% of Russians never read reviews, and 3% of respondents do not shop online.

When breaking down the data by age, 97% of users aged 18 to 24 always check reviews, while 89% of users over 65 are less likely to do so.

The study also revealed that visual content in reviews matters to almost all respondents. Nearly half (47%) feel that reviews without photos or videos are unconvincing, and 48% say visuals offer an extra advantage when choosing a product or service.

However, only 5% of respondents place primary importance on the rating and review itself without considering visuals.

Source: Avito press release

Dan Taylor
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Dan Taylor is the founder and editor of International Search Insights (ISI), the publication behind ReadIsi, and a Partner and Head of Innovation (Search & AI) at SALT.agency. He has worked in search for more than a decade, in-house and agency-side, and is regarded as one of the West’s leading voices on search engines beyond Google, including Yandex, Baidu, Naver and Cốc Cốc. On ReadIsi, Dan covers the engines and AI answer platforms that English-language coverage tends to miss: Baidu and ERNIE, Yandex and Alice AI, Naver, Cốc Cốc, Shenma, Sogou, WeChat and Weibo search, plus DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen. He also keeps dated records of documented changes, such as the Yandex, Baidu and Naver algorithm update histories and the DeepSeek, ERNIE and Qwen model update histories. His approach is to take learnings from global search engines and apply logic with a high evidence threshold. A claim needs a source, patterns seen in one market are treated as a hypothesis until they are checked in another, and where the evidence is thin he says so. For brands, that means advice built on what can be shown, with measurement that separates being cited from being chosen. Dan is credited with coining the term “edge SEO” and won the inaugural TechSEO Boost research competition in 2018 for his work on CDN and edge changes for SEO. In 2026 he was credited with coining “Infinite Tail” to describe how keyword research is changing with AI search. He is the author of AI Search Marketing For The Travel Sector, writes for Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land and Travel Marketing Guy, and has advised technology, SaaS, travel and enterprise ecommerce brands, including Cloudflare, GitLab and Airbnb. He has given multiple talks and panels at the International Search Summit in Barcelona, and has also spoken at Optimization Moscow, brightonSEO, Google Search Central Live Deep Dive Asia in Bangkok, Athens SEO and the Asia SEO Virtual Summit 2026, where his talk looked at how Baidu, Naver, DeepSeek, Tencent, Cốc Cốc and Yandex built their own AI answers.
Founder & Editor