Do customers abandon carts more when they can't see product reviews?

As an e-commerce store owner, I've been struggling with cart abandonment rates that seem frustratingly high. Recently, I started investigating why potential customers might be hesitating before completing their purchase. One hypothesis that's been nagging at me is the absence of product reviews. Think about it - when you're shopping online, don't you instinctively scroll down to see what other buyers have experienced? I certainly do. In my store, I realized our product pages were technically perfect but emotionally unconvincing. Customers would browse, add items to cart, but then mysteriously disappear. No clear explanation, just vanishing potential sales. I started wondering: Are they losing confidence because they can't validate their purchase through social proof? Are they feeling uncertain without seeing real-world experiences from previous buyers? The stakes are high - every abandoned cart represents not just lost revenue, but wasted ad spend and marketing effort. Each bounce feels like money literally slipping through my fingers. I needed to understand if the lack of reviews was creating an invisible barrier of doubt that was killing my conversion rates. Was this silent trust deficit the reason my otherwise attractive products weren't sealing the deal?