Category: Blog

A recent article in Supermarket News questioned whether online grocery sales are really positioned to explode in the coming five years. Although the current share of grocery volume through online sales is estimated at only 2%, skeptical grocery retailers who ignore the growth projections and digital consumer shift run the risk not properly supporting physical shopping experiences and ultimately losing volume in their core selling channel.  

Increasingly, shoppers planning or executing physical store trips are turning to mobile and digital solutions to guide purchase decisions. 78% of millennials rely on the internet to inform real-world purchases, according to The Center for Generational Kinetics. A survey of nearly 3,000 affluent US shoppers reported that 37% read ratings and reviews on their mobile devices while they are shopping in-store. Many categories carried in grocery retail are driven by experience and content, rather than promotional activity. Ever tried to move the needle promotionally on vitamins outside of January? How much mascara are beauty shoppers willing to stockpile due to a BOGO event?

Shopper-generated content is increasingly the coin in the retail realm. It is one arrow in the mobile-digital quiver of omnichannel retailers. Home and garden shoppers are regularly turning to their mobile devices to help identify in-store product locations and product ratings to speed their store visits. And the friction in accessing shopper-generated content is decreasing at a rapid rate. Many retail mobile apps include product scanning capabilities to access pricing, nutritional information, usage videos, question and answer submission portals and shopper generated reviews. As shoppers grow accustomed to these features in other channels, they will begin to expect them from the retailers they visit most often: grocers.

At PowerReviews, we are dedicated to enabling the consumer packaged good manufacturer and retailer ecosystem with the ability to collect and distribute shopper-generated content from physical and digital shopping trips across all categories. These include center store and perimeter categories like the floral department, the deli and the custom-order bakery. These insights help shoppers make informed decisions about new product trials while assisting retailers and manufacturers with insights to improve product and service offerings. Our cloud-based platform easily integrates into retailer and manufacturer websites and mobile apps to capture and share the opinions of shoppers. The PowerReviews Open Network matches reviews to the UPC or manufacturer level and enables the reviews collected at one touchpoint to be shared through other channels selling the same product.

Don’t think that eCommerce is the only reason you might need to connect with your shopping community through mobile digital platforms. Doing so could jeopardize in-store trips already underway. Do you really want to risk shoppers turning to Amazon to learn about the products you carry while in your store? That sounds like a recipe for disaster!

Amazon just opened a physical store in New York where all of the products are either highly rated (4+ stars) or top sellers in their eCommerce channel. Brick and mortar competitors should take note of this strategy that is being made possible by the hundreds of millions of shopper-generated ratings and reviews that Amazon customers have come to expect to help them to make informed purchasing decisions. Amazon deduced rather easily that shopper-generated ratings and reviews provide the confidence and context necessary for shoppers to make purchase decisions faster and more effectively than ever before.

Major grocery retailers have all the ingredients necessary to deliver a similar confident shopping experience to their customers. And they don’t even need to be fully invested in eCommerce to enable this capability. Here are a few ways grocery retailers are beating Amazon at their own game:

Mobile Apps with Product Content

Most major grocery retailers have mobile apps that typically promote weekly circular ads and distribute digital coupons. Many of these apps have the ability to scan product UPCs in order to access product pages with images, pricing and nutritional information. Adding ratings and reviews is a simple widget or API call away.

Content-Rich Shelf Tags

Retailers are already leveraging shelf tags to communicate content beyond price. Many grocery retailers now include nutritional value scores, healthy lifestyle identifiers (gluten-free, non-GMO, etc) or available digital coupons on product shelf tags. Grocery retailers can now follow the lead of beauty retailers like Ulta by including ratings so shoppers can see how others have evaluated product performance.

If retailers are disciplined, they can leverage these strategies to further engage even more with shoppers:

New Products Should Come with Content

All new products that grocery retailers list should come with ratings and reviews ready to include in their product pages. At PowerReviews, we work with many manufacturers to launch influencer campaigns via our BzzAgent platform prior to product launch to generate content that can be shared with retailers as their products reach physical stores. The ratings can be easily included on physical displays and on mobile/web product pages.

eCommerce Not Needed to Collect Content

Retailers with active frequent shopper programs don’t need eCommerce to collect ratings and reviews. They already know what their shoppers are purchasing. At PowerReviews, we work with brick and mortar retailers to leverage their loyalty data, targeting shoppers purchasing specific products for which content is needed. We then execute email campaigns to solicit reviews shortly after the store trip has occurred.

Drive Private Label Conversion

One of the biggest obstacles to shopper adoption of store brands is consumer confidence over product quality. Actively soliciting ratings and reviews via targeted FSP campaigns as noted above, coupled with shelf tags and product page placement will accelerate a retailer’s private label penetration efforts.

Maintain an Open Network for Content

Retailers like Walmart, BJ’s, Sam’s Club and Dollar General all participate in an open network of syndicated shopper-generated content in the form of ratings and reviews. Since the content is matched at a UPC or brand level, it ensures that shoppers are exposed to relevant content regardless of where the product was reviewed. In this way, all retailers benefit from a network of content that is related to the products they are selling through their omnichannel mechanisms.

Don’t Be Afraid of Amazon

Amazon is showing its physical competitors how to leverage shopper-generated content to reduce friction on the path to purchase. Grocery retailers have the ability to compete without the need for a fully-scaled eCommerce platform. If they work with the assets already in place, they can mount a credible competitive approach to engage their shoppers and protect market share from Amazon.

By now most brands and retailers know that for the last six years, PowerReviews and Bazaarvoice have “cross-syndicated” brand content to our respective retailers. Bazaarvoice was compelled to do so after a court determined they had violated the law and acted anti-competitively when they acquired and were subsequently forced to divest PowerReviews nearly four years ago.

As of July 3, 2018, the cross-network syndication agreement started a one-year, wind-down period to ensure a smooth transition to an open network where brands are able to syndicate directly to retailers without paying access fees. As previously announced, PowerReviews will continue accepting and sharing review content from brands using Bazaarvoice during the wind-down period. Unfortunately, Bazaarvoice, over the objection of their retail clients, stopped accepting content from new brands using PowerReviews on July 1, 2018, and recently stated they stopped accepting new content from existing brands as of September 30 unless brands signed an agreement to pay them access fees. We have recently seen evidence of Bazaarvoice attempting to charge brands double or triple the total fees that brands pay to use the PowerReviews platform and participate in the PowerReviews Open Network.

Fortunately, PowerReviews is offering brands and retailers an open alternative that is both technology agnostic and free of access fees. The PowerReviews Open Network is open to brands and retailers regardless of their review platform and it does not impose access fees. In addition to the 150+ retailers using the PowerReviews platform, 30 of the world’s largest retailers using other platforms have agreed to participate and accept brand content directly from PowerReviews. Retailers participating in the PowerReviews Open Network account for more than $1 trillion in total sales, $70 billion in online sales, reaches billions of shoppers and includes content from 1,000+ leading brands.

Despite having agreements in place with retailers, Bazaarvoice is telling the market that they control what content appears on their retailers’ sites. This is simply false. The retailers decide what content appears on their site, not Bazaarvoice nor any third party.

PowerReviews has a no cost, simple solution to ensure continued syndication for brands and retailers

PowerReviews has created pre-matched, pre-moderated files for nearly every major retailer using Bazaarvoice. Those files will continue to be updated on a daily basis with new review content from brands at no cost. There is no technical limitation to ingesting these files. PowerReviews has been sharing files with Bazaarvoice via direct feeds to syndicate review content for the last seven years. We can accept these files. So can Bazaarvoice. This is why review syndication between Jet and Bazaarvoice’s largest retail customer remains uninterrupted between Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews. Should Bazaarvoice not accept these files, PowerReviews will continue to work with retailers to provide them several options to accept brand content directly at no cost.

PowerReviews has industry leading moderation and authenticity standards. Those standards have been approved by the largest brands and retailers in the world, and have been accepted by Bazaarvoice for the last 7 years. These standards will continue.

More Benefits of The PowerReviews Open Network

As many of you know, last year PowerReviews received overwhelming industry support for an open syndication network. Brands and retailers were clear and unanimous in their desire for an affordable and accessible review syndication network. The PowerReviews Open Network was built to provide faster setup times, better product matching capabilities and new content types for syndication such as Q&A, images and video, all with no access fees for brands.

With this open and innovative approach, the largest retailers in the world signed direct agreements with PowerReviews. Today, the PowerReviews Open Network impacts more than $1 trillion in total sales and has 1,000+ leading brands participating including GlaxoSmithKline, The North Face, Ugg and World Kitchen and more. More than 25% of the top 100 CPG companies in the world use PowerReviews.

We are actively working through this transition with retailers on the Bazaarvoice platform, and we will continue to make content available.  

Thank you,
Matt

Technology has become increasingly more intertwined in people’s lives. Nearly every major sector of the economy has experienced some form of disruption because of technology — Transportation (Uber), Lodging (Airbnb), Entertainment (Netflix), Personal Communication (smartphones), Fintech (Apple Pay, Venmo, Square), Retail (Amazon) and the list goes on and on. Retail Grocery is no different.

Consumers’ willingness to embrace new lifestyles powered by technology seems almost endless. Over 18 million Americans now have a grocery app on their mobile device and over 50% of omnichannel purchases are digitally influenced. The success of brands such as FreshDirect, Peapod, Instacart, Shipt, HelloFresh, AmazonNow and many others is proof that the grocery landscape is transforming to meet consumer demand. One of the fastest growing sectors in retail is eGrocery. In fact, online grocery sales are expected to triple between 2015 – 2022.  

eGrocery 1.0 focused primarily on the distribution part of the marketing mix, or how and where to buy groceries online. eGrocery 2.0 will focus on the other parts of the marketing mix — especially product, promotion and experience.  With eGrocery 2.0, the key question won’t necessarily be where to buy groceries online, but rather what should I buy? Owning the digital shelf space online will be just as important as owning the physical shelf space. PowerReviews helps to enable this digital transformation.  

Checking ratings & reviews before digital and physical purchases is now second nature to consumers because they come to expect this information to be readily available regardless of what they’re buying. Consumers can vet their buying decisions for almost anything including restaurants, movies, lodging, trips, electronics, apparel, etc.  Grocery products are no different. For consumables, people want to know what others think about the taste as well as ingredient contents. A grocery shopper study by Label Insights, found that 73% of consumers would be willing to pay more for a product that offers complete transparency in all attributes. Furthermore, 56% said that additional information about how food is produced, handled or sourced would help them trust a brand more.

Retailers who are seeking to market their private brands rely on user-generated content to help their shoppers understand the quality and value these brands deliver. PowerReviews offers retailers the opportunity to leverage their community of shoppers to help advocate for private brands that deliver value, are comparable to national brands and offer unique or superior product benefits.

PowerReviews recognized early on that eGrocery was a sector in which we were well positioned to help both Brands and Retailers succeed. We’ve made significant investments in our technology and people resources in this space. Furthermore, we have real world client insights from which our future product roadmap is developed. Here are a few reasons why PowerReviews is a leader in eGrocery.

Insights from a Deep Bench of Grocery Clients

We’ve all heard the saying “learning by doing.” We’ve been doing ratings and reviews for over 10 years and have a deep bench of grocery clients from which we’ve been continuously building our industry expertise. PowerReviews has over 60 active grocery clients including BJ’s Wholesale Club, Jet.com, Dollar General, PepsiCo, ConAgra Brands, DelMonte, Bimbo Bakeries, Hormel, Constellation Brands, Hershey’s and many others. With this breadth of clients comes tremendous insights and unique perspective on how to help our clients focus their omnichannel strategy and get the basics right from the beginning. Without giving away all of our trade secrets, here are a few things we know are important for eGrocery and how we help our clients.

The Science of Review Collection for Grocery Brands & Retailers

Most grocery brands & retailers will readily admit that their digital strategies are still a work in progress. Some sell online, but many don’t. In either case, how do grocery brands and retailers collect reviews and how does PowerReviews help?

Review Collection for both non-eCommerce and e-Commerce clients

Collecting reviews can be a challenge since most grocery brands don’t have close one-to-one relationships with the end consumer. Furthermore, personally identifiable buyer transaction information isn’t usually provided from retailers. If a brand or retailer doesn’t sell products online directly to the end consumer, how are they supposed to easily collect reviews? PowerReviews has a full product suite to help. One of our core strengths is the bundling of our product sampling, review collection and syndication capabilities. We have solutions to help clients regardless of where they are in their digital evolution.

Product Sampling

Product sampling is one of the most effective ways clients can generate reviews if they don’t already have them. Sampling facilitates generating quality reviews for new product launches, seasonal promotions or for existing products that have few reviews. We have a full service solution that handles everything for our clients from targeting, fulfillment and review collection to syndication.

PowerReviews has a large and engaged community of everyday influencers which makes it easy to build out highly targeted sampling and review collection campaigns.  We’re experts at this and have consistently been able to generate 85% review submission rates from our sampling campaigns.

Review Collection

There is a science to review collection and PowerReviews has a PhD in it. There are 3 critical success factors in review collection: 1.) How to collect reviews, 2.) What to collect and 3.) When to collect content. PowerReviews collects 2X more content for our clients than our competitors given our acute attention to detail and the smart product innovations we’ve made.

How To Collect Reviews

Our Review Your Purchases feature makes it easy for end users to write multiple reviews all at once, instead of receiving emails individually for each product. This is not standard practice in the industry and is a simple innovation that allows our grocery clients to significantly increase the breadth of coverage of their products. Review Your Purchases has been shown to increase product coverage by 300%.

Our Progressive Collection feature allows clients to collect more in-depth information on their products by sequentially asking probing questions. Whereas Review Your Purchases is about product breadth, Progressive Collection is about product depth and getting more granular feedback about the product from consumers.

Our Intelligent Collection feature allows clients to align their collection strategy with their current business priorities. We know companies have changing category and product priorities throughout the year. Intelligent Collection allows clients to be able to prioritize review collection based on various factors such as price point, margin, review coverage or low conversion rate (eg. high traffic/low conversions).

What to Collect

Our Visual Content collection features allow clients to not only collect written text reviews, but also images and video. Nearly everyone has a smartphone these days and they all have photo and video capability. Photo and video collection is integrated into our product. PowerReviews customers have seen a 153% increase in visual content collection when they sent an image or video-only request to shoppers. What’s more, 65% of shoppers that submit a piece of visual content continue on to write a review.

For grocery brands, one use case of this feature is for consumers to take photos or videos of recipes that have been “completed” using a brands’ products. Whether it’s a cake or a fantastic home-cooked meal, some people love to show off their finished recipes. Food items are among the most frequently posted on Instagram and Facebook. Our Social Suite allows brands to easily create campaigns using previously posted items on Social Media from their customers.

On average we’re collecting over 7,500 reviews per month among our grocery clients. Our portfolio continues to grow as does our executional expertise.

When to Collect

When to collect reviews is a critical success factor. If you request the review too soon after purchase, you’ll miss an opportunity because the consumer hasn’t used it yet. And if you request the review too late, the consumer is disinterested and is likely to ignore the review request. PowerReviews’ powerful data analytics capabilities are integrated into our system to time the review request at the right time per product. PowerReviews has over 1500 product SKUs in the grocery space that we’re collecting reviews for. Our data analytics is a contributing factor to our 2X advantage in review collection relative to the competition.

Syndication

Finally, reviews are most useful when distributed where your shoppers are making their purchases. Reviews don’t just sit on brand and retailer websites, but are shared across retailer product pages as well. That’s where syndication comes into play and the PowerReviews Open Network reaches 1 Billion shoppers monthly that account for $90B in sales.

For grocery brands we syndicate to the largest online retailers such as Dollar General, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Tesco, and Thrive Market to name a few. Here are a few things to note about our Syndication Network:

1. No access fees
2. 80% higher product matching compared to our competitors due to proprietary artificial intelligence and an in-house human-developed executional process. 
3. Speedy integration. 1-2 weeks setup time which is 50% faster than industry standard

With our sophistication in syndication and overall network management, PowerReviews brand clients frequently see a 2X increase in product page conversions and retailers often experience a 15-20% lift in site conversion.

Our team of consultants has a wealth of experience collecting, organizing and distributing user-generated content, critical for the omnichannel grocery path to purchase. Our years of domain experience working with grocery brands and retailers and our forward-looking product roadmap will help us stay a leader in omnichannel grocery.

As the retail environment rapidly evolves to meet the expectations of today’s empowered consumers, one of the largest brands grabbing nationwide attention also happens to be one of the most mysterious. This is especially true when it comes to the future.

Amazon’s growth from a modest online shopping option to one of the premier eCommerce platforms in the world is a journey its Chairman and CEO, Jeff Bezos says is rooted in its commitment to customers.

Sitting down for a recent 60 Minutes interview, the typically tightlipped Bezos provided a rare glimpse into the rationale behind Amazon’s business model. He also provided insight into how the strategy will steer the retail giant into other business ventures in the future.

For retailers looking to make a splash in the market themselves, his message regarding what should motivate business is particularly useful.

Jeff Bezos Makes The Case for Customer-Driven Strategy

While the investments in innovative solutions Amazon is making are certainly noteworthy and exciting visions of what lies ahead, the most important takeaway for retailers looking to innovate themselves is the idea of robust customer centricity.

For those who’ve observed Amazon’s development and looked on in excitement, today the tools are available to become much more than an observer.

When asked how he and his team decide to take on a new opportunity, Bezos finds the motivation to move in certain directions by closely watching the actions of his customers. Put plainly, Amazon “puts the customer at the center of everything they do.”

It’s this information that Bezos says gives him a glimpse of what may lie at the end of seemingly dark tunnels. While others aren’t willing to take certain risks, it’s the trust in customer opinion that provides the confidence needed to follow through with a new idea.

Trust Remains One Of The Most Important Elements of Sustained Success

The customer-centric strategy can further be broken down into the fundamental idea of trust between the customer and company. For Bezos, the ability to suspend growth goals in order to protect the fragile state of trust customers form with his company and the service it provides is what sends Amazon ahead of competitors.

When others would normally raise prices to reach benchmarks, he keeps them low in order to ensure slight erosion in customer trust doesn’t snowball into a long-term retention problem.

Speaking to Amazon’s physical growth, Bezos says much of Amazon’s profit goes directly back into development projects aimed to take Amazon even closer to its customers. Fulfillment Centers geared around ultra-quick online-to-doorstep delivery and pickup services are one such investment Bezos considers an important link between online and offline convenience.

How Retailers Put These Strategies Into Motion Today

Although it’s always interesting to peel back the cover and look inside successful companies, Bezos’s explanation highlights a business model many retailers can use to their own advantage. No matter the size of your company, turning to your customers to inform you of what next step to take can be a viable solution for any retailer.

Particularly for those who are sensing a disconnect growing between your company and its audience, an effort to let your customers decide the next step can reestablish the delicate sense of trust that may have started to fade. If a customer-centric plan seems to fit your broader customer experience needs, there are ways to start working toward a greater focus on customer-driven direction.

The first step should involve customer evaluation:

Invest in a customer experience evaluation process

In order to make the best possible decisions around your customers, you first need to gather accurate, actionable insights about what they’re pleased with, where they’d like to see improvement and the ideas they have regarding what they’d like to see next.

Whether you engage with trained and certified mystery shoppers capable of providing detailed customer experience reports, a customer intercepts program geared to capture reactions just after customers leave the store, or customer satisfaction surveys tailored to your in-store experience, this is a key step to defining exactly where your customers stand.

Depending on the needs of your particular company, these customer evaluation methods provide leadership teams with the kinds of customer feedback gathered directly from the source.

A business’ aim is to create products and experiences that consumers love. But even the best product can’t be all things to all people. And consumers don’t trust products that claim to be.

As it turns out, perfect reviews aren’t the best for businesses, either. Our research with Northwestern University found that purchase probability peaks when a product’s average star rating is between 4.2-4.5, because a perfect 5-star rating is perceived by consumers as too good to be true.

While a business never wants to aim for negative reviews, their presence adds a level of authenticity to review content, which helps the company build trust with consumers. Plus, as we’ve found, consumers depend on negative reviews to help steer them toward the products that best fit their needs.

A Growing Number of Consumers Seek Out Negative Reviews

Earlier this year, PowerReviews surveyed more than 1,000 American consumers to understand how shopper dependence on reviews has changed over the past few years. As part of this research, we wanted to explore the role of negative reviews in the path to purchase.

One key finding? 85% of shoppers seek out negative reviews, up from 82% in 2014. Notably, this number jumps to 91% among consumers age 18-29. This points to the growing demand for transparency, especially among younger consumers.

Though it may be tempting to delete negative reviews, resist the urge. Negative reviews build trust, and consumers are actively seeking out this content to help them make informed purchase decisions. And remember–what’s considered to be a negative aspect of a product for one consumer may be completely irrelevant for another. For example, if a consumer indicates that a type of shampoo doesn’t work well for people with curly hair, that comment will be deemed irrelevant for a consumer with straight hair.

Start Embracing Negative Reviews

Negative reviews are an important part of the purchase journey. In addition to helping consumers make smart purchase decisions, negative reviews help brands and retailers build trust with shoppers. Read on to get four practical tips for leveraging negative reviews to improve your business

1. Display Reviews, Regardless of Star-Rating

Of course, no business should aim for negative reviews. But displaying this content adds a level of authenticity to your product pages and helps you build trust with shoppers. In fact, research has found that 44% of Centennial shoppers won’t trust a product’s reviews if there are no negative reviews present. So be sure you’re displaying all reviews (after they’ve been moderated for things like fraud and foul language, of course), regardless of star-rating.

2. Get Alerted

Negative reviews are brimming with insights that can help you improve your products and services. But you likely don’t have the time required to constantly monitor each and every review for your entire catalog of products. Ask your ratings and reviews partner if they allow you to receive an automated alert when a review is submitted that’s below a certain star rating — or if it includes specific negative keywords. That way, you can more easily identify trends in negative reviews and determine the best course of action.

3. Share Negative Feedback With Your Teams

Once you identify trends in the negative reviews written for a specific product, be sure you share that feedback with the appropriate teams. For example, Soft Surroundings, a PowerReviews customer, makes and designs all of their apparel in-house and depends on reviews to improve their products. So when they notice trends in negative reviews, they share that feedback with their internal teams to make product changes.

“When we get feedback, it goes directly to our technical design team. The quicker we get feedback, the quicker we can resolve issues,” said Gail Buffington, eCommerce Manager at Soft Surroundings.

4. Respond To Negative Reviews

There’s certainly no need to respond to every review that’s written about your products. But sometimes, it makes sense to respond to a review — especially if it’s a negative one. By responding to a negative review, you’re showing the review writer (as well as future shoppers) that you care about their feedback. When responding to reviews, empathize with the customer’s frustration and let them know you value their input. And if you’re doing anything to improve the product, be sure to mention it.

Learn More

Want to learn more about how consumers are using ratings and reviews — both positive and negative — to make purchase decisions? Download our latest research report.

Want additional best practices for handling negative reviews? Check out our Complete Guide to Handling Negative Reviews

Ready to see how PowerReviews helps businesses like yours drive traffic, conversion and sales with ratings and reviews? Contact us to schedule a demo today.

The Evolving Role of Ratings and Reviews in the Path to Purchase

There was once a time (in the not so distant past) when the idea of asking for feedback from consumers, then displaying that feedback for the world to see, was a pretty radical concept. But that has all changed — and quickly. Today’s consumers have come to expect easily accessible product information — and this includes ratings and reviews written by others like them.

In 2014, PowerReviews conducted a survey to explore the role ratings and reviews play in the path to purchase and found that nearly all consumers (95%) read reviews and 86% considered them an essential resource when making purchase decisions0. But we understand that a lot can change in four years. That’s why we decided to survey more than 1,000 American consumers earlier this year to understand how shopper dependence on reviews has changed over the past few years. Spoiler alert: our latest round of research found that consumers are reading and writing product reviews more than ever before. And, as expected, this content continues to be a top consideration when making purchase decisions.

Read on for key findings from our latest research, as well as four tips for brands and retailers to leverage the growing power of ratings and reviews to satisfy their shoppers’ growing desire for information from others like them.

More Consumers Read Reviews

Previously, when a consumer was in the market for a new product, she’d ask for the opinions of her family and friends. And though traditional word of mouth is alive and well, increasingly, consumers are seeking out the opinions of other consumers — by reading product reviews.

Today, 97% of consumers consult product reviews when making purchase decisions, up from 95% in 2014. Of those shoppers, more than a quarter (26%) consult reviews for every purchase they make online. That number jumps to 30% for consumers age 18–44.

Reviews are an Essential Resource

Reviews have quickly evolved from a “nice to have” to an expected component of the shopping experience. In fact, 89% of consumers consider reviews to be an essential resource when making a purchase decision, up from 86% in 2014.

Reviews have become so essential that many shoppers simply won’t make a purchase without them. 70% of consumers indicate they won’t purchase products online without reading reviews. And over a third (39%) won’t purchase products in a brick-and-mortar store without first consulting reviews.

The message is clear: featuring review content on your website is no longer optional — it’s essential. Businesses that don’t provide this content to their shoppers risk losing them to businesses that do.

Reviews are a Top Purchase Consideration

Consumers weigh a number of different factors when making a purchase decision–from product pricing to the ease of returns. But which factors weigh more heavily when it comes time to commit?

Our latest research found that consumers rank the presence of ratings and reviews as the most important factor impacting purchase decisions, behind only the price of the product itself. Consumers have made it clear that the presence of authentic reviews have a larger impact on purchase decisions than other factors including recommendations from family and friends, the brand of the product and the availability of free shipping.

Reviews Impact Online Shopping Behavior

The availability of reviews impacts where consumers choose to shop online, and whether they make a purchase once they land on a given website. When shopping online, 63% of consumers specifically seek out websites that have product reviews, up from 57% in 2014. And 77% of mobile shoppers are more likely to purchase an item if the website or app offers product reviews, up from 70% in 2014.

Brands and retailers take note: collecting and displaying reviews is a key way to attract — and convert — information-hungry consumers. Those that don’t will lose shoppers —  70% of consumers simply won’t buy products online without reading reviews first.

Reviews Influence In-Store Behavior, Too

It’s clear that reviews play a large role in online shopping behavior. However, it’s important to note that a significant–and growing–number of consumers rely on review content when making in-store purchases, too. Our research found that a growing number of consumers (39%) don’t buy products in stores without first reading reviews, up 8% from consumer research in 2014. This trend will only continue to grow, with 31% of consumers indicating they use reviews to make in-store purchases more today than they did a year ago.

It’s key for brick-and-mortar retailers to ensure review content is easily accessible for in-store shoppers. In addition to ensuring reviews are easy to read via a mobile device, look for opportunities to display ratings and reviews in your physical stores.

Four Tips for Success

With nearly all consumers reading reviews, this content has become an expected part of the path to purchase. Read on for four tips for businesses looking to leverage reviews to attract and convert shoppers.

1. Collect Reviews: If you’re not already, now’s the time to start requesting reviews from your customers. The most effective way to generate this content is to send a post purchase email, asking consumers to write reviews for recently purchased products. Make sure the entire process for submitting a review is quick, simple and can easily be completed from any device. Finally, ensure it’s easy for your consumers to review multiple products at once.
2. Make Reviews Front and Center Online: Once you’ve started generating reviews, start prominently displaying this content on your product pages so shoppers can easily find it, regardless of the device they’re using to shop. Look for opportunities to include ratings and reviews on other parts of your website too, including category pages and even your homepage.
3. Feature Reviews In-Store: A growing number of consumers are turning to reviews to inform in-store purchases. In addition to ensuring this content is easy to find and read on your website from any device, look for opportunities to display review content in your brick-and-mortar store locations. For example, include star ratings and excerpts from reviews on signage alongside key products.
4. Syndicate Reviews: If you’re a brand that syndicates content to retail sites, you’ll benefit from getting this content in front of more shoppers in more places. And if you’re a retailer that accepts syndicated brand content, you’ll benefit from increased review coverage and depth, without having to generate that content yourselves. Today, retailers receive an average of 58% of their review content from syndication.

Learn More

Curious what else we learned about consumers’ growing dependence on ratings and reviews? Download our latest research report.

Want to learn how PowerReviews can help you start collecting and syndicating more reviews to drive traffic, conversion and sales? Contact us to schedule a demo today.

 

Reaching More Shoppers With Visual Content

There’s no question that visual content is changing the way consumers browse for and purchase products. Today, 97% of consumers seek out visual content prior to purchase. And 88% specifically seek out photos and videos submitted by other consumers like them.

You’ve heard the message loud and clear and have started collecting visual content from your shoppers, both natively and through Instagram. Now, it’s time to start getting this visual content in front of your shoppers in more places to boost buying confidence and increase conversion. Read on to learn six easy steps for more effectively displaying the user-generated photos and videos you’ve collected from your shoppers.

1. Feature Visual Content in a Gallery on Product Pages

Consumers want to find user-generated photos and videos of the products they’re considering — but they don’t want to work hard to find it. PowerReviews research found that two-fifths of shoppers prefer to see images and videos from shoppers like them directly on a brand or retailer website.

Once you’ve started generating photos and videos from your consumers, be sure to showcase this powerful visual content in an engaging gallery directly on the product page. This will get more eyes on your visual content, leading to higher engagement on the page and greater conversion.

2. Make Sure Photos Are Oriented Correctly

Imagine you’re a health and beauty retailer and one of your shoppers purchases a lipstick she loves. She takes a couple selfies wearing the lipstick and attempts to upload one of them natively, as part of a review. But the photo appears sideways, and there isn’t a way for her to fix it.

The lesson here? Make sure your visual content provider makes it easy for your shoppers to properly orient photos when they’re being uploaded. That way, this content will appear correctly in your visual content gallery.

3. Syndicate Visual Content to Retail Partners

In some cases, a shopper will shop for a brand’s product directly from the brand’s ecommerce site. But in other cases, they’ll opt to shop via a retailer that sells the brand’s products. Be sure both types of shoppers can find the visual information they’re seeking out, regardless of where they shop. How? By syndicating the visual content you collect (both natively and through Instagram) to your retail partners (or, if you’re a retailer, by accepting this content from your brands).

If you’re a brand that syndicates visual content to your retail partners, you benefit from getting this conversion-boosting content in front of more shoppers, wherever they purchase your products. If you’re a retailer that accepts syndicated visual content, you benefit from displaying more photos and videos on more products, without having to generate this content yourself.

4. Add a UGC Snippet to Product Pages

Consumers are busy people with short attention spans, so it’s key to provide them with all the information they’re looking for in one place. That includes photos and videos — both brand-provided and submitted by consumers like them.

Ask your visual content provider if it’s possible to add a snippet to your product display page  to allow your shoppers to easily access photos and videos submitted by other consumers, right alongside brand-provided product images.

 

5. Include Visual Content in Other Marketing Campaigns

Make the most of the great visual content you’re generating from your customers by including this content in other marketing initiatives. For example, once you’ve received permission, consider including user-submitted visual content in social media campaigns and marketing emails. Or, include content on in-store displays to engage shoppers in your brick-and-mortar locations.

6. Give Credit to Instagram Contributors

You’ll need to get permission from consumers before using their Instagram photos or videos on your website or in your other marketing materials. The good news is, your visual content partner should make this an easy process for you.

Once you get permission, be sure to give the shopper a shout out when you use their photo or video. For example, if you repost a user’s photo on your company’s Instagram page, tag them in it as another way to give them props. This will encourage other consumers to share content with you, in hopes of being featured on your page.

 

 

Start Collecting and Displaying More Visual Content

Collecting and displaying visual content is a win-win for consumers and businesses alike. Seeing photos and videos of a product “in real life” helps consumers make more confident purchase decisions. And it helps brands and retailers boost traffic, conversion, and sales — and reduce returns.  

Are you already a PowerReviews client? Contact your Client Success Director to learn more about how you can start generating and displaying more visual content today. Not a PowerReviews customer yet? Contact us to schedule a demo.

The Growing Importance of Consumer-Submitted Visual Content

Visual content has become an integral part of the lives of today’s consumers — and it’s changing the way they shop, too. PowerReviews research found that nearly all (97%) of shoppers seek out visual content prior to purchase.

And while brand-provided images and videos have their role to play in satisfying a consumer’s need for visual information, increasingly, consumers are specifically seeking out content submitted by others like them. Consumer images and videos fill in product gaps that a brand missed or could not properly showcase in a written description or specification overview. From texture to scale, consumers’ content plays an essential role in answering conversion driving questions and boosting confidence. The same study mentioned above found that 88% of consumers specifically look for visual content submitted by other consumers prior to making a purchase. This visual content helps the end user connect with a product. In fact, 72% of shoppers are more likely to buy a product that has reviews that feature photos and videos in addition to written text.

Clearly, visual content plays a large (and growing) role in the path to purchase. And it’s an important tool when building shopper confidence and ensuring a product is the right fit to prevent returns. This is especially true when consumers are shopping for products that are visual in nature — including apparel, footwear, and health and beauty items. Because consumers want to connect with a person like them to decide whether a product will fit their specific needs, it’s key for brands and retailers to make it a priority to start collecting and displaying more visual content from shoppers.

How can you start collecting more of the conversion-boosting photos and videos that your customers are actively seeking out? Read on to learn five ways to start collecting more visual content from your shoppers today.

1. Collect Photos and Videos Natively

Displaying consumer provided photos and videos as part of your reviews helps build buyer confidence. And confident shoppers are more likely to convert.  Remember, 72% of shoppers are more likely to buy a product that has reviews that feature photos and videos in addition to written text!

The best way to generate more visual content as part of reviews is to make the process as easy as possible. Today’s user has their best content in the palm of their hand. Literally. Allow your consumers to submit photos and videos directly on your website from the camera rolls on their mobile phones — rather than through YouTube or other third-party sites. That way, you’ll generate more photos and videos and keep shoppers on your website.

 

2. Integrate Your Write-a-Review Form With Social Media

According to data from Statista, the average internet user spent 135 minutes per day on social media in 2017. If your customers are anything like the average consumer, they’re likely spending a good amount of their time on social media, often posting photos and videos to share with their friends. And some of these photos and videos likely include your products.

So in addition to allowing consumers to upload photos and videos from their camera rolls, be sure they can also upload this content straight from their Instagram and Facebook profiles, where this content already lives.

3. Prioritize Visual Content Collection

Traditionally, consumers think of reviews as star ratings and written text. But if you’re focused on generating more visual content as part of reviews, you need to make it clear to your consumers that you want them to share photos and videos of your products.

Ask your ratings and reviews provider if they offer a visual content collection feature, which enables you to send a post purchase email that specifically asks your shoppers to provide an image before you ask for a review. At PowerReviews, our customers have seen a 144% increase in images collected with an image-first call to action. And more than half of purchasers continue to write a review after submitting an image through the visual content collection form.

4. Collect Content from Instagram

Instagram is one of the most popular social media channels today, with more than 800 million monthly active users and over 95 million photos shared each day. Chances are, there are plenty of “real life” photos and videos of your products already living on Instagram. If you’re not collecting this content, you’re missing out on a big opportunity.

Your ratings and reviews provider should make it easy to leverage the content that already exists on Instagram — then display this content directly on your product detail pages. For example, Social Collection from PowerReviews allows brands and retailers to collect Instagram content generated by hashtags and @mentions, and then gather visual content rights from the person that posted the content. Then, the brand or retailer can display this content directly on product display pages and in marketing campaigns to boost shopper confidence — and conversion.

5. Syndicate Visual Content

Once you’ve started collecting visual content from your customers, the next step is to get that content in front of future shoppers, regardless of where they shop. If you’re a brand, make sure you’re syndicating user-generated photos and videos (both from social and the content you collect natively) to your retail partners. That way, you’re getting this conversion-boosting content in front of more consumers, whether they’re shopping directly through your website or through one of your retail partners. If you’re a retailer, start accepting syndicated visual content from your brands. By doing so, you’ll benefit from displaying a higher volume of visual content — without having to collect it yourself.

Start Collecting More Visual Content

We know that 88% of consumers specifically look for visuals — such as photos or videos — submitted by other consumers prior to making a purchase. It’s key to provide these shoppers with the information they’re looking for — or else you risk losing them to a competitor that does.

Are you already a PowerReviews client? Contact your Client Success Director to learn more about how you can start generating more visual content today. Not a PowerReviews customer yet? Contact us to schedule a demo.