Category: Blog

A few weeks ago, I went to Target looking for a vacuum cleaner. When I arrived at the cleaning section, I was faced with several different models.  With my minimal understanding of all things cleaning (my mom can attest to this), I pulled out my phone and started Googling each of the models, looking for differentiators and reviews.  I landed on Amazon (we knew that was coming), started reading the reviews and then inadvertently started looking at the price differences.  After seeing that Amazon sold the model I wanted for $20 less (and free shipping), I ordered online and left Target empty handed.  This story is a nice segway into the main topic of my post, which is beacon technology and how it can help companies prevent customers from the very behavior I described in my above instance.

Recently, several retailers and stores have launched beacon programs, in order to provide in-store consumers with coupons and relevant store promotions.  Just this week, County Market grocery stores announced a 45 store beacon technology launch.  For those unaware of what a beacon is, they’re small bits of hardware that can be placed throughout a store and have the ability to pinpoint your location via a smartphone and a retailer’s app.  Once they pinpoint your location, they can send you information in the form of push notifications.  These push notifications can be in the form of coupons, relevant store promotions, and…reviews. 84% percent of store visitors use their devices before and during their shopping trip, creating a nice opportunity for stores to utilize beacon technology and influence buyer behavior.

With that it mind, let’s look at reasons why beacons and reviews are a match made in heaven and the benefits of push notifications.

1.) Consumers are always checking reviews

In The Power of Reviews survey of 800 consumers, 95% of shoppers use reviews and 86% say they’re an essential part of purchasing decisions.  Additionally, nearly one third of consumers under the age of 45 consult reviews for every purchase (in-store and online).  If customers rely that much on user-generated content, make it easy on them and use beacons as a way to present authentic review content.  Remember back to my vacuum story—the pure reason I went online was to get an opinion from users.  I wasn’t looking to price compare, I wasn’t looking for a better deal, I only wanted to know which model I should buy. However, my searching brought up prices and I automatically took that bit of information into account, as well.  Some push notifications with product reviews and information would have saved me an entire step and I would have likely bought the vacuum at Target.

2.) Consumers hate having human interactions while they shop

Shoppers welcome any opportunity to not have to speak with a sales associate (myself included). In fact, a recent Deloitte Study found that 8 in 10 respondents said they prefer to uncover information on their own devices or from a store kiosk, than ask a sales associate.  Using beacon technology to provide this information to consumers would make the shopping experience more comfortable and authentic.  If a majority of consumers are actively avoiding sales associates, give them the relevant information they’ll end up searching for anyway by using beacon technology’s push notifications.

3.) Beacon technology will increase your review content

Not only will beacon technology enable customers to access review content and other relevant information on their smartphone, it will also promote consumers to write more reviews. As shown in The Power of Reviews survey, 54% of consumers said they needed some kind of reward or motivation to write a review.  Not only will beacon technology allow for customers to get the most relevant information on products while they shop, but it will also enable stores to easily reward customers after they have written a review with relevant coupon notifications when they visit the store.  Push notifications could also be used as reminders to shoppers to review products if they visit the store at a later date.

The opportunities are endless with the use of beacon technologies. Consumers can benefit from having a way to get the information they want and seek out while they shop in-store, and stores can enhance the shopping experience and increase in-store sales.

It was 1995.  It was a time when people were washing their clothes on rocks, using chickens as barter to purchase goods, and written communication was as easy as strapping a note to a pigeon.  Or was it?  Maybe 1995 wasn’t so long ago.  Maybe less has changed in that 20 years than we thought.

HBR 1995: Psychology, Buyer Behavior, and the Evolving Ways We Learn and Engage
I was reading a couple of Harvard Business Reviews from 20 years ago…as I’m a bit of a geek about psychology, buyer behavior, consumer engagement and the reality of the rapidly evolving way we learn and engage.  Two issues in 1995…one in March of 1995 with an article titled, “Do You Want to Keep Your Customers Forever?”, and another in July of 1995 with an article titled, “Real Time Marketing” really stuck out.  Here are a few interesting quotes:

• “Today, consumers can get better information—information that is unbiased, comparative, accurate, and immediate—through on-line services, CD-ROM catalogs, and fax-response systems, and eventually they will be able to obtain it through interactive TV.”

• “As the continuing boom in catalog and home-TV shopping attests, consumers and organizations can buy goods and services over the phone and through dedicated on-line services as easily as, if not more easily than, in person, and security measures will almost certainly be in place soon that will make it possible to purchase products through the Internet.”

• “For retailers, the message is clear: if they want to maintain or increase their competitive advantage, they must begin establishing learning relationships with their best customers today.”

Yesterday’s eCommerce
What was “better information” back then?  Marketers were dealing with an exploding set of options with which to spend their budget dollar, get their message out, and engage their consumers…in 1995.  Buying goods and services from catalogs, over the phone, and through home-TV shopping was yesterday’s eCommerce.  Information availability was exploding, even if it included avenues like fax-response and CD-ROM.  But the advice was almost exactly the same as it is now…focus on establishing learning relationships with the consumer.  Your consumers are talking about you…be a part of the conversation.

Four Strategies for Establishing Learning Relationships with the Consumer
How do you do that?  The same article outlined four required strategies…that haven’t changed much in those 20 years:

1. Establish an information strategy for initiating dialogues with customers and remembering their preferences
2. Establish a production/delivery strategy for fulfilling what the company learns about individual customers
3. Establish an organizational strategy for managing both customers and capabilities
4. Establish an assessment strategy for evaluating performance

“The power of the new media lies in their ability to draw the individual customer into a conversation with the company.”  Yes…this was the message 20 years ago, and it fundamentally hasn’t changed.  While fax-response and CD-ROM catalogs have gone the way of washing your clothes on rocks, the question for all of us is…are we there yet?

PowerReviews surveyed 800 consumers in late 2014 and confirmed that reviews are growing in importance for online and in-store shoppers.

95% of consumers use reviews and 86% say they are essential when making purchase decisions. And nearly one-third of consumers under the age of 45 consults reviews for every single purchase. Only price impacts purchase decisions more than ratings and reviews.

Consumers Seek Reviews

56% percent of shoppers specifically seek out websites with reviews. I know I do. If I’m shopping and the site I’m on doesn’t have reviews for the product I’m considering, what do I do? I go to Amazon. And that is the last thing a retailer wants. Because if I go to Amazon for the review, I am very like to stay for the purchase.

Most Important Product Categories for Reviews

We asked consumers which categories were most important to them when it came to reviews. The top categories were Electronics (82%), Appliances (80%), and Computers (80%), all big ticket items.

Shoppers want confirmation of the quality of these products before they purchase. Baby came in fourth, with 44% of consumers ranking reviews as important for this category. Parents take extra care when choosing equipment and toys for their children and like to see photos of equipment being used in real homes. Here’s a great user-contributed photo from BabiesRUs, a PowerReviews customer.

Looks Matter

We also found that consumers had strong views on what helpful reviews looked like. An overwhelming majority– three out of four consumers– found a tag-based approach more helpful. We showed them two reviews of the same product, Hope in a Jar, a moisturizer from Philosophy.

The first review came from philosophy.com and has a plain text approach. All you can see with a quick scan is the title and star rating.

Tag-Based Reviews Preferred by 3 out of 4 Consumers

The second review, preferred by three out of four shoppers, is a tag-based review on Ulta.com, a PowerReviews customer. With the tag-based approach, shoppers see what’s important very quickly. You can see the pros—absorbs quickly, goes on smoothly, etc– and the CONS– quickly. This tag-based approach makes it easy for shoppers to get the information that’s important to them, quickly.

Negative Reviews Earn Trust

Some retailers or brands may initially wonder why they would display negative reviews about their products on their website. In fact, negative reviews drive consumer trust. Posting negative reviews assures consumers that the site is not hiding anything and that they can trust the content on the site. 82% of consumers seek negative reviews. For consumers under 45, the number jumps to 86%.

Who Writes Reviews?

The survey found that less than half–42%– of consumers report writing reviews. And while 42% report writing reviews, they don’t do so for every purchase. When consumers are asked to write a review after a purchase, only 3-10% will write a review. So that means that a consumer will write a review once every 4-14 purchases, depending on category, timing and other factors.

Percentage of shoppers leaving reviews

Interestingly, the biggest consumers of reviews, Millennials, are the least likely to write a review. What’s a brand or retailer to do?

What’s in it for me?

When we asked consumers why they don’t write reviews, 55% said that they needed motivation– recognition and rewards– to write reviews.

A challenge for brands and retailers then is to develop strategies to encourage consumers to write reviews, particularly for key products. An engagement-based loyalty program can help.

To learn more about engagement-based loyalty, join our March webinar to hear how Step2 increased images and videos uploaded to reviews 600%.

Power of Reviews’ explores shifting consumer expectations and the resulting implications for retailers.

Feb. 11, 2015 – CHICAGO – Mobile devices have blurred the lines between in-store and online environments, making product specific information available at your fingertips. As technology continues to facilitate better access to this information, consumers will only demand more of it – not only from retailers and manufacturers, but from other consumers as well.

PowerReviews, the leading provider of ratings and reviews technology to more than 1,000 brands and retailers, has released a new study, “The Power of Reviews,” that explores the nuances of how shoppers are using ratings and reviews. Specifically, the study investigates how shoppers consume reviews, the resulting impact on buying behavior and how retailers can better navigate this shift in consumer expectations.

“Reviews have become standard resource for consumers making purchase decisions.  Ratings and reviews are no longer an option, but an expectation,” said Matt Moog, CEO of PowerReviews. “The burden ultimately falls on retailers and brands to provide shoppers with the information they need to make confident purchase decisions, present it in a compelling format and make it available across channels.”

Among the findings of PowerReviews’ study:

Product reviews drive channel preferences

Consumers prefer to shop through channels that make product information, including ratings and reviews, easily accessible. If e-commerce sites or mobile apps lack the product information shoppers need to confidently make a purchase, they will search for it elsewhere, and retailers risk losing them to a competitor who is providing the information. As the retail industry becomes increasingly omnichannel, retailers should incorporate ratings and reviews at every touch point.

• More than half (57%) of online shoppers reported specifically seeking out websites with product reviews.
• Seventy percent of mobile shoppers reported being more likely to purchase a product if the mobile site or app they’re purchasing from has reviews.

How Shoppers Consume Product Reviews

As consumers are using new channels to seek out reviews, their information consumption habits are changing as well. Shoppers should be able to search for product information and find what they need with minimal effort. Most consumers read between one and 10 reviews and thus need information presented in an easy-to-scan format. Additionally, consumers are seeking out negative reviews to validate the authenticity of those reviews and the trustworthiness of the site.

Just as the finding and consuming of reviews should be made easy, the process of leaving a review must be simple as well. Less than half of consumers contribute reviews and Millennials, who consult review feedback most frequently, are least likely to contribute.

• More than half (53%) of shoppers consider retail websites to be the most trustworthy source of reviews.
• Eighty-two  percent of consumers specifically seek out negative reviews. For shoppers under 45, it jumps to 86%.
• Three out of four shoppers prefer tag-based reviews, which provide a quick snapshot of review keywords and sentiment.
• On average, 42% of consumers write reviews, while for shoppers 18-29, only 32% contribute review feedback.

For more information and to download the full report, visit  www.powerreviews.com.

About PowerReviews

PowerReviews software helps more than 1,000 brands and retailers collect, display and syndicate customer reviews and answer customer questions. Ratings, reviews and Q&A allow companies to reach customers at the moment of purchase and help to drive traffic, increase sales and create actionable insights. The PowerReviews Syndication Network helps clients reach hundreds of millions of in-market shoppers on leading ecommerce sites and search engines. For more information, visit www.powerreviews.com.

If you’re without reviews, checkout our post on how to get more reviews to help get your program off the ground!

For additional information:

Andrew Cross

Walker Sands Communications

312-235-6982

andrew.cross@walkersands.com

From Click to Brick: Did you do a double-take when it was announced yesterday that Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar store at Purdue University? Amazon@Purdue, the company’s first pickup and drop-off location, offers free one-day shipping for textbooks and other products.

Last October, there were also rumors swirling that Amazon planned on opening a pop-up store to showcase new products in the heart of downtown San Francisco in time for the holidays.

Bobos, Birchbox and Warby Parker are other online retail giants who have recently opened physical stores. Clearly, there is a trend among online retailers to add physical presence, as shown by these companies.

Boosting Brand Loyalty:
Despite the popularity of online shopping, 90% of shoppers surveyed would prefer to buy in a brick-and-mortar store and have a tangible experience (A.T. Kearney Omnichannel Shopping Preferences Study). Also 94% of total retail sales are still generated at brick-and-mortar stores (eMarketer).

Today’s consumers are multi-dimensional, embrace the online and offline worlds and typically require multiple interactions to develop brand loyalty. Priding itself on competitive pricing and fast shipping, Amazon’s brick and mortar experiment could make for an effective in-store experience. One could argue that breaking into brick and mortar could generate more buzz for Amazon, feed into a well integrated marketing strategy, and create more points of contact with their customers.

Showrooming:
Amazon could also benefit from showrooming (examining merchandise in a traditional brick and mortar retail store and then buying it online). Its new brick and mortar location may be the answer for consumers looking to try out the product or return the product to the store.

Generating More Reviews:
Research cites a Pew study showing 24% of shoppers look up online reviews of products while actually in stores conducted in 2011; since then, smartphone usage has only increased (Pew).

According to a Stanford University data study on ‘Understanding Rating Dimensions with Review Text’, Amazon had 35 million reviews as of March 2013. With a wealth of customer reviews, Amazon can leverage this valuable user generated content to engage with consumers in a more intimate fashion and collect even more valuable feedback.

Matt Moog, CEO of PowerReviews, says “Amazon has ample opportunities to show shoppers what other customers are saying about each product in real-time. There’s beacon technology, there’s near-field communication ‘tapping’ like you see with Google Wallet. There are QR codes, digital signage, iPhones. Amazon has this incredible flow of user-generated content.”

Whether Amazon becomes a brick and mortar expert before traditional retailers nail their digital strategies, reviews are the glue in binding an authentic, customer centric company to increase traffic and drive sales.

The New Retail Experience:
While moving into the brick and mortar world is not a sure bet for Amazon, the impact of this move is being felt throughout the e-commerce world. Online and offline retailers will feel the pressure to reinvent themselves through multiple strategies ranging from differentiated products to alternative distribution methods. With raised stakes for retailers everywhere, let the games begin!

As consumers, we’re constantly looking for information to validate our purchase decisions. Does this tablet have the right screen size and computing power? Exactly how brown is this “chocolate mocha” dining room set? Will these shoes match this purse, and are they true to size?

Product reviews have become a critical part of the consumer purchase process and have the power to turn hesitant consumers into confident buyers. Even Google has recognized the value of reviews, recently introducing a five-star rating system into its Product Listing Ads (PLAs) to make review information more readily available to consumers as they search for products. This post discusses how to leverage review syndication, but if you don’t have reviews to syndicate check out our post on how to get more reviews.

Brands must ensure product and review information is easily accessible to those curious consumers at the moment of purchase. As consumers’ purchase behaviors continue to evolve with new channels, more brands are looking to increase visibility of their products through the syndication of product reviews to retail sites and search engines.

Here are the three most important reasons brands should maximize their reach through review syndication:

1. Participate in the consumer conversation

Many brand websites act as a hub for consumers to share reviews, testimonials and their overall experience with a product. These sites often attract the most passionate fans who create loads of rich, incredibly valuable content. However, many brand pages aren’t transactional or are just one of many places consumers can purchase a brand’s products.

With syndication, brands can ensure that all consumers have access to the rich content and reviews housed on the brand page, and thereby insert themselves into the consumer conversation wherever a brand’s products are sold. For example, L’Oreal’s website lorealparisusa.com is a consumer engagement tool educating visitors on fashion, beauty and its product offerings while collecting reviews on its complete line of products. Those reviews are then syndicated to other retailers like ULTA and Walgreens. By syndicating reviews, more consumers are exposed to the customer experiences of others when making purchase decisions.

2. Create a personalized buying experience that’s easy to navigate

While one consumer may want a compact DSLR camera with the newest auto-stabilization technology, another just needs something with a long battery life. At the same time, not every product can be the fastest, biggest, newest, cheapest and best. That’s where tags come into play. A tag-based review system scans all product reviews for commonly used words and phrases to put together a quick snapshot of the most referenced product characteristics as well as pros and cons. When reviews are tagged based on product attributes (e.g., this desk might be less expensive, but the trade-off is that it takes a long time to assemble), the shopper gets a clearer idea of what they’re buying.

Not every product is going to be a perfect fit for every consumer. However, a tag-based review system can help match the consumer to the right product for them, which results in a more personalized, authentic experience with the brand.

3. Better understand your audience

As mentioned above, it’s the most passionate fans that frequent brand pages. Therefore, when brands syndicate their reviews, they can see the native content from those avid customers in line with the reviews collected on retailer sites. With proper analysis, brands can track how the two batches of reviews compare.

Are customers purchasing from one retailer looking for different features and functionality than those purchasing directly from the brand page? Understanding the nuances in customer expectations can help brands improve their products and optimize product pages in order to properly appeal to each audience.

Increasingly, brands and retailers are adopting engagement-based loyalty tactics to evolve in tandem with the way people shop. While transaction-based loyalty programs — where purchases are linked to rewards — are successful at driving repeat sales from a single customer, engagement-based programs work to foster meaningful relationships with customers at large.

With engagement-based loyalty initiatives, customers engage with a brand or retailer in a variety of ways: Contributing content such as user photos, writing reviews, giving feedback on their experience and participating in online communities to answer questions from other consumers. When executed correctly, engagement-based loyalty initiatives provide brands with a steady stream of feedback and user-generated content about their products and services.

As more brands and retailers adopt engagement-based loyalty programs, there are several best practices to keep in mind.

1. Align with branding. Engagement-based loyalty programs need to align with the organization’s overall branding strategy. From graphics to program components, such as badging systems, every element of your loyalty initiatives must seamlessly integrate with your online and offline branding.
2. Identify desired outcomes. During the development stage, it’s important to determine the desired result, specifically looking at which customer behaviors you want to promote, and then tailor the initiative accordingly. For example, if you want to encourage the creation of product reviews, your approach should be different than if you want to motivate customers to share user-generated images over social media.
3. Think long term. Your engagement-based loyalty initiatives need to keep people engaged with your brand over a long period of time. Rewards and game levels should be achievable — but not too easy. Ideally, your initiative will remain active online for years to come, so customers shouldn’t be able to hit peak levels within a month or two.

Finally, one of the keys to successful engagement-based loyalty is that your initiatives must have a direct and clearly communicated benefit for consumers. Why should they participate in this program? When you invite people to participate in an initiative, make it crystal clear what the person stands to gain in terms of reciprocal value.

For many brands and retailers, the right loyalty mix is a strategy of both transaction-based and engagement-focused initiatives. In 2015, consider adopting an engagement-based loyalty strategy for your brand and stay ahead of the curve, identifying your most engaged customers and improving your ability to turn them into brand advocates.

The end of the year marks out time for relaxation, vacations, and celebrations. The end of the year also marks out time for reflection. These reflections can range from the individual personal accomplishments, your family, your company, all the way up to your government. If you’re in the business of making products, selling products, or both, 2014 marked a time of unbelievable growth in mobile to research, browse, and transact. Let reflect on the state of the mobile shopping experience as we start 2015.

2014 Holiday Traffic driven by Mobile Devices
The reports are in: 60% of all traffic during the week of Black Friday in 2014 came from a mobile device. And, Lifestyle & Shopping mobile app usage lead the app category YoY growth. Here’s a chart showing YoY mobile apps usage for the various categories in the app stores:

From Showrooming and Webrooming to Mobile Payments
The truth is that shoppers use mobile for more than just browsing when it comes to the consumer journey of buying products. Showrooming and webrooming that were once a primal fear for companies are now common behaviors for the vast majority of consumers. Advancement of mobile payment technologies within companies like Braintree, Paypal, Bitcoin, Venmo, and Apple Pay in 2014 are making one-click payments a thing of beauty (and simple). You can even use your mobile device to transfer money to family and friends around the world for free via solutions like Square Cash (via email) and SnapCash (within app).

The Beauty of Mobile Reviews
PowerReviews customers like Ulta Beauty have successfully been using our APIs to power their native mobile app reviews/Q&A experiences for years with great success. Here it is live in action:

Powering Responsive Reviews
And customers like Ugg Australia have been using our on-page reviews technologies to power their responsive desktop site to insure the right content is always available to their shoppers.

Mobile Consumers to Retailers: Evolve or Perish
But this unbelievable growth in mobile usage isn’t always being met with smiling faces from consumers. Many retailers and brands are behind the curve in mobile readiness, with reports of slow page loads, inconsistent user experiences, and lack of information accessible on the mobile site/app. With product reviews being the number two element considered during a purchase behind price, you can’t afford to leave reviews + Q&A capabilities out of these experiences.

Brands are no longer the key influencer in defining themselves. Rather, a brand experience is created with every touchpoint a consumer has with it.

The increase of touchpoints has shifted the power to the buyer, leaving brands with a new challenge: The Connected Consumer. According to iamwire.com, Connected Consumers are “those who use connected devices such as Media tablets, e-readers, portable navigation devices, media players, imaging devices and mobile gaming devices, to interact with and consume digital content.”

While 80% of companies believe they deliver “superior” consumer experiences to their consumers; just 8% of consumers agree (Bain Consulting). The Connected Consumer is touched by a brand before, during, and after a purchase.

Brands should not see these touchpoints as problems to solve. Instead they are increased opportunities to connect with consumers and innovate a better purchasing process.

There is no better time than today to start connecting with consumers through these leading touchpoints:

1.) Become part of the conversation.

Word-of-Mouth continues to be a lead consumer touchpoint and social media makes it even easier for brands be part of those conversations.  74% of online adults actively use social networking sites (Pew Research).  The average social network site user is half as likely to be socially isolated, than those not actively using social networks. Ignoring or just deleting negative comments and complaints on your social channels is more harmful than you think.  One in five brands say they rarely, if ever, respond to consumer complaints through social media platforms. Yet consumers expect a response from brands within one hour.  Six in 10 consumers will take “unpleasant actions” to express dissatisfaction with a brand’s untimely social response. It is also important to note that negative reviews are not something brands and retailers should fear. Learn how you can turn negative reviews into positive customer experiences.

2.) Provide fully branded and customized ratings and reviews on product pages.

User generated product reviews and ratings has been on the mind of leading brands and retailers for more than 10 years. The most basic of review services offer a single text box for consumers to share their experience and feedback on the product or service. However, this is not enough to keep a competitive edge. Create a positive review experience by offering review snapshot summaries, customizing review formats by type of product, creating an optimized UX experience, using keyword tagging and seamlessly tying the look and feel to the website or app design.

3.) Optimize online shopping experiences for smartphones and tablets.

According to eMarketer, the number of mobile shoppers is expected to exceed 145 million by the end of 2014 and 18-20 percent of all holiday season sales this year will occur on mobile devices. Make sure your site is ready with these tips.

4.) Stay engaged with your consumers.

Marketing should not stop once a consumer makes a purchases. Staying connected helps create brand loyalty and repeated business. Sending emails requesting a product review or feedback is commonly used. In addition to gaining review content,  the consumer feels their voice is heard and it allows the brand or retailer to respond to consumer needs. Only 30% of companies maintain effective consumer feedback loops (Bain Consulting). Helpful content, such as user guides, or a simple thank you note goes a long way in creating brand loyalty. Engagement-based loyalty is a way to encourage ongoing conversation, not only between a brand and its customers, but also among customers themselves.

Today consumer relationships matter more than ever and the relationship begins far before someone even becomes a paying consumer. A seamless brand experience filled with conversation and engagement touchpoints throughout the buying experience allows brands and retailers to truly connect with the modern buyer.