Bazaarvoice Wins "Red Herring 100 Global" Award

Austin, TX – December 10, 2007 – Bazaarvoice, the market and technology leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales, today announced that it has received a Red Herring Top Global 100 award as one of the top technology startups in the world. The award caps a year of unprecedented growth for Bazaarvoice in which the company achieved profitability, launched European operations, and expanded its client base to over 150 companies in 12 different industries, including Bass Pro Shops, Dell, Macy’s, Overstock.com, PETCO, QVC, Sears and ZipRealty. This prestigious award is the second Bazaarvoice has received from Red Herring, which also named Bazaarvoice to its 2006 Top 100 North American list.

The Red Herring editorial team rigorously reviewed 1,800 privately-held companies from around the world to select the Global 100 winners. Red Herring 100 winners and finalists from North America, Europe, and Asia of the last three years were eligible for the award, and evaluations were based on both quantitative and qualitative criteria such as financial performance, innovation, management, global strategy and ecosystem integration. Bazaarvoice was presented with the award at the Red Herring Global event in Seattle, WA, on December 3-5, 2007.

“When Bazaarvoice launched in January 2006, roughly 10 retailers offered reviews; now reviews are readily available to consumers on a majority of the large eCommerce sites,” said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “It’s a great honor to receive the Red Herring 100 Global award for our role in this transformation, and we would like to share this award with our clients, whose success at using the power of social commerce to drive sales, connect with customers, and improve loyalty and satisfaction has created a new norm for online shopping.”

Bazaarvoice is committed to building products that help online businesses improve the way they do business by connecting them with their customers, and by providing a better shopping experience. Bazaarvoice’s profitable business model is based on the industry’s most customizable hosted technology, reliable and accurate content moderation, dedicated client services, and seamless integration with over 30 leading eCommerce partners. Bazaarvoice currently serves more than one billion reviews per month across its client base and served over 71 million ratings and reviews on Cyber Monday, November 26, 2007.

The company continually innovates to support client success and debuted photo and video reviews earlier in the year. In May, Bazaarvoice introduced its new Ask & Answer product, the first social commerce service that encourages shoppers to post and respond to specific questions about products and services directly alongside standard product information. Just six months later, nearly 20 percent of Bazaarvoice customers have signed up for Ask & Answer, and the product was recently awarded the top Tech Innovation Award for software by the Austin Business Journal and its readers.

Bazaarvoice has also extended its global presence to deliver social commerce to multinational brands. Bazaarvoice opened a London office in March and has already signed more than 15 U.K.-based clients, including leading clothing retailers Boden, Figleaves and Timberland. Bazaarvoice products are available in more than 20 languages, including Chinese, Turkish and Japanese.

“In countries around the world, shoppers are increasingly embracing user-generated review content as a critical part of the research and purchase process,” said Sam Decker, CMO of Bazaarvoice. “In fact, 78% of international consumers said they trusted direct recommendations from other consumers most when making product purchase decisions. Amid this overwhelming demand for social commerce, Bazaarvoice is committed to growing its business to support the global market in the coming year.”

About Red Herring

Red Herring is a global media company uniting the world’s best high technology innovators, venture investors and business decision makers in a variety of forums: a leading innovation magazine; an online daily technology news service; technology research, and major events for technology leaders around the globe. Red Herring provides an insider’s access to the global innovation economy, featuring unparalleled insights on the emerging technologies driving the economy. For more information, visit http://www.redherring.com/.