Summary

Golfsmith recently upgraded their Endeca functionality and introduced a “Sort by Rating” option on search & navigation results pages, giving their shoppers a new way to find and research products, in addition to sort options based on price, best sellers, and brand.

Argos sells general merchandise and products for the home from over 700 stores throughout the UK and Republic of Ireland, online, and over the telephone. Argos serves over 130 million customers a year through its stores and takes four million customer orders either online or over the phone. Argos is part of Home Retail Group, the UK’s leading home and general merchandise retailer.

In September 2008, Argos implemented Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews at www.argos.co.uk, and then ran a successful email-based reviews promotion that added 90,000 reviews to their site within two weeks.

About this case study

PETCO launched Ratings & Reviews with Bazaarvoice in 2005 with the goal of creating an open dialog with their loyal consumer base to increase sales. Statistical data affirms their decision was in line with consumer purchasing behaviors; Jupiter Research found that 77% of online shoppers use reviews and ratings when making their purchasing decisions. PETCO’s initial results from the implementation of Ratings & Reviews on PETCO.com were extremely positive, and led them to explore additional uses for customer generated content beyond the product page.

Overview

Leveraging Ratings and Reviews content effectively can have an enormous impact on sales. A leading apparel retailer used “Customer Favorites” as a new merchandising category for top-rated products. Within select top level product categories, Customer Favorites were promoted on the category home page. The Customer Favorites section saw excellent results in session conversion, average order value, bounce rate, sales per unique visitor, and time on page. Advertising Customer Favorites categories through email campaigns also drove awareness and performance of the new product sub-category.