May 15, 2025
Trust is often taken for granted, but it is crucial to our collective success when selling our products to the consumer.
Due to several technological, societal, and governmental factors, we have reached a watershed moment in our industry. Trust cannot be taken for granted. Your business’s growth can be accelerated or halted based on whether you keep or lose that trust, particularly your consumers’ trust.
Today, trust is at the heart of our relationship with the consumer, so it is the acceleration of your growth and the currency of commerce. The more you have earned their trust, the less friction there will be on their path to purchase, and the faster you create commercial and hopefully lasting relationships with your consumers.
Now, you have earned that trust by years of carefully crafting your brand’s reputation, faithfully recording your products’ attributes and benefits to consumers, and transparently sharing real-time consumer feedback in the form of authentic ratings and reviews.
But no matter how long you spend building trust, once it’s tarnished, it’s nearly impossible to win it back.
“Trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback”.
Real voices for building the authenticity advantage
Take the situation of our industry today: for the last 20 years, since our founding, we have collectively built our businesses where consumers could and have relied on each other’s authentic opinions to build trust. Those opinions have continued to shift from friendly and knowledgeable in-store employees to increasingly being complimented by consumers relying on peer reviews and UGC (user-generated content), from branded content to UGC content.
Leveraging consumers’ opinions has empowered shoppers and scaled access to real-time, authentic opinions anywhere and anytime they want, thus supercharging your collective commerce efforts.
You could say, “Business moves and has accelerated with the increasing speed of trust.” Think of how authentic R&R has consistently increased conversion and accelerated your sales.
Ratings and reviews empower consumers to purchase
Recent technology changes and tactics have exposed consumers to deception. Fake reviews, AI-generated content, and manipulated marketing have raised serious concerns. These things can cause serious consequences for consumer confidence.
AI-generated content is flooding digital commerce with deepfakes. Synthetic influencers blur the line between real and fake. We see online shopping marketplaces rife with fraudulent claims and fake reviews.
With consumers struggling to tell the difference, who can they believe?
We’re at an inflection point where bad actors can destroy that trust for all of us.
The risk isn’t just ethical – it’s financial!
This serious issue, one that is on the rise, has woken up the regulatory authorities. One mistake can cost brands millions of dollars.
Today’s trust crisis demands attention
Take the FTC’s latest ruling: brands can now be fined up to $50,000 per deceptive review read by consumers. Think about that.
Whenever a shopper reads a misleading review, a business could lose tens of thousands of dollars, not per product or website, but per review!
The US and other international regulatory bodies are stepping in to crack down on deceptive content like never before. The cost of breaking consumer trust is no longer just reputational; it’s financial, and the penalties are steep.
Imagine losing millions, not just in fines but also in reputational damage, with potential impairments to your brand’s goodwill on your balance sheet, etc. That’s exactly what’s happening to brands caught deceiving their customers.
Just last month, a major fast-fashion brand was forced to issue $2.4 million in refunds after it was caught hiding negative reviews from its customers. Imagine what that means – not just in fines, but in permanent brand damage.
Wait! There’s more:
- The financial: With Lawsuits, fines, PR disasters
- The emotional: Where Consumers feel betrayed and stop engaging with your brand
- The brand destruction: With consumers posting negative reviews, social media backlash, and lost loyalty
Consumers are watching. Regulators are watching. The question is, are you ready for this new reality?
Next steps towards building trust
At Bazaarvoice, we see it as our responsibility, and we have led the way for years in protecting our clients’ reputations and their brand safety. We have seen this challenging situation coming, and many regulatory bodies often consult with us to help shape their thinking. Especially with the risks increasing, over the last two years, we decided to take our leadership in our focus on the authentic voice of the customer, and investments in building trust to the next level.
We’re taking bold steps to solve the trust and authenticity challenge, which is a “whole industry” issue, so we are all in this together.
For us, authenticity isn’t an afterthought – it’s a foundational commitment backed by industry leadership, cutting-edge technology, and a team that prioritizes consumer trust above all else.
Advancements in our HarmonyAI systems to help scale authentic narratives and practices, ensure transparency, and prevent the erosion of consumer trust and further damage to our $6T industry.
The Bazaarvoice “Authenticity Policy” was first published 11 years ago and established our guidelines for what qualifies as real, trustworthy consumer content. This policy continues to evolve as threats and regulations change.
- This policy is not just a best practice; it is embedded in our service agreements with you, our many thousands of brands and retailers, ensuring we drive accountability around authenticity at scale.
- In the past year alone, we have authenticated hundreds of millions of reviews, stopping fraudulent content before it can mislead consumers.
Bazaarvoice operates with a singular focus: protecting consumer trust, even when it’s not the easiest business decision.
- We only chose to partner with brands with the highest commitment to authenticity standards.
- We have rejected 2 million fraudulent reviews in the last 12 months.
- And authenticity – in today’s world – is non-negotiable
For years, the Bazaarvoice Trust Mark, which up until now has been an opt-in feature for clients on our brand and retailer partners, giving consumers confidence in what they see.
Consumers actively seek third-party validation, and brands that display this certification stand out as trusted sources in an era of skepticism.
Trust is no longer assumed – it must be earned, verified, and proven.
Thrilled to introduce the Bazaarvoice Intelligent Trust Mark – a more dynamic, seamless, and visible verification that ensures your UGC meets the highest standards of authenticity.
Bazaarvoice Intelligent Trustmark to eradicate distrust
With the Intelligent Trust Mark, we’re setting a new standard for authenticity. This will be a game-changer for brands and consumers, providing a visible, third-party certification that guarantees UGC is real, verified, and trustworthy.
Ensuring content authenticity and brand trust is not just a Bazaarvoice challenge; it’s an industry challenge. An industry-wide issue calls for an industry-wide solution.
Introducing Alliance for Authenticity
Formation of the Alliance for Authenticity – with Bazaarvoice, and Consumers International, the global membership organization for consumer groups with 200+ members operating in 100 countries worldwide, as founding members of the Alliance. We are in the process of adding several well-known leading brands and retailers currently in active discussions to join, which we will be publicly announcing very soon.
Together, we will set the gold standard for authenticity and trust in UGC, ensuring:
- Stronger industry standards for content verification, moderation, and trust symbols
- Collaboration across sectors to combat fake and deceptive online content
- Research-driven solutions to stay ahead of emerging fraud tactics
- Consumer education to help shoppers identify and trust real content
- Policy advocacy to drive compliance and accountability
Check out some of our exciting conversations on authenticity, on why trust is the future of ecommerce:
➡️Authenticity in action: Building trust and transforming modern marketing
➡️The authenticity advantage: Creator and consumer voices on the power of trust
Authenticity is not just our responsibility—it’s our mission. We are investing, innovating, and driving accountability in the industry with all of you, who take this so seriously, so that brands, retailers, and consumers can trust that what they see is real. And we are proud to be recognized as the industry’s gold standard by brands, retailers, and industry analysts…
And as Ananda Chakravarty, VP of Research at analyst firm IDC, says, “trust is the hallmark of a good business.”
To that end, we will commercially release the new Intelligent Trust Mark for general availability on 4 June 2025. Our systems will dynamically determine if the Trust Mark should be displayed on your PDPs, ensuring authenticity throughout your entire content supply chain of branded and user-generated content along the full funnel shopper journey. This will be key to the success of this connected commerce world.
Conclusion
The $6 trillion global retail commerce industry pulses with potential, serving billions worldwide. Yet, sustained scale and true growth aren’t built on fleeting trends, but on the bedrock of consumer trust.
Winning trust isn’t an afterthought – it’s a fundamental part of your growth strategy!
Are you eager to gain this crucial insight and claim your victory in this trillion-dollar arena?
Watch the on-demand session of ‘Winning in the trillion-dollar commerce era’ by Doug Straton, Chief Customer Evangelist & Retail Growth Officer at Bazaarvoice Summit and other sessions on authenticity now!
