Retailers Take a Tip from MySpace
Retailers are taking a page from MySpace. They know that customers, especially the younger and more Net-savvy, want to be heard, and they also want to hear what others like them think.
So increasingly, retailers are opening up their Web sites to customers, letting them post product reviews, ratings, and in some cases photos and videos. The result is that customer reviews are emerging as a prime place to visit for online shoppers.
Marketing companies have longed for years to have a window on how consumers use their products, in order to develop product innovations and improve marketing. Procter & Gamble, for example, follows mothers for weeks at a time to see how they use Tide detergent and Olay skin-care creams. P&G has even had women strap video cameras to their heads to see what they do moment by moment.
In a survey of more than 1,300 people, MarketingSherpa also found that as much as 50% of customers aged 18 to 34 have posted a comment or a review on products they have bought or used. “That’s substantially more than the 34% who said they have downloaded music files,” says Stefan Tornquist, the firm’s research director.
A huge part of the reason for this success is the confluence of social computing and the success of sites such as FaceBook, MySpace, and YouTube. People obviously love to chat and share details and snapshots of their lives. And customer reviews let folks do just that.
What’s more, the reviews empower customers to influence how another person sitting in another corner of the world shops.
Photo by MSDesign.
annalaura on February 24th, 2007 1:02 pm
This is smart business. At last they have awaken and realized that web 2.0 is the way to increase business.
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