STORES Magazine - April 2008 - (Page 64)

NUTS AND BOLTS / E-COMMERCE Peer Reviews Drive Online Buyers Bath & Body Works kicks up conversion rate using customer comments BY LIZ PARKS here was a time when consumer advertising was the most effective tool for persuading customers to buy a particular product or shop a particular store. Today, however, consumers seeking to make informed (rather than impulsive) purchasing decisions are coming to rely heavily on the opinions of fellow shoppers. T Shannon Glass, director of Internet operations for Limited Brands, was acutely aware of that trend as she searched for a sophisticated marketing tool that could drive traffic to BathandBodyWorks.com and convert browsers into buyers. As a retailer of “very experiential products that people want to touch and smell before they buy,” Bath & Body Works “needed to find a way to help chasing decisions were being made.” When Bath & Body Works introduces a new fragrance (as it did most recently with Velvet Tuberose), customers may find it difficult to make a purchasing decision merely by reading the brand’s marketing materials. But if other customers write descriptions of why they loved a particular fragrance and a peer relationship is established, it “lends credibility to the product and its benefits,” Glass says. After interviewing several candidates, Bath & Body Works selected Austin, Texas-based Bazaarvoice, whose online clients include Home Depot, Sears and Macy’s. Outsourcing (rather than building and maintaining its own e-commerce platform) allowed the solution to be integrated into Bath & Body Works’ hosted platform more quickly and easily. “You need a lot of moderation to fully leverage a customer review solution and to get the reviews up in a timely manner, so we needed someone who could provide a full-service offering to us,” Glass says. Working with a dedicated Bazaar- 70% of shoppers seek out reviews when purchasing products online voice associate, Bath & Body Works commenced implementation of Bazaarvoice eCommerce Ratings and Reviews in February 2007 and went live with it three months later. All the technology is hosted by Bazaarvoice, which “significantly reduced our development time,” says Glass. “We just had to customize it to our brand’s needs.” WWW.STORES.ORG our online customers overcome hurdles to purchasing,” Glass says. A fair amount of brand-related content already existed on blogs and Internet message boards, she says, but “we wanted to take those things and bring them to our website, where pur64 STORES / APRIL 2008 http://bathandBodyWorks.com http://bathandBodyWorks.com http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - April 2008

STORES Magazine - April 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page More Retailers Bagging Monthly Comp-Store Reports Time-Warner Center's Economy-Defying Results What Shoppers Think 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Eating Locally Grocery Concept2Watch Restaurants Online Services Marketing Human Resources Product Lifecycle Management E-Commerce: Peer Reviews Drive Online Buyers Kiosks Recycling Operations Payment Systems POS Logistics E-Commerce: Getting Personal Website Management LOEB Retail Letter Arts Update Point of View NRF News Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - April 2008

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