The challenge facing retailers like Walmart today is how, and why, to best stay on top of these shifting trends. Here’s three tactics Walmart uses to successfully do so.

1. The evolution of the customer journey 

As previously mentioned, consumer behavior has shifted. That means so has the customer journey. The impact of the pandemic has accelerated e-commerce by as much as five years. It’s not just that consumers are making purchases online, which they are, but 1 in 3 shoppers don’t plan to return to in-store shopping as often as they used to. So not only is the mass online shopping trend here, it’s here to stay.

The launching of Ratings and Reviews for grocery follows the natural evolution of the customer journey, and Walmart’s overall strategy. Consumers today are increasingly omnichannel so it makes sense that businesses are too. If your consumers are turning to online shopping, then your website needs to catch up to this trend. These days, the homepage is the new store front.

Supermarkets all over the world are innovating to deliver a broader range of services that meet the needs of the evolved customer journey. Given that these behaviours look set to continue post-pandemic, retailers like Walmart know they will need to accommodate both in-store and online practices if they want continued success.

2. Surge in online grocery shopping continues to trend upward

As more and more consumers take an omnichannel approach to shopping, the percentage of customers who now shop for groceries online is increasing simultaneously. This was already a strong trend in shopping behavior, only amplified by the pandemic, which is why Walmart recently launched reviews for Walmart grocery.

It’s not just the shopping method that’s changing though, we’re seeing higher demand for different delivery and collection options: same day delivery, “buy online, pick up in-store”, and click and collect, to name a few. All these methods are seeing higher demand. And with that is a new challenge facing retailers.

Walmart was one of the first to introduce new delivery offerings. Walmart’s new Express Delivery service, for example, can get a purchase to a customer’s home in less than two hours. And the company’s new membership service, Walmart+, gives members unlimited same-day delivery from over half of its 4,700 stores. A prime example in evolving offerings to meet consumer demand. The retailer has even partnered with drone form Zipline for a new drone delivery service, to ensure it remains a step ahead.

3. Building a better experience

For retailers to succeed going forward, they need to understand the emotion that customers feel towards their brand. If you were to ask the average consumer, they’d likely say they shop based on logic. But more often than not, consumers are actually swayed by emotion. This is known as customer sentiment. And it’s increasingly having an effect on sales numbers.

If a shopper has a bad experience with a retailer they’ll simply turn to another retailer. The negative experience translates to negative sentiment, so they’ll turn elsewhere to find a positive sentiment. As many as two in five shoppers don’t return to a retailer after a negative experience. Once the trust is broken, it’s nearly impossible to earn back.

That’s why market leaders, like Walmart, are investing in new technologies that provide the best customer experience. 78% of shoppers globally trust online product reviews, according to our Shopper Experience Index. And, specifically, our research tells us that shoppers want reviews from friends, family, and social media communities when looking at new products. This user-generated content (UGC) influences consumer purchasing decisions which drives sales and allows retailers to track and respond quickly to shopper sentiment.

More reviews for your business means more trust, which means better customer sentiment, which means more sales. It’s a win win.

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How Walmart is evolving its e-commerce experience

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We explored Walmart’s top e-commerce priorities headed into the new fiscal year, shopper behavior trends shaping the future product page experience on Walmart.com, and insights into how brands can win at retail. Here’s our key takeaways.

1. Focusing on the growth of online shopping

Online shopping was already a growth area for most retailers pre-pandemic. Walmart, for example, was seeing consistent growth in online grocery shopping, mainly because of the convenience it brought to people’s lives. Busy Mom or Dad who doesn’t have time for a grocery shop after the school run? No problem — just order online.

Walmart predicted exponential growth in this area for the next three to five years. And then the pandemic hit. As a direct result of that, Walmart’s growth predictions occurred within a month’s time frame. So it’s safe to assume this growth is here to stay.

With this increased adoption in online shopping, customers are increasingly relying on social proof, aka the opinions of other customers, to filter through the millions of items available and to make confident buying decisions. Which brings us to trend number two.

2. Leaning into social commerce

E-commerce is great at selling you products, but social commerce is great at inspiring you to purchase products you never knew existed. Customers spend 3.7 hours a day on their phone, most of which in what Thomas likes to call the “infinite scroll.” Aka, content that is constantly being refreshed. These are apps that provide an endless stream of new content at your fingertips, with TikTok being the latest and fastest growing. Consumers scroll an average of 300 feet per day, in fact.

Because of this, Walmart is looking at how to meet the customer and allow social content to seamlessly integrate with the shopping experience. Walmart knows user-generated content (UGC) has a strong impact on shopping experience and purchase intent. That’s why ensuring all SKUs on Walmart.com have an abundance of UGC is top-of-mind for the leading retailer in the new fiscal year.

Brands will soon be able to display social UGC on Walmart.com to inspire Walmart shoppers like never before.

3. Keeping breadth, depth, and authenticity top of mind

Getting more reviews on more products across the entire e-commerce site is a priority for Walmart, so Walmart has focused on continuing to build programs that drive authentic reviews. “Authentic reviews” is key here. This is by no means a quantity over quality situation. It’s quantity and quality. According to our own consumer survey, once a customer suspects a product has fake reviews, 36% wouldn’t buy the product and 47% wouldn’t trust any other reviews on the site.

When it comes to ratings and reviews, one aspect that can’t ever be overlooked is review quality. Because once you lose that authenticity you lose consumer trust, which defeats the purpose of UGC in the first place. As Thomas puts it, “…we’ll continue to build our breadth and depth across our catalogue, one of the things that we are not willing to sacrifice is authenticity.”

Individual brands also play a key role in Walmart’s UGC success. While Walmart has its own strategies to collect UGC, brands with their own UGC strategies set themselves ahead of the rest. 

4. Ongoing approach of testing and learning

It’s not enough to just have “UGC.” As in, “we use lots of UGC on our site.” Walmart understands it needs to incorporate multiple types of UGC — ratings and reviews, visual content, and social content, etc — on multiple channels. Knowing the impact of all types of UGC and tapping into the highest opportunities is essential for a positive shopper experience on Walmart.com. 

For example, it knows that often it’s easier to look at a photo to get a sense of an item, rather than read 500 reviews. So consistently testing the effect of different types of UGC is important. Walmart will never make an update just for the sake of it — decisions are based on data.

To upkeep a high shopper experience, Walmart rigorously tests all forms of written and visual UGC to gain a deep understanding of the real-time impact on conversion, basket-size, in-store and online purchases, loyalty, engagement, and SEO.

Watch our full conversation with Alyssa below to learn more.

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If I see the comparison between the Old World and the New World, retailers are not growing as much as brands and marketplaces. So what is your advice for retailers to stay ahead?

One of the things that we’ve definitely seen over the last decade is just the growth of e-commerce and the erosion of traditional retail. We know that in the United States we have too many stores, and even in other parts of the world like Europe, there’s likely to be a shakeout in retail and physical retail as well. 

And what that means for the remaining retailers, is there’s a couple of different things that they need to think about. One is, are there other services and other revenue opportunities that they can potentially pivot into? Are there other kinds of businesses? Certainly something we’ve seen with electronics is adding repair services to their businesses, in order to supplement erosion from the sale of physical goods. 

The other piece is the incorporation of retailer media and monetizing the foot traffic that they get, and basically becoming advertising for other brands. That seems probably the most natural outgrowth of these changes, which is that people are still coming in order to discover products. 

Very few brands have straight up recognised that as an advertising opportunity. And this is different to simply MDF funds or trade funds. This is really just straight up advertising. And it can be more than just brand advertising. It can also be non-endemic brand advertising from local merchants or brands, or other non physical goods.

Retail media is a huge revenue stream for retailers with many expanding their capabilities here very aggressively. Is there an anticipation of customer backlash and an impact to their experience with the retailer due to a saturation of on site ads? How can retailers balance this need for revenue successful media programmes with positive organic, relevant shopper experience for their shoppers?

Retailer media networks are one of the hottest topics in retail in the last year. These are basically new forms of advertising. We’ve seen some of the largest retailers in the world there, not just in North America, but Europe, Latin America, and Asia. They’ve all embraced this concept of retailer media networks. They’re also taking advantage of the fact that because of all of the privacy regulations around cookies, large technology companies will likely see some drop off. So some of these retailers will be able to pick up some of that. 

So that’s all good and we absolutely see that happening. As far as what kind of a mess that could create for a retailer’s website? All I have to say is have you ever seen an Alibaba product detail page? That suggests that the human capability of being able to ingest lots of different stimuli is quite vast. I think that brands may have had a bias against what they perceive as something that’s so different and outside the realm of what is acceptable. 

But what consumers have demonstrated over and over, is that they’ll have no problem with advertising. Go to any stadium, you look at any form of media, there’s so much advertising stimuli that’s around you. I really would find it difficult to believe that advertising on a retailer site is going to turn shoppers off. And if one does have a concern about that, that’s the value of AB testing — trying different approaches and different treatments from a creative standpoint to see if different approaches do in fact work or if they’re alienating.

Amazon really leapfrogged retail in the last decade with the promise of super fast delivery and easy returns. Many retailers are now offering that fast delivery option, but it hasn’t slowed down Amazon’s reign. What other strategies do you think retailers should be exploring to claw back their lost market share?

Well, certainly there’s the alternative revenue opportunities that we talked about. And that could be leaning into things like retail or media. But the main reason that companies have lost a lot of market share to companies like Amazon over the years, is due to the fact that they’re selling the same products as Amazon. But Amazon’s often winning on price. And it’s often taking a lot of the same merchandise and is able to be more competitive. Or its sellers are choosing to be more competitive, or there’s so much price discrepancy.

This is particularly an issue with global products that are distributed in different markets at different price points. You have something called retail arbitrage where people will straight up buy something from one seller in a lower cost market, and resell it in a higher cost market for a difference. The solution is to unify your global pricing so you don’t have those discrepancies. In the age of the internet, you cannot afford differences in pricing in that way. It’s not a strategy that works in 2021. Any company that chooses to have that differentiated pricing is probably not going to be around for long.

Those kinds of things are what we call e-control. It’s tightening up your distribution. We’ve seen lots of companies like Nike, Adidas, Birkenstock, limiting the number of distributors, unifying pricing, and differentiating packaging in different regions to make it more difficult to take something in one market and sell it in another. I’ve seen some sellers on Amazon will buy out other sellers. If they’ve identified that certain items are hot sellers, they’ll mark up the item, if they can sell it great. If they can’t sell it, they send it back to the original seller before the return window expires.

So there’s all kinds of stuff happening that just needs to be scrutinised. A lot of this comes down to tightening up your distribution and being very mindful of where your sales are coming from and shutting down anything that is suspect.

We’ve seen many new ideas and changes to how the traditional or old school retail stores are set up. What are some of the advancements or transitions, whether that be more openness, inclusion of QR codes, etc? Do you expect to be the new norm in retail locations?

So in terms of what do we expect to be different with physical stores, and how does the physical retail experience shift, is something where there’ll likely be several years of transition.

Right now, we have a tremendous amount of real estate. You can see it in companies like Sears where there isn’t a secondary use of that real estate. So you may end up with some of that real estate being used for things like e-commerce fulfilment or being appropriated by landlords for some other usage. Over time we’ve seen everything from charter schools to churches taking over some of the most distressed retail spaces that are out there. If it’s a retailer that’s not as challenged, and if the real estate is in an A-list location, what we’ll expect to see are likely just smaller stores. But more stores and more brands.

If I look at my local mall, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we look at what are the stores that have opened recently, it’s companies like golden goose that have opened new stores, I mean, it’s a relatively hot new seller of footwear of streetwear. And they said it’s historically been more of a wholesale brand, but now they’re selling direct-to-consumer and having its own storefronts. Even in tier two markets like Charlotte now. 

So I think the future is you’ll see new brands emerging, and some of those brands will take on real estate that they can afford. They won’t be taking on 10,000 square feet of real estate, but maybe a few 100 square feet. And in key select markets where there’s good foot traffic and a demographic that’s aligned with their brand.

We’re continuing to see retailers lean into private label, how are retailers driving awareness and loyalty to their private label brands, and how are consumers responding to the new to them private label brands?

Private label has been an area of investment for retailers for a long time now. And it’s certainly been the case with sectors like grocery, but even sectors like clothing. It makes a tonne of sense because it’s high margin. And especially if you have a high level item that people want, and they’re not necessarily there for a particular brand. They’re just there for a certain type of chip, or dress, private label can be really, really attractive.

We expect that private label will be even more important to these multi-category, multi-brand retailers in the future. This is a trend that we’ve been seeing with grocery in the past, but we expect it with all mass merchants in the future. In large because big brands will increasingly sell more direct-to-consumer and future consumers will know those brands.

So what the traditional retailers have to do is take the best parts of known brands, and then they’ll likely fill in the rest of their assortment with their own private label goods. I also expect that in order to win with private label, you’ll start to see better innovation with private label too. One of the things about Costco that is pretty famous is that they make a lot of money from private label in particular. Brands like Kirkland. And one of its requirements is those products have to be just a little bit better. Like a little bit more of a particular ingredient or the packaging needs to be a little bit more premium. And that’s one of the benefits — introducing quality into something like private label without necessarily incurring an enormous cost.

We’ve seen an expansion of retailer marketplaces. At one point does there become a dilution between great quantities of marketplaces that often carry the same brands or third party brands? And what lessons have we witnessed in effectively executing marketplace strategies?

There’s probably a lot of cautionary tales that we’ve learned from marketplaces over the years. They’ve essentially been a wild west of product distribution. And the things that we think are most important to think about with the marketplace, particularly large marketplaces, is that they can serve a purpose. And they can serve a really, really important value, particularly for customer acquisition, and for awareness of a product.

In some cases, they can even serve the function of liquidation if you have too much of a particular item. So what I encourage everybody to do is to take stock of your portfolio. And if you want to engage with marketplaces, really understand where in the product life cycle a particular item is. Are you really early and you’re trying to get awareness? Because if so, maybe you can take the approach of Tufton Needle, when it started to sell on Amazon early in its days, and they used Amazon, primarily to get more ratings and reviews. If you’re a mature brand, and you have a lot of excess inventory, particularly of certain items, maybe you want to use those marketplaces to try to unload some of that excess inventory. Particularly if it’s perishable goods, and there’s less of a risk of that merchandise showing up in a secondary marketplace later on. 

But if you’re at the peak of your business, and you’re already getting a significant amount of organic traffic, maybe it doesn’t make as much sense to showcase your products on marketplaces if you’re in a position to showcase your products directly on your own site. Maybe it makes sense to spend your marketing budget to drive people to your own site. And maybe it makes sense to manage some of the fulfilment in partnership with other partners. Secondary partners who are further down the list of accounts that can actually fulfil your goods so that you have a little bit of “having your cake and eating it too.”

I think that in the past, brands have been reluctant to invest in their own e-commerce sites because they’ve been hesitant to invest in fulfilment. But now with omni-channel approaches, with so much visibility around what products are in a given store, and that so many stores now have the ability to pick, pack and ship from stores that brands will be able to drive traffic to those products, they’ll be able to generate sales on those products. And that ends up being a win for local retailers and it ends up being a win win for the brand as well.

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Watch the full Bazaarvoice Retailer Summit 2021 here

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But we get it. People are still playing post-lockdown catch up. Life is busy. So not everyone could tune in to the main event. That’s why we’ve put together this recap for you. For those who missed the event, but also for those who tuned in, loved it, and want to revisit it.

Key takeaways from Bazaarvoice Retailer Summit 2021

The main theme of this year’s Bazaarvoice Retailer Summit was “Your view into what’s next.” Here we’ll take a look at the specific key takeaways from the event, and even share the live recordings for you. Let’s dive right in.

Winning in the influence economy

Keith Nealon, CEO, Bazaarvoice

Whether you’re an executive, brand manager, retailer, or social media manager, your brand is no longer yours. Your brand is what consumers tell each other your brand is. Welcome, then, to the influence economy. What is the influence economy? It’s the next stage of e-commerce growth, and it’s already here. Watch Keith’s full talk below to find out everything you need to know.

Social commerce: Where e-commerce is headed next

Colin Thurmond, Director of Solutions Marketing, Bazaarvoice

Expanding on from Keith’s ideas, Colin takes us through where e-commerce is headed next, which was a key topic from the Bazaarvoice Retailer Summit. But here, the specific focus is on social commerce—the latest must-know in the e-commerce realm.

Retail trends for 2022

Sucharita Kodali, VP Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

What happens to retail now, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what’s it going to look like in 2022? We were delighted to have Sucharita Kodali, one of the Bazaarvoice Retailer Summit keynote speakers, take us through this, and more. Using expert insights and the latest research, join as Sucharita takes us through where e-commerce is now, and where it will be next year.

Bonus: A full Q & A session with Sucharita can be found here.

Top 5 retail UGC insights to help crush the competition

Emma Maddison, VP Global Client Success, Bazaarvoice

User-generated content (UGC) is your most important asset. We already know that customers who interact with UGC are 2x more likely to convert. The trick here, though, is utilizing the right insights to stay ahead of the competition. Here, Emma shares the top five insights to help you do exactly that.

After another successful event, we already can’t wait to be back next year! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. And if any of the above presentations wet your appetite, then make sure to check out the full event below.

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Bazaarvoice Retailer Summit 2021

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For retailers looking to establish customer loyalty with these discriminating shoppers, rolling out a private label brand may be an ideal solution.

Private label brands are manufactured by a third party and sold under the retailer’s name. In many instances, the products are made with the same materials and/or ingredients as their name-brand counterparts. Case in point: Costco sells private label coffee that’s actually made by  — wait for it — Starbucks.

For retailers, these products are traditionally cheaper to manufacture, which translates to lower prices for customers. But price is just the beginning. They also offer retailers a unique opportunity to deliver a better, more engaging customer experience.

The rise of the private label

Private label products are nothing new. Walmart launched its first store brand, Ol’ Roy dog food, way back in 1983.

But when the Great Recession hit in 2007, private labels saw a new surge in popularity. With the economy on shaky ground and food prices rising 5-6%, consumers needed lower-priced alternatives to their favorite brands. 

Even after markets stabilized, the trend continued. By the end of 2017, private label brands were posting dollar growth of more than 3x the rate of branded products.

Today, with the COVID-19 pandemic heralding a new economic crisis, private labels are back in the spotlight. Purchasing store brands was one of Consumer Reports’ top tips for customers looking to save money on their 2020 holiday celebrations, right up there with clipping coupons and buying in bulk. According to the popular site, private label foods and beverages are 20-25% cheaper than name brand equivalents of the same product. 

While price is a big factor for consumers, it’s not the only one. In our own recent survey, almost 55% of respondents said they’d purchased a private label brand in the past year. Respondents were allowed to pick from multiple reasons for buying the store brands. 51% said their decision was based on price, 56% said they did it because they simply liked the product. 

Benefits to retailers

Beyond staying competitive on price, private label brands have additional benefits for retailers. Because you can control every aspect of the products’ positioning and marketing, as well as the buying experience, you can drive customer loyalty in new ways. 

Some retailers use this opportunity to create stories. For example, Whole Foods’ store brand, 365 Everyday Value, is positioned as a solution for shoppers who don’t want to pay high prices for organic products.

Target’s Everspring household brand caters to shoppers looking for “clean products.” The store also offers lingerie and sleepwear brands that are promoted as being inclusive of all body types. 

Savvy retailers are invested in creating an entire brand around their private labels. And it’s paying off handsomely.

Increased competition equals more innovation

A generation ago, there was a distinct gap between the quality of private label and brand name products.

Today, that’s simply not the case. In a Nielsen study, about 75% of shoppers said store brands were a “good alternative to name brands.” Even more exciting for retailers, almost 40% said that private labels deliver “higher quality than name brands.” 

Only a mere 17% of respondents said store brands were, “for people on tight budgets and (who) can’t afford the best.” 

As consumers embrace the value of private label products, it will drive brands and retailers to find opportunities to lower prices without sacrificing quality. We predict this will drive innovation across the retail industry, leading to better products and lower prices in every vertical. 

Embracing the private label movement

It’s become increasingly clear that private labels are the real deal. Even as the current economic crisis subsides, there will always be a segment of consumers looking for high-quality products at low prices.

To succeed in this space, retailers need to devote the same strategy and resources as name brands do in the product development process. 

Invest in the research to understand what shoppers need (or don’t realize they need). Then create a roadmap for delivering a solution in-house. Offering unique products and solutions customers can only find in your store is one way to guarantee they keep coming back for more.

4 strategies to achieve private label success

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NYX Cosmetics, Travelpro, Coach, and Kiehls are four brands on Macy’s website that understand the gravity of that metric and have leveraged a range of Bazaarvoice solutions to drive user-generated content (UGC) to Macys.com. 

From syndication to utilizing Macy’s retail managed sampling and VoxBox sampling campaigns, each of these brands has cultivated an ideal UGC strategy that helps them stand out on Macys.com and win at retail. 

NYX Cosmetics uses VoxBox Sampling to boost review volume

NYX Cosmetics supercharged their products to 87% coverage with sampling and syndication. 

The cosmetics company worked with Bazaarvoice to customize its own VoxBox sampling program for the NYX Professional Makeup Epic Wear Liquid Liner. Using Bazaarvoice’s product discovery platform Influenster, NYX Cosmetics sent out 500 boxes to a qualified audience: Aged 18-36, interested in trend-driven eye makeup looks, and who have previously used Maybelline, Morphe, Kat Von D, and L’Oréal Paris products. 

The results were no joke: NYX Cosmetics collected 420+ reviews from the campaign, giving its product an average star rating of 4.1 out of 5. They then syndicated these reviews, as well as other reviews collected from its own website and other retailers where it’s products are sold, to Macys.com. 

Travelpro successfully releases Macy’s-exclusive products using Review Squad

Travelpro has a jaw-dropping 90% product coverage with reviews, because they have a strong UGC strategy on at Macy’s. How do they do it? They’ve leveraged Review Squad, Macy’s retail managed sampling (RMS) program, to collect more reviews.

ICYMI: RMS programs allow retailers to build their own user communities of brand advocates that are rewarded with samples, which in-turn provides the retailer with UGC that is native and exclusive to its website.  

To date, Travelpro has collected 585 reviews across 26 products with Review Squad. In 2019, Travelpro used Review Squad to trial a Macy’s Exclusive Item and collect authentic reviews. Together they sent samples to 20 shoppers within Macy’s Review Squad sampling community—and 100% of the consumers left a review.  

Travelpro definitely covers all its bases. On top of partnering with Macys to collect native UGC, Travelpro also syndicates reviews from its own website and other retailers to supercharge its product coverage. 

Coach uses Review Squad to fill its product display pages with visual UGC 

Coach is another brand that leverages a syndication and sampling strategy to boast a 60% product reviews coverage on Macys.com. 

Since March 2020, Coach has used Review Squad to collect over 340 authentic and honest reviews across a range of products. For example, Coach sampled its Leather Shay Shoulder Bag to generate honest customer reviews — including the all-important visual UGC that consumers crave to see on PDPs. 

In fact, out of 555 sampling Review Squad reviews, 137 of them contained photos (nearly 25%!) In total, 321 photos have been collected for Coach via Macy’s Review Squad.

Kiehls collected targeted reviews with VoxBox sampling  

Kiehls boasts 80% product review coverage thanks to syndication and VoxBox sampling. 

They used VoxBox sampling to promote their Hydro-Plumping Serum Concentrate. Influenster sent 250 boxes to community members who identified as women aged 30-55, who said they had dry skin and/or fine line concerns, wanted to improve their skin, regularly used serums, and had previously tried either this product, or First Aid, Beauty, Drunk Elephant, the Inkey List, Innisfree, or Mario Badescu. 

The VoxBox sampling resulted in 210+ reviews that were then syndicated to retailers where the product is sold, including Macys.com. 

Win your Macy’s strategy with Bazaarvoice

Collectively, these brands show that when brands leverage a good UGC strategy—such as VoxBox sampling, RMS programs and syndication—they can supercharge authentic review collection and, in turn, drive greater content coverage to retailers. 

Start optimizing your UGC strategy on Macys.com by visiting www.bazaarvoice.com/macys.

That’s why the home improvement giant partners with Bazaarvoice to get more high quality reviews onto its website. Home Depot Canada launched several solutions and features that improve customer experience and help its suppliers optimize their user-generated content (UGC) on the Home Depot Canada website. 

It’s a win-win situation for everyone, creating a better experience for customers and boosting sales for both Home Depot Canada and its vendors. From launching its own tailored sampling program to syndicating visual UGC, here’s how Home Depot Canada successfully injected thousands of quality reviews and photos into its website. 

1. Home Depot Canada inspired more confident purchases by increasing UGC with Home Depot Seeds 

Bazaarvoice and Home Depot Canada partnered to help brands get more UGC with its Home Depot Seeds sampling program. The sampling program puts products in the hands of Home Depot Canada shoppers who are eager to try new products, in exchange for providing honest product reviews on the Home Depot Canada website.

Home Depot Canada vendors are encouraged to use the review-seeding sampling program strategically throughout the year for seasonal, exclusive, and new products, or any products that need new reviews, as reviews recency matters. Bazaarvoice helps Home Depot Canada vendors decide which products to sample, identify the perfect audience for your product, and guide the brand throughout fulfilment. 

Home Depot Canada invested in reviews collection because UGC drives sales. Customers who interact with UGC are 2X more likely to convert and 93% of consumers say online reviews do impact their purchasing decisions. Reviews help customers validate their purchasing decisions and feel more confident in products. 

The sampling program is a relatively low-cost, tangible solution that allows Home Depot Canada vendors to easily get feedback, and increase their ratings and reviews coverage on Homedepot.ca. It’s been so successful in fact, that Home Depot US vendor partners are now interested in using it to collect reviews for their Canadian exclusive items and new product launches. 

Click to watch Home Depot Seeds 101

2. Home Depot Canada expanded its reach with French translations 

Almost a quarter of Canadians (22.8%) speak French as their first official language, but 92% of Home Depot’s reviews are in English. As many as 40% of customers won’t buy if they can’t read content in their language, so it was imperative for Home Depot Canada to enable French translations on its site to make its UGC more accessible for its French-speaking customers.

Luckily, turning on Bazaarvoice’s Review Translations feature was a quick way to expand Home Depot’s reach to French users and allow shoppers to translate UGC into their native language on-demand.

3. Home Depot Canada invested in more visual content on its site

Another simple and fast way Home Depot Canada enabled more engagement on its website was by launching photo syndication. 

Photo syndication is the collection and distribution of visual UGC for a brand to the websites of retail partners who sell the brand’s products. Brands, or third-party providers on their behalf, collect photos taken by customers using a variety of methods, including post-interaction emails, sweepstakes, social media, and sampling programs. For our clients, Bazaarvoice authenticates the collected photos and then matches brand content to the product catalogs on retailer websites. 

Photo syndication helps retailers deliver an exceptional shopping experience by showcasing plenty of content on all of their products. But it doesn’t just help retailers. Brands can leverage photo syndication to ensure their most inspirational content is available wherever consumers are shopping. 

A majority of consumers (62%) are more likely to buy a product if they can see photos taken by other customers, according to Search Engine Journal. The surveyed consumers said photos help them make purchasing decisions for a myriad of reasons, including helping them see the quality of a product and seeing the product in action. 

After enabling photo syndication, Home Depot Canada saw a big return: there were over 900,000 photos available within the Bazaarvoice Network to instantly syndicate to Home Depot Canada. Now, 937,472 syndicated reviews have photos attached, 1,398,076 total photos have been syndicated, and 109,481 products have syndicated reviews with photos.

Home Depot Canada made a name for itself in the retail industry with its innovative—yet simple—approach to collecting more UGC for its vendors on Homedepot.ca. 

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In the past, private label brands were considered commodities purchased solely on price. But that’s changed. Who among us hasn’t sought out Trader Joe’s Cauliflower Gnocchi or Target’s All in Motion clothing?

Price definitely still matters. But private label brands now focus on value, purpose, and quality, and are aligning their strategies with national brands. Over the past year, especially, the state of private label has evolved just as quickly as the retail environment as a whole. Now greater opportunities exist for private label brands and products.

Chapters:

1. The rise of private label brands
2. Private label brand strategies
3. Private label brand strategy in action

The rise of private label brands

Retailer experience and the private labels they offer are interconnected. Establishing high-performing private labels boosts loyalty and drives more traffic to retailers both in-store and online. According to eMarketer, shoppers choose retailers based on the store brands they offer, and 66% said they generally assume their favorite retailers will have quality private labels. 

Private label brands also became popular with new consumers during the pandemic when their usual brands weren’t available due to supply chain issues. According to a McKinsey survey, 40% of consumers tried new products or brands during the COVID-19 crisis, and of those, 40% plan to continue purchasing these new brands. This shopping behavior could further grow the private label sector. 

Our own data revealed similar trends. In a survey of Influenster members in July, over 90% said they currently purchase store brands. Another third prefer buying store brands over national brands.

Private label brand strategies

With the state of private label today, and new trends reshaping shopping behaviors, private label brands have the opportunity to win over consumers. Retailers need to position them as true brands of their own. How? By becoming market leaders, investing in marketing and research, and capturing shoppers’ attention in a digital-first retailing environment.

Here’s four strategies for private label success.

1. Lean into permanent change by aligning to the new path of purchase 

E-commerce should no longer be an afterthought — it should be a forethought. Private label brands need to maximize their presence beyond brick-and-mortar. Product search and discovery overwhelmingly begins online, so success depends on revisioning your funnel for a digital-first retailing world. 

The pandemic and stay-at-home orders accelerated online shopping. This momentum is bolstering online sales of private brands, which has been on a steady growth trajectory. In 2019, online sales of private brands reached $1.7 billion, an 87% year-over-year increase, according to CPG Matters. The upward trend is expected to continue well beyond the pandemic.

Even for in-store purchases, the 2019 Bazaarvoice Shopper Experience Index found that 82% of shoppers research products online before heading to the store, and 50% browse online while shopping in-store. 

So, it’s time to rethink traditional in-store marketing strategies. Product sampling is one way to raise awareness about products and inspire purchases online and in-store. According to Bazaarvoice research, 60% of shoppers have purchased a product they sampled, and sampled products often become favorites. Shoppers also recommend products they sample to friends and family.

Then use user-generated content (UGC) to optimize product searches for private labels and discoverability online. 

2. Strategize like a national brand 

To capture the full potential of private label brands, retailers need to position them as true consumer brands. You can do so by leveraging varying marketing strategies designed to drive trial, awareness, and brand loyalty. Think of social media as your virtual endcap that has the capability to stop shoppers in their tracks and inspire new purchase behavior. While this includes running paid social media ads, one of the most authentic and trusted ways to drive awareness is to encourage shoppers to share details about your products on social media. 

From packaging and design to advertising and social media strategies, private label products should resonate and feel authentic to consumers. Invest in strategies like search, SEO optimization, sampling, and UGC optimization. Taking a 360-degree approach that balances physical and digital marketing that includes emerging third-party intermediaries will ensure your brands actively engage with consumers across the shifting shopping journey. 

Shoppers are discovering, browsing, and shopping on social media, with more than a third using buy buttons and clicking on shoppable stories and posts. Social media chatter about brands also translates to conversions, especially as consumers are paying just as much attention to your company values as the products you offer. 

Retailers and brands are being judged based on environmental, social, and governance metrics more than ever. 55% of UK consumers make purchasing decisions based on a company’s transparency, ethical values, or authenticity, according to Accenture. Leading retailers have been using cost-effective channels to communicate the story behind their store brands, such as how ingredients are sources or where products are made. 

3. Deliver value, not just price

Retailers must heighten their focus on quality, value, and driving engagement to see a competitive edge for private label products. Our data shows that value is shoppers’ number one purchase consideration, followed by cost. With more people at home and shopping online, shoppers are splurging on new products more so than in the past. 

So, how do you show your value to consumers? Make sure you have a clear set of brand values, and communicate what your brand stands for, how you give back to the community, and what your company can offer that others can’t. 

As shopping behaviors continue to evolve, customer sentiment of private label brands will increase the competitiveness between retailers, and influence consumers’ decisions about where to shop. Retailers need to make their private label brands more than just a product on the shelf, but a valuable brand in their own right.

The key to success is meeting customers where they are. Align your strategy with the new purchase journey, and capitalize on digital marketing that will drive discoverability, consideration, trial, and brand loyalty.

4. Prioritize innovation in product development

Elevating your private label programs is more critical than ever. But, when it comes to developing new products, look beyond your competition and become a leader in innovation. Build and execute new private brand brand product strategies based on what your customer wants and needs, identified through in-depth research. 

Most retailers know that the first step to becoming a product category leader is to beat other brands to market with innovative products. According to a Daymon report, best-in-class retailers devote 43% of their private label programs to value-added lifestyle items, when the industry average is just 16%. Going this route enables private label brands to stay on trend and progress beyond industry norms.   

Private label brand strategy in action

Looking at one of our own Bazaarvoice customers here, Oliso, because of their ability to prioritize product innovation. Oliso is a San Fran-based home appliances manufacturer, that was massively struggling to reach sales targets for its new products — smart irons.

To combat this, the company founder took the iron to quilting events. Attendees not only loved the product, but gave feedback on how they could be improved with longer power cords and higher wattage.

The brand introduced a new model incorporating this feedback, and customers immediately fell in love. As a result, more stores started carrying them, and retail sales went from a few each week to dozens a day. That’s the sort of product development strategy you need for private label brand success.

We’re up $40,000 at that store in just weeks, which is a lot of money for a small company. Retailers are taking notice, as more and more are carrying our products.

Kyle Koenig, Director of Business Development, Oliso

To win your private label brand strategy, you’ll need a defined plan for innovation. It should involve taking risks and committing to a culture of innovation. Learn how to fully implement these strategies, with brand examples, in our full e-book below. Or connect with us below to see how Bazaarvoice can help you get started.

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4 strategies to achieve private label success

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From proactively asking for ratings and reviews, to optimizing your product display pages (PDPs), these are the nine best practices for retailers to build a leading ratings and reviews program on their e-commerce site. 

• Define KPIs

Identifying your key performance indicators (KPIs) is a great place to start building actionable goals for your UGC program. Often these KPIs revolve around your conversion rate, average order value, or your RPV. You can also create custom KPIs, like establishing an ideal engagement rate or return rate for products. 

Once you’ve established your KPIs, don’t forget to regularly monitor progress toward these goals and share results with the business. 

• Proactively ask for ratings and reviews 

Most shoppers don’t naturally leave a review unless they’ve had a negative experience. That’s why it’s important to proactively ask for ratings and reviews from customers. Shoppers with a positive experience are far more likely to share it if asked than if left to their own devices. This helps your products to attain a more accurate and authentic rating. 

Ask shoppers for reviews after they make a purchase. Optimize post-interaction emails (PIEs) with features like In-Mail Submissions and Multi-Product Submissions. Ensure you’re sending PIEs to your in-store shoppers, as well, and using as many touch points as possible. For example, use their order history and app notifications to ask for reviews. 

But take note – before you ask for a customer to share content, make sure your request sequence takes into account giving the shopper time to use your product. You don’t want an accurate review, after all. 

Psst – want some help? Bazaarvoice would be more than happy to start you on your ratings and reviews journey!

• Collect visual content 

More than ever, shoppers rely on visual content from reviews to make their purchasing decisions. In fact, 62% of shoppers say they are more likely to buy a product if they can view customer videos and photos. Make sure you’re asking shoppers to include visual content with their reviews. 

There’s other ways to collect more visual content, too. Bazaarvoice makes collecting photos and videos from social media easier than ever. You can also have a sweepstakes competition and give added entries to shoppers who upload multiple photos to their reviews.  

• Syndication 

Set your PDPs up for success by collecting as much UGC as you possibly can. This includes receiving syndicated content from all potential sources, including brands and other sites. Ensuring your Product Feed is up to date with all important syndication data points — like UPC, GTIN, EAN, ISBN—is the clearest path to get the most content in an automated way. You don’t want to end up going through the hassle of manually collecting syndicated content. 

• Supplier and seller enablement

Activate your vendors to co-market with you. Are you regularly talking to your vendors about how they should be contributing to UGC? Hold them accountable to collect as much UGC as possible with sampling, syndication, and by responding to reviews and questions. 

Set KPIs for your vendors so they know what they are accountable to accomplish. The strongest co-marketing relationships happen when retailers give their vendors specific guidelines that help both brands and retailers create a great on-site experience for customers. 

• Share consumer sentiment back to the business 

Once you’ve analyzed your customer sentiment insights, share the knowledge with the rest of your business. Your merchandising teams and finance teams need to see how their products, brands, or categories are performing. It’s especially important to ensure internal teams monitor sentiment highlights and lowlights for your private label products.

• Customize submission forms by category 

Get specific on your submission forms when you’re asking consumers for reviews. Ask relevant questions by category that provides your colleagues or your shoppers with necessary decision-making data. By tailoring your forms, you’ll get tailored data relevant to specific product pages. 

For example, for your products in the apparel category, it makes sense to ask customers what size they usually wear and whether or not the clothing or footwear they bought from you fit them well. 

• Optimize PDPs for shopper ease 

Think about the kind of experience you want to drive for your shopper on your PDP. Make it easy for consumers to sort through ratings, reviews, and questions and answers that are relevant to them. 

By using Review Highlights or Product Sentiment Insights to display product highlights and lowlights for shoppers, you can save them time. You can also share reviews across like products to ensure shoppers have the content they need. Display the additional ratings and reviews you collected in your submission form, as well. 

• Optimize category and search pages with ratings and reviews 

Your PDPs aren’t the only web pages on your ecommerce site that need optimizing. You can also optimize your category and search pages with ratings and reviews. 

Make sure all of the content a shopper needs to confidently make a purchase is easily surfaced. Display inline ratings (average rating and the number of reviews) to help shoppers move down the purchase funnel. It’s also helpful for your shoppers if you allow them to filter the category by average star rating and products by themes from reviews. 

By following these nine best practices, you’ll build a solid foundation of a stellar ratings and reviews program on your e-commerce site. 

To learn more, check out our ratings and reviews e-book!

About 80% of consumers worldwide said their shopping habits changed because of the pandemic and stay-at-home orders, according to an Influenster survey conducted in August 2020. Most have been browsing and purchasing more online. E-commerce sales grew 32.4% in 2020, reaching $794.5 billion, much more than predicted, according to eMarketer.

In a digital-first retail environment, shoppers expect a personalized and seamless shopping experience. Retailers that focus on delivering on these expectations and providing the highest level of convenience for their customers have proven to be more resilient, earning 3x higher returns, according to McKinsey. To meet the new customer expectations, brands and retailers must double down on digital.

One retailer that’s quickly becoming a leader in delivering convenience with a digital-first retailing strategy is Sam’s Club. In a recent webinar co-hosted with Robelle Mancilla, Director of Site Merchandising & Site Operations for Samsclub.com, we uncover quick pivots over the past year, new developments, and priorities moving forward.

Here are key takeaways from the webinar, highlighting Sam’s Club’s secrets for user-generated content (UGC) success and notable developments.

1) Delivering convenience for Sam’s Club members through UGC

Providing value and convenience for members is at the epicenter of everything Sam’s Club does. One way suppliers help the retailer achieve this is by optimizing the content on their product pages. Written UGC, such as reviews, provide invaluable feedback about products.

70% of all UGC on Samsclub.com is syndicated directly from brands who are proactively collecting reviews from their shoppers. Bazaarvoice solutions help with this process. Brands typically see a 112% median increase in reviews per product when they distribute content via the Bazaarvoice network.

2) Elevating product description pages with real-world visual content

Sam’s Club will soon be integrating more visual UGC across its digital touchpoints, including the brand’s social and visual content on product pages. Shopping is becoming more social, so adding more visual UGC gives brands the opportunity to provide shoppers with real world, relatable content that will inspire them to buy products and feel confident in purchasing the brands they choose.

3) Helping brands optimize the collection of UGC on Samsclub.com with Star Reviewer

Sam’s Club recently co-created the Star Reviewer program in collaboration with Bazaarvoice. This program enables suppliers to sample their products among the most loyal Sam’s Club shoppers in exchange for authentic, honest reviews, which will be posted on Samsclub.com. Star Reviewer lets suppliers collect ratings, written reviews, and customer photos.

4) Offering more transparency and actionable insights for Sam’s Club suppliers

High-quality product pages drive sales. To help suppliers improve the performance of their product pages, Sam’s Club is committed to providing guidance on which content is doing well and what needs improvement. So, the retailer is developing a new tool to help. The content scorecard, which will be released in the near future, will give suppliers greater visibility and actionable insights into how their UGC is performing.

E-commerce is expected to continue its acceleration. So, digital-first retailing is an essential strategy for capturing the influx in online shoppers. Integrating and upgrading UGC will optimize product pages, which will increase purchases and build loyalty with shoppers.

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Ready to get started? Click here to connect with the Bazaarvoice team and begin optimizing conversions on SamsClub.com with UGC. 

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Retail Talk with Sam’s Club

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