Oliver Bonas sees a 188% conversion lift with visual and social content

Oliver Bonas sees a 188% conversion lift with visual and social UGC

Shopping online is convenient, but often limits the ability for people to envision products in their own settings. Consumers often want to visualize how a dress looks on a real person or how a table lamp will fit into the design of their living room, as well as gain a better understanding of size, colour and detail. For example, close-up jewellry photos often fail to show the detail and intricacies of each piece and don’t how the pieces can be styled.

On top of that, various colors can look different on a webpage versus in real life.

To overcome this hurdle, forward-thinking retailers like Oliver Bonas are evolving by relying less on just professional product photos and pictures of models and more on visual and social user-generated content (UGC).

“This content works as a ‘visual review’ allowing customers a better idea of how products look by showing how they’re used or styled in a real-life setting or on a real person,” said Alice Lewin-Smith, Digital Marketing Manager at Oliver Bonas. “Using UGC has also helped us create a sense of community and personality on our site and channels, our followers have great taste and we love seeing how they are using their OB products.”

Social and visual UGC drives measurable, high-impact results

The Oliver Bonas team recently conducted analysis to determine which types of images perform best across certain categories on social media. The data proved that UGC style content often outperformed other imagery, especially in the fashion, accessories and jewellery categories.

“That was a significant awakening for the wider bigger business and has really informed our content strategy,” said Lewin-Smith. “UGC is a massive omnichannel opportunity for us, and it enables us to be more reactive on quite a lot of our touchpoints to create a much more compelling and personal approach.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was difficult to have the usual number of photoshoots for lifestyle images. So, the brand leveraged visual UGC to show off its products and engage with its followers, using Bazaarvoice Galleries to efficiently gather and display that content on social media and the website.

“It was always time-consuming and ad hoc before,” said Lewin-Smith. “Now, we can collect the content easily and have a library of visual assets that yield really strong results.”

When visitors engage with UGC on the Oliver Bonas homepage and product display pages, they spend 176% more time on the site, convert 188% more, and average order value goes up by 26%.

Additionally, customers love seeing themselves on the site.

“We’re very fortunate that we get a lot of content without investing heavily in influencer marketing. Our followers really like that we feature real people and real homes and are so excited about seeing their image featured,” said Lewin-Smith.

The brand also uses Bazaarvoice Like2Buy to make their social posts shoppable on platforms like Instagram and improve the customer experience. Like2Buy has given Oliver Bonas the ability to drive more engagement and stronger conversions with their posts, and they now have a quota of UGC images to use every week on social feeds.

Streamlining workflows and gathering meaningful insights

Bazaarvoice’s wide range of tools not only gives Oliver Bonas collection and display capabilities but also provides them with valuable scheduling and reporting functionalities. Being able to schedule social content has helped the team consolidate their daily workflows. With robust reporting, the brand can gain clear insights, react, and make positive changes to their strategy.

Oliver Bonas recently upgraded its package with Bazaarvoice because they’ve seen how valuable these tools are for their brand.

“The platform has really helped streamline the social media workflow, with everything managed in one place,” said Lewin-Smith. “The reporting functionalities are clear and informative and easy for the team to use.”