News

Jeweler lets shoppers share their personal stories online

March 9, 2009

AUSTIN, Texas — Bazaarvoice, provider of hosted social commerce applications, today announced that Zale Corp., a leading specialty retailer of fine jewelry in North America, has launched Bazaarvoice Stories to empower customers to share their real-life stories about Zales and Gordon's Jewelers products. Zales, which has been successfully using Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews for over a year, added Stories to create an online destination (lovestories.zales.com) that features customers' own narratives about the celebrations in their lives, and the role that Zales played in making these days special.

"The jewelry business is one that's built on people's personal stories, since fine jewelry is often given to celebrate joyous occasions like weddings, birthdays, the birth of a child, and special holidays," said Steve Larkin, executive vice president of Zale. "Bazaarvoice Stories gives Zales customers a place to share their own love stories — whether humorous or heartfelt. This user-generated content is a great resource to connect shoppers with each other — and to build brand involvement and loyalty in an authentic and organic manner."

Zales — a part of Zale Corporation's $2 billion company with 2,100 retail jewelry stores across the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico — promotes the Love Stories initiative on its homepage and via a targeted email campaign, encouraging the thousands of people who have reviewed products on the Zales site to share their own personal stories. The company also promotes Love Stories through sweepstakes and contests that drive participation.

"Zales has been a pioneer in listening and responding to their customers via ratings and reviews, and their launch of our Stories product is just another milestone on their path to complete customer engagement," said Brett Hurt, founder and chief executive of Bazaarvoice. "Studies prove that when customers engage with one another by sharing their real-life stories about certain brands or products, they become more loyal to the brand, purchase more products, and become brand evangelists to their friends and community."