Shoppers access product reviews in record numbers

AUSTIN, Texas — Bazaarvoice, provider of hosted social commerce applications, today announced that holiday shoppers are increasingly using reviews to guide their purchase decisions. Bazaarvoice served more than 1.2 billion user-generated product reviews, answers, and stories over the course of Thanksgiving Week as consumers carefully researched their holiday purchases. Review usage peaked at 9:45 P.M. EST on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, indicating that reviews again played a significant role in planning offline purchase decisions on Black Friday and through the Thanksgiving weekend.

Review usage spiked again on Cyber Monday, Dec. 1, when Bazaarvoice served more than 165 million reviews and 24 million answers to shoppers across the nation and around the world. Total review impressions were up 132 percent from the 71 million reviews served on Cyber Monday last year and up 768 percent from the 19 million served on Cyber Monday 2006. At the peak on Cyber Monday, Bazaarvoice was serving over 4,500 impressions per second, another record for the company.

"On Cyber Monday last year, we served 71 million review impressions," said Sam Decker, chief marketing officer of Bazaarvoice. "This year, we served more than 165 million reviews, which means that online shoppers are benefiting from a 132 percent increase in readership of reviews — yet sales growth is at two percent. Therefore, a retailer without reviews is losing market share."

Nearly 72 percent of consumers are planning to research products online prior to purchasing . In fact, for every $1 spent in online sales, the Internet influences $3.45 of store sales. Data also shows that online word of mouth is overwhelmingly positive. Across Bazaarvoice clients, positive reviews outweigh negative reviews eight to one.

Bazaarvoice offers outsourced technology, services, analytics, and expertise to help companies enhance the online shopping experience with social commerce applications that drive sales. Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews, Ask & Answer, and Stories deliver immediate success by minimizing implementation risk and maximizing the strategic impact of user-generated content through complete customization, deep integration, community management, advanced analytics, search engine optimization, and syndication across the Web and to offline channels. Bazaarvoice currently serves over 290 eCommerce leaders including Borders, Dell, Macy's, Office Depot Inc., Overstock.com, PETCO, P&G, QVC, Sears and ZipRealty.