Overview

Leveraging Ratings and Reviews content effectively can have an enormous impact on sales. A leading apparel retailer used “Customer Favorites” as a new merchandising category for top-rated products. Within select top level product categories, Customer Favorites were promoted on the category home page. The Customer Favorites section saw excellent results in session conversion, average order value, bounce rate, sales per unique visitor, and time on page. Advertising Customer Favorites categories through e-mail campaigns also drove awareness and performance of the new product sub-category.

Results

Customer Favorites Category Performance

The Customer Favorites categories performed much higher on average than the top level categories in which they reside.

Compared to the category average

• Average Order Value was 14.5% higher
• Session Conversion was 29.92% higher
• Sales per Unique Visitor was 32.88% higher
• Time on Page was 29.66% higher
• Bounce Rate was 60.29% lower

Customer Favorite categories promoted by e-mail campaign performed even better

Select Customer Favorites categories were promoted through e-mail campaigns. An additional increase in performance was seen for these categories vs.versus the other Customer Favorites categories not highlighted.

Compared to the category average

• Average Order Value was 24.54% higher
• Session Conversion was 55.62% higher
• Sales per Unique Visitor was 21.15% higher
• Time on Page was 45.86% higher
• Bounce Rate was 83.06% lower

Conclusion

This leading apparel retailer leveraged authentic customer Ratings and Reviews as a merchandising tool to drive conversion, lower bounce rate, increase average order value, increase sales per unique visitor, and increase time on page. Based on this study, it is highly recommended to have a Customer Favorites or Top Rated section on the site. Furthermore, advertising this section through e-mail campaigns can help drive increased results.