Holiday shoppers are increasingly looking to online ratings and reviews to make decisions about their offline purchases according to Bazaarvoice
Bazaarvoice data revealed an increase in ratings and review activity for the week of November 19-26,2007, with a peak on Thanksgiving evening as shoppers prepared for Black Friday. Bazaarvoice said it served 1,400 ratings and reviews per second at the peak, which took place at 9:25 pm EST on Thursday, November 22.
“For many Americans, Thanksgiving evening is a time to study circulars and plan your Friday shopping strategy,” said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice.
“Our data shows that a new tradition is taking hold: opening the Web browser to read reviews online before shopping in the stores. This new data point, along with our recent research with the Keller Fay Group that shows that two-thirds of shoppers post online reviews about their offline purchases, is a strong indicator that the crossover between the online and offline shopping experience has become a retail reality in 2007.”
On Cyber Monday the company served 71 million ratings and reviews, up 370 percent from the 19 million served on Cyber Monday in 2006. Cyber Monday activity peaked at 1,300 ratings and reviews served per second at 1:40 pm EST and remained solid until 11:00 pm EST. Bazaavoice said it expects usage to remain high through the rest of the holiday shopping season.
“We anticipated a large number of ratings and reviews for Cyber Monday,” said Sam Decker, CMO of Bazaarvoice.
“Research from Shop.org and MarketingSherpa shows that review usage has nearly doubled in the US over the last year. We served more than three times as many ratings and reviews as we did last year, highlighting consumers’ increased reliance on reviews and the increased number of retail sites with review content hosted by Bazaarvoice.”
