Bazaarvoice, the leading provider of full-funnel authentic user-generated content (UCG) and social commerce solutions, is celebrating after a successful Holiday Preparedness Program, which powered 12,500 retailers during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
While shoppers revel in their Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals every year, leading to surges of online retail activity, for Bazaarvoice, this involves a year of meticulous preparation and around-the-clock monitoring in order to rise to the challenge of supporting retailers and brands worldwide during the busiest retail event of the year.
The global program is managed across Bazaarvoice’s Belfast, North American and Indian sites and ensured retailers and brands using the Bazaarvoice platform could navigate the intense demand of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and deliver a fast, dependable and seamless shopping experience for their customers.
It is vital that Bazaarvoice is prepared for the increase in sales traffic which comes with being the busiest time of the year for online retailers, as businesses rely on ratings and reviews for selling products at this time of year.
Site Leader at Bazaarvoice Belfast, Bronagh Gaillard, explains to Sync NI: "A big part of why these brands and companies come to us is because we are the authentic content platform, and we also increase the visual and social content from authentic consumers who look like me and you. There has been a major step away from heavily curated content - people want to see real people and read real opinions on products so they can make informed decisions. Visual content is now an expectation rather than being something which is nice to have."
“This year’s successful program marks the fourth consecutive year for Bazaarvoice with no outages. This can happen, for example, when a popular product is severely discounted leading to it going viral and driving excessive traffic to the retailer’s website
Speaking about the company’s history, Bronagh said:
“The global company which employs around 2000 staff members across the world was established by Brett Hurt, who developed the concept after experiencing a major life event, the birth of his first child. Brett was preparing for the imminent arrival and was keen to purchase the perfect pram for his child. When researching prams online, Brett found it extremely difficult to establish what precisely he should be looking for and was instead met with an overwhelming array of different options. When Brett found one in-depth review which went into great detail on the various technical components of the pram, this drove Brett to not only convert to purchasing the pram, but also led Brett to identify a gap in the market for authentic, user generated reviews. This was the inspiration behind Brett founding Bazaarvoice in 2005. In a full circle moment, the same stroller which inspired the company’s creation is kept in a glass cabinet in Bazaarvoice headquarters in Austin, Texas, which serves as a daily reminder to team members of the company's important ethos.
Simon Loxham, VP of Client Experience, explains that due to the rise of AI, authenticity is proving to be more important than ever. He explains: “Authenticity is a battle these days with AI, which has the ability to generate vast quantities of fake content very quickly and can be made to sound authentic as the algorithm can be trained efficiently to adopt certain tones of voice. Our challenge to maintain true, authentic content while removing fake content from the platform remains one of our toughest battles."
“However, AI has also served Bazaarvoice well in its mission to deliver comprehensive summary reviews, Simon outlines: "AI also helps us as we employ it as a tool to encourage reviewers to elaborate their reviews further. If you are reading a review about a certain food product, for example, you might say it is ‘delicious’ but what about the texture, the consistency, the quality, shelf life, packaging, and the price? We use AI to prompt readers to write a fuller review. This is the same for more substantial products, such as prams for example. AI will help reviewers talk about the technical specifications, as well as the good and the bad attributes - which all helps others to form a fully-rounded picture of the product.”
The customer is central to everything Bazaarvoice does in preparation for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Our key objective is to support retailers and brands in delivering the best possible experience for their customers.
With 78 per cent of consumers indicating that reviews influence their purchase decisions and 93 per cent of Irish residents relying on UGC [SL1]in their buying decisions, Bazaarvoice continues to invest in understanding the value of reviews for businesses and their customers. This commitment ensures that shoppers can make informed choices while brands and retailers build trust and drive engagement.
Preparation for Black Friday and Cyber Monday involves simulation, testing the platform and liaising directly with customers in addition to twice-daily global status calls in the weeks leading up to and during the event which review critical incidents, client escalations and resolutions, and analyse API traffic and emerging shopping patterns.
Examining online shopping trends apparel and accessories emerged as frontrunners among 2024 retail categories, with a six per cent rise in sales, while homeware has also gained significant popularity this year.
Meanwhile, in a surprising trend, health and beauty sales - whilst still significant - experienced a drop in popularity of seven per cent.
In terms of individual product types, the Stanley cup continues to soar in popularity, with the pink version the most popular product on Black Friday - selling out by the time Cyber Monday came along just three days later.
Interestingly, there is a notable difference in the most popular 'viewed' products, verses those which were actually purchased - with the top five purchased items globally consisting of: Winter Candy Apple Soap, Kitchen Lemon Soap, Thousand Wishes Gift Set, 'Tis The Season Soup and a belt bag, giving the impression most shoppers take advantage of the retail event of the year to purchase stocking fillers in the lead up to Christmas.
