Photo reviews drive conversion, enhance customer experience

December 20, 2007

About this case study

PETCO, a leading retailer in specialty pet products, operates more than 850 stores in the U.S. and strives to create a customer-centered experience both in its stores and on its website, PETCO.com. To enhance its ratings and reviews, PETCO enabled customers to submit photos with their online reviews. Once this capability was in place, we set out to determine its impact on PETCO’s reviewer community.

What we measured

We measured 224 products with photos reviews over a six month period. The conversion comparison looked at the month before and the month after review submission. To determine the incremental increase in conversion resulting from photo reviews on top of any increase seen from ratings and reviews in general, we measured the average monthly increase in conversion for products with reviews but without photos over the six month test period.

Graph: Photo reviews show higher conversion

Results

Photo reviews show a higher conversion

In the test comparing one month prior to submission and one month after the conversion rate for a product with a photo review, we saw a 5.6% incremental increase in conversion on top of any increase seen by products with reviews in general. The general increase in conversion was measured by looking at the month-over-month average increase over the six month test period.

Community engagement and positive word of mouth

PETCO has seen a tremendous consumer response since implementing photo reviews. Photo reviews have a 10.4% higher average rating compared to reviews without photos. By implementing photo reviews, PETCO further fueled their loyal online community base.

With the advent of YouTube and photo sharing sites, Internet users have increasingly expressed themselves more personally with images. This functionality added to customer reviews enhances and increases user-generated content.

The bottom line

The more a company allows and enables its community to interact and share online, the greater the business benefits. PETCO not only saw increased conversion rates and higher product ratings, but will no doubt continue to see an overall increase in customer participation online with the addition of photo reviews and other user-generated content. Bazaarvoice recommends integrating photo reviews and other relevant inputs to engage online users.

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