Bazaarvoice and IBM to Place the Customer Voice at the Center of eCommerce Experience

Combination of Bazaarvoice ratings and reviews solutions with IBM WebSphere Commerce enables delivery of customer-centric retailing

Austin, TX – February 16, 2007 –Bazaarvoice, an innovator in helping brands use online word of mouth to build their businesses, today announced that it is working with IBM software to help retailers create a more interactive and customer-centric shopping experience. Bazaarvoice will work with online merchants to integrate its leading ratings and reviews solution into a new Web 2.0 store solution based on IBM’s WebSphere Commerce, giving them a proven way to turn customers into advocates. Several IBM WebSphere clients are already up and running with the Bazaarvoice solution. 

“Word of mouth marketing is the most valuable asset available to retailers today, which is why we are seeing tremendous growth for online ratings and reviews,” said Brett Hurt, Founder and CEO, Bazaarvoice. “Our partnership with IBM will bring this strategic functionality to even more retailers as they deliver a more relevant and rewarding shopping experience.”

“Succeeding in today's online retailing world requires you to put the customer at the center of your strategy," said Jim Caldwell, Director, WebSphere Application Infrastructure Product Management. "WebSphere Commerce provides a rich lifestyle-driven shopping experience that is enhanced by the consumer-generated content available through Bazaarvoice. We’re pleased to work with Bazaarvoice in our mission to revolutionize the customer experience."

Bazaarvoice’s on-demand ratings and reviews solution allows retailers to build a community of their most influential customers and use the authentic customer voice to help shoppers make more informed and rewarding purchasing decisions. Together, Bazaarvoice and IBM enable retailers to rapidly create a customer-centric shopping experience that increases customer loyalty, drives higher conversion and results in more sales.

About Bazaarvoice
Based in Austin, Texas, Bazaarvoice offers outsourced technology, community management services, analytics, and syndication to encourage and harness word of mouth marketing, and bring it closer to a company’s brand and customer experience. The company’s flagship hosted and fully managed customer ratings and review service allows businesses to enable, encourage, and analyze customer ratings and reviews on their website. With Bazaarvoice, companies can empower their customers to share honest opinions and influence each other to make more informed and rewarding purchase decisions. Clients like Bass Pro Shops, CompUSA, Overstock.com, Macy’s, and PETCO benefit from a credible and reliable customer-to-customer community, without having to delve into complex IT work or the laborious process of community management. Bazaarvoice was named Marketing Innovation of the Year in the 2006 ClickZ Marketing Excellence Awards and received a “Red Herring 100 North America” award by Red Herring magazine. For more information, please visit the company’s website at www.bazaarvoice.com or email .

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