One of hottest themes of the Shop.Org conference was Web 2.0 technology and how it can help Internet retailers grow their sales by integrating tools like user-generated content. The CEO Panel that included Brett Hurt, Bazaarvoice; Paul Martino, Aggregate Knowledge; Joe Chung, Allurent; Jim Calhoun, Popular Media; and Steve Papa, Endeca, discussed this topic in one of the various afternoon sessions during the conference.

Starting this session, Brett Hurt of Bazaarvoice stated some interesting facts such as, “over 48 million adult U.S. Internet users have posted content online” and “1 in 3 consumers created content online, but virtually all are influenced by it.” Hurt also provided insight to a very interesting concept: what he believes are the three steps to Web 2.0 monetization. First, giving the customers a voice is key to gaining their trust. Second, to maximize the customer’s influence, user-generated content must be integrated through the brand experience to maximize the influence of the customer during his or her shopping experience. And lastly, Hurt believes by influencing one customer, you can continue to build to two customers and then to even more; doubling and tripling the amount and growing the number of your customers daily. Customers can then feel special, as though they are an important part of the company.

Next, Jim Calhoun of PopularMedia, Inc., discussed the power of user-distributed content, and the benefits for Internet retailing. User-generated content can be any of the following: ratings and reviews, recommendations, user-driven merchandising, and/or interest-based navigation. Some of the tactical benefits of user-generated content can include: great leads, great customers, quality traffic, and brand engagement. However, the strategic benefits outweigh the tactical, in that user-distributed content can help to identify influencers, optimize messaging and media buys for the company, help establish customer-influencer programs, and lastly help to socially connect marketing databases in order to help future growth and campaigns.

By allowing the site to generate user content, customers are engaged and while browsing the site, they can discover the different tools they can use. Tools such as rating measurements, wish lists, and recommendation mechanisms allow the customer to be engaged and continue to search and visit the site from time to time to re-engage with it. Customers who lead the way for themselves, help lead the way for later visitors as well, by interest-based navigation. As previous customers generate the current content for the site, later customers can change the content of the Web site by contributing their own interests and ideas and keeping the Web site ever-changing and “fresh” for even future consumers.

By joining the Web 2.0 community of users, retailers especially can in a sense, gain more customer loyalty and discovery everywhere through their Web site and brand. We all can then have the mind-set that today the focus should be on the consumers who are strategic to continued change for retailers.

Retail Management Institute - Santa Clara University
rmi.scu.edu