Influenster's ReviewSource connects customer reviews to e-commerce brands
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New York-based product discovery and reviews platform Influenster hopes to help consumer brands take advantage of the non-incentivised reviews that ordinary consumers leave on its platform.
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Its ReviewSource platform syncs reviews made on its platform to brand sites. ReviewSource is an always on 'turnkey' SaaS that continuously supplies organic, non-incentivized Influenster reviews to brand and retailer websites such as PepsiCo, L'Oreal, and Dunkin' Donuts.
Its aim is to provide reviews on consumer shopping pages in order to drive purchase intent. It aims to empower brand loyalists and shoppers to tell the story on behalf of the brand and improve its placement on Google and retailer searches.
Like Bazaarvoice, Influenster encourages reviews from its members who test products, receive boxes of products to test, and write reviews about the products they try.
Its partners are encouraged to donate product items that it sends to a subset of its members in exchange for a review.
The company says that it received over one million organic reviews each month that can be syndicated through platforms such as Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews through to brand sites such as Walmart, Target, Walgreens, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, and Macy's.
Influenster says that it has over 25 million reviews across around 2.5 million products on its site, and is growing by one million new organic reviews each month.
The reviews are synced with brand e-commerce sites, or are syndicated to retailers. This presents the opportunity for brand marketers to leverage the thousands of reviews their brands are already receiving on a regular basis.
Brands work with the company to sync user reviews on products, ensuring recurring delivery of recent reviews to brand sites and retailers' sites to enable recency across e-commerce pages.
Almost all consumers often look for recent reviews on product pages for validation before deciding to purchase items. Product placement on Google and retailer searches can also be enhanced.
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Emre Yenilmis, chief product officer of Influenster, said: "With the launch of ReviewSource, we are excited to offer brands the opportunity to unlock the full potential of user-generated content on their products, validate their products with peer-to-peer recommendations and ultimately drive purchase intent."
With competition hotting up across e-commerce -- brands that do not take advantage of consumers reviews are losing out, as savvy shoppers go to sites peppered with recommendations that make them actually want to buy.
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