Major new products help retailers retain influence as the consumer purchase journey increases in sophistication and becomes almost entirely social

London, UK – June 22nd 2011 – Europe’s largest social commerce company, Reevoo, today launched a new suite of products aimed at simplifying social commerce for brands and retailers at a time when, research shows, the size, scale and sophistication of the task is increasing dramatically. Reevoo’s new portfolio enables retailers and brands to move beyond product reviews and ratings to address issues of brand, service, community, engagement, questions, answers and post-sales support – in short, to establish consumer trust at all touchpoints, which leads to increased sales.

Richard Anson, Reevoo’s founder and CEO, said: “Our latest research shows that today’s purchase process is almost entirely social. This is because, before people buy anything, their first thought is to take advice from their family, friends and even from total strangers. And they get this advice from both established and evolving social channels, including consumer reviews and social networks such as Facebook. We already know that invoking social content results in incremental sales, on average delivering an uplift of 18%.

“The impact of consumers attaching the greatest importance to social channels is that control of the shopping process is being taken completely out of the hands of the retailers. Reevoo cannot give that control back to retailers again – that genie is well and truly out of the bottle – but what we can do, and are doing, is give all retailers, big and small, very welcome solutions that enable them to participate in and influence the process again.

“Trust is, by definition, hard to build, easy to lose, and harder still to rebuild once lost. The retailers that proactively build the most trust, win. It’ll always be up to retailers and brands then to do the things that generate trust, such as provide good post-sales service. But our new products enable brands to tell their customers how good they are, and allows consumers to discover and act upon such peer opinions for themselves,” he added.

Anson outlines the new social commerce portfolio in this short video. The new portfolio comprises:

Reevoo Mark: Reevoo’s original, trusted customer reviews service provides retailers and brands websites with deep, impartial reviews from genuine, verified customers across all their products. Reevoo Mark has been shown to drive an 18% increase in sales for Reevoo partners.

Reevoo Conversations: this enables brands to embrace the power of the crowd by building a community of real product owners for shoppers to ask questions and get the answers they need to make their purchase decision. It helps brands to move away from a broadcast medium and start to engage in a two-way conversation with customers, while boosting conversion, profitable return visits and customer satisfaction.

Reevoo Reputation: this enables retailers to gain plaudits and therefore trust for their performance as a retailer. It provides a verified-authentic view of the retailer reputation which brands can use on their own website or across the Web. It ensures a balanced view is portrayed of a retailer’s service, delivery and the environment that it provides to shoppers.

Reevoo Spark: this product harnesses the power of social content to drive yield and sales through urgency, relevance, recommendations and alerts, and uses the huge amount of information about the social purchase journey over which Reevoo has visibility.

Reevoo Launch: this service enables brands to get reviews quickly when new products are launched, and even before they hit the shelves, when products are at their most desirable and profitable.

Reevoo Insight: this is a new breed of market research, which enables retailers and brands to tap into the conversations and customer opinions that exist about their brand and turn them into actionable insight to inform their marketing, sales, procurement, product development and customer support strategies.

In addition to the core new products, Reevoo has also developed several bolt-on ‘catalysts’ to extend the reach and impact of social commerce for brands. Retailers and brands using Reevoo social commerce products generate a huge volume of social content; the Reevoo Catalysts help to make more of the social content they have. The catalysts are:

Reevoo Traffic: many online retailers that use manufacturers’ stock descriptions of products were hit hard in terms of their search ranking by Google’s recent Panda-Farmer algorithm update, which rewards unique, high-quality content over syndicated content. Reevoo Traffic enables retailers to make the most of social content from a search engine optimisation point of view, to boost their search rankings and drive more shoppers to their site.

Reevoo Analytics: this is a management dashboard that offers brands and retailers unprecedented levels of insight into the effectiveness of their reviews and social commerce strategy with real-time, actionable analytics. Reevoo Analytics enables retailers to identify less obvious, hidden opportunities, and to ensure that reviews or comments requiring attention receive a rapid response.

Reevoo Brand Response: this product enables brands and retailers to really get involved in the conversation themselves and engage with their customers, by responding quickly and directly to any issues that are raised in social content.

Reevoo Broadcast: this is a push-of-the-button service that instantly shares product and service reviews with Reevoo’s network of publishers and comparison shopping engines.

Reevoo Mobile: this puts trusted social content in the hands – literally - of consumers at key points in the purchase journey. It enables retailers to integrate trusted content into their mobile strategy, transforming social reach, boosting conversions, building loyalty and growing market share.

Reevoo Offline: consumers have embraced social commerce online and now they demand the same experience offline. Reevoo Offline enables retailers to align online and offline strategies by taking social commerce into their stores, packaging and marketing campaigns.

Richard Anson, Reevoo’s CEO, said: “Taken as a whole, what we’re announcing today is bringing what used to happen 50 years ago back into shopping. Fifty years ago you would have known your shop keeper very well, you would have known your fellow shoppers, been able to ask questions, and known if this was a retailer to use or one to avoid. Today, even though people are disparate and geographically widespread, they are actually becoming much closer via social network platforms… really, the past is becoming the present again.”

Through its proactive collection strategy, Reevoo has collected more than two million impartial pieces of social content from genuine customers; this social commerce content is displayed to shoppers more than half a billion times every month.

Several well-known retailers have already signed up to use products from Reevoo’s new portfolio. Previously published figures from Reevoo’s 120 partners - including Tesco, Best Buy, Jessops and Dixons – show that social commerce solutions generate an average sales uplift of 18%.