Shopper marketing blog

Every Quarter, we analyse the Top 150 UK FMCG manufacturers and their online reputation in supermarkets. Our key reputation KPI is the percentage of SKUs that need new reviews. The fewer the number, the better the manufacturer is managing its reputation.

Based on our research and that of some business school professors in the US, the three key measures that go into whether a SKU Needs new reviews are:

1. Minimum of 30 reviews: This involves checking if the SKU has at least 30 reviews in that retailer. If it does, we move on to section 2. If not, it requires new reviews.
   
   
2. Top 3 Fresh: Looking at the latest three reviews on the retailer's website, e.g., Tesco.com, which is displayed as the newest first, are any more than six months old? If yes, it needs new reviews; if not, go to 3.
   
   
3. Top 3 Fair: Look at the latest three reviews and their ratings out of 5. Are any of these more than 1.5 Stars different from (above or below) the average rating for the SKU in that retailer? If yes, then it needs new reviews. If "No," then this SKU in this retailer is optimised right now.

We check this data daily in every retailer and automatically get new reviews from 100% verified shoppers until they are no longer required. Working with our clients, we know that this kind of Alway On program provides an exceptional ROI return of between 6 and 12 at a gross margin level.

That's £6 - £12 back for every £1 you spend on the program. Where else can you get that kind of return on your spending?

Where did you finish?

Product reviews play a significant role in helping potential customers make informed decisions about purchasing a product or service. In the UK, specific laws and legislation regulate product reviews and testimonials. Businesses must understand and comply with these laws to avoid legal consequences and maintain customers' trust in reviews and review sites:

1. Prohibition of Fake Reviews: Under UK law, businesses are prohibited from pretending to be customers and writing reviews about their products or other businesses' products. Commissioning third parties to write fake reviews is also considered illegal, and businesses may be liable for their actions.

2. Transparency and Inducements: Offering inducements, such as money or gifts, to customers in exchange for positive reviews is against the law. Review transparency is essential, and any payments provided for reviews must be disclosed to the reader to ensure they are aware of potential bias.

3. Compliance Requirements: Businesses should not pretend to be customers and write reviews, commission third parties for fake reviews, or offer inducements for positive reviews. Businesses can maintain consumer trust and contribute to a fair and transparent online marketplace​​​​by complying with these requirements.

See the full article for more, including the vital Do's and Don'ts:

NB This article has been written with best efforts based on current (16/07/24) publically available information. It is not intended as legal advice or to be relied upon in any way. For advice or questions, consult a specialist lawyer.

Transform your FMCG brand with CheckoutSmart's innovative 3C Consumer Experience framework. Focus on complaints, complacency, and compliments to discover how continuous consumer feedback can enhance your consumers' experience.

Consumer-facing brands should leverage bespoke consumer feedback data to train or fine-tune AI / ML models to get ahead. These expert models can help them gain valuable insights into consumer preferences, behaviours, and sentiments, enabling them to optimise product descriptions, packaging design and advertising copy.

One application we have developed for such AI models is to assess and classify product reviews with helpful tags. Using consumer feedback as the basis, we have created proprietary measures of product reviews, such as how influential an individual review is and how strongly it reviews the product's taste or effectiveness.

By analysing these new measures, brand owners can identify their performance and patterns in consumer reviews, generate new insights, compare themselves to competition and even highlight individual reviews for a specific purpose, such as "suitable for advertising". 

Using bespoke shopper data to train AI models represents a significant opportunity for consumer-facing brands to enhance their understanding of consumers and markets.

Paul Lees our MD sat down with Francis Nicholas of eStoreMedia to talk about the ratings and reviews in the Moisturiser category. In 25 minutes they covered which retailers carry reviews, how many there are, which brands have them, whether they have enough reviews and then some fascinating insights from the reviews themselves.

1. There are 7 dimensions to Moisturiser according to the shopper reviews and Nivea does very well in 4 of them, giving them a strong position.
2. Individual reviews matter when it comes to reviews it is not just about numbers. Shoppers read the top few reviews they see regardless of how many there are in total.
3. We have a measure of how influential reviews are: "Influence score". This shows that L'Oreal has the most influential reviews and Olay from Procter & Gamble (P&G) has the lowest in the category.

This kind of category work providing market coverage, opportunities and category insights is available for all categories. Contact us to understand what we can do for you.

Meanwhile, please watch and learn more about reviews and moisturisers:

The 3Ps of Supermarket Shopper Marketing

When launching your long-planned and lovingly-developed grocery NPD into supermarkets, it’s critical that it appeals to and is tried by the target consumers. Getting it into the hands, baskets and homes of the right grocery shoppers can be a daunting task, but here’s what you need to remember and how to go about it.

Supermarket shoppers are the key to NPD success as they are the ones who actually pick the product off the shelves and take it home, regardless of whether they, or someone else in their household is the end consumer. This is the crux of  Shopper Marketing and understanding the art  of getting shoppers to Pause, Pick up & Pay for your product is known as the 3 Ps of shopper marketing.

This time we are looking at the face & body moisturiser category in the UK. We particularly want to look at which companies and brands are doing well i.e., have good positive reviews that are up to date and will influence shoppers and those who need to be a bit smarter.

We are also keen to understand more about moisturisers from a shoppers' perspective. What do they say about the category, what language do they use to describe it, and how do they see the relative merits of brands?

To do this, we have gathered and analysed all the reviews on facial and body moisturisers in the top UK online supermarkets since 2020. We processed them through quality control, removing all the unhelpful “!!!!!!!!” etc., that some reviewers like to use, then pivoted, tabled, graphed, AI-analysed, discussed, and debated. Finally, we came out with what we think are the more interesting points about the moisturiser reviews in UK supermarkets.

We focussed on the top 6 brands analysed, selected by the total number of reviews found across ASDA, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, and Ocado for 2020 - 2023.

1. Brands with more reviews, have lower quality reviews
2. The most popular Shopper dimensions for moisturiser are:
   1. Absorbs Easily – Doesn’t Absorb easily
   2. Not Greasy - Greasy
   3. Smells great – Does not smell Great
   4. Good for Dry skin – Not good for dry skin
   5. Good for Sensitive skin – Not good for sensitive skin
   6. Good for Lines/wrinkles – Not good for lines/wrinkles
   7. Good to Soft skin – Not good to soften skin
3. Despite having lots of reviews all brands need new reviews on the majority of SKUs.

It's obvious when you think about it, that for online grocery shoppers selecting products to put in their basket, product Rating out of 5 is always more important than the number of Reviews, right?

Well, wrong actually and not just wrong occasionally, wrong most of the time. From our research of 3,710 online supermarket shoppers we know that when the average Ratings for two similar products are different by as much as 0.3 eg 4.2 vs 4.5, then the number of Reviews is much more important in product choice. Let me give you an example:

Launching new products in the New Year can be quite an adventure, it's no secret that the road to success for any NPD is filled with many bumps and mostly arrives at a dead end. As reported by Harvard Business Review, a staggering 90% of new products face failure within their first year, despite the substantial investments by FMCG manufacturers in R&D, marketing, and advertising.

To help your new products have the best possible start in the New Year, we'll explain the crucial role of consumer reviews. Here are four compelling reasons why securing a good number of consumer reviews as early as possible is essential for the success of your new offerings.

PS For even more on why reviews are critical for NPD, see our post 10 Reasons why Shopper Reviews are vital for Successful New Products.

As we go through a surge in online shopping, now is the perfect time to ensure your brands get their fair share of sales both now and in the future. Of course you should ensure you have the right images and descriptions, as these form "the basics" of eCommerce. It is also fundamental to your success to offer the undecided a perspective from their fellow shoppers through Ratings & Reviews. Genuine shopper product reviews delivered from validated buyers directly to the retailer sites, without any moderation on a specific sku are the best way of doing this and will make an immediate impact to sales.

Delivering Ratings & Reviews