Shopper marketing blog

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

In this article, you will discover how we use AI text analysis to unlock valuable shopper insights and change the way our clients understand customer preferences and behaviours. By the end, you will understand how we go from thousands of text-based product reviews to something as simple and useful as this:

Creating actionable shopper insights has always been crucial for businesses looking to get an advantage in consumer goods. By analysing the text content of shopper reviews using AI technology, consumer goods businesses can gain valuable insights into customer preferences and behaviours. AI (Large Language Model) text analysis allows businesses to go beyond simple quantitative data and understand the emotions, opinions, and sentiments expressed by shoppers in their reviews.

In 2018 we conducted research that showed 65% of our members look at our app when they are planning their food shopping, and 35% while they shop in the supermarket*. It is clear that grocery cashback apps are an excellent route to deliver shopper marketing goals (we have more on the whole Shopper Marketing approach here)

For example, we can use Geo targeting to serve brand advertising right onto consumers mobile devices at the first moment of truth, but the power of these apps goes a lot further than simply helping to raise brand awareness.

Based on our experience as Europe's No.1 grocery cashback organisation, here are the top 10 ways you can start using these apps to your advantage today:

In the digitally-centred grocery landscape, product reviews have become essential for all serious businesses. Not only do they influence purchasing decisions, but they also have a significant impact on a company's online reputation.

So how do you know you are if you're getting a genuine return on investment (ROI) from these product evaluations?

We'll examine the key indicators of a strong ROI and take a closer look at a helpful case study featuring Kellogg's Coco Pops. We will explore topics that directly demonstrate a good ROI:

1. - Online sales increases
2. - In-store sales increase
3. - Retailer search ranking improvements

Before we do, it is worth noting just how powerful reviews are as an influencer of choice, especially amongst younger shoppers. A Local Consumer Review Survey by Bright Local found that 91% of 18-34-year-old consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Join Andrew Pearl VP Strategy and Insight EMEA at eCommerce performance analytics company Profitero and Paul Lees our Group Managing Director at CheckoutSmart, as they discuss fascinating original research on grocery ratings and reviews.

This study was specifically undertaken in the UK amongst over 3,700 online grocery shoppers to support the understanding of FMCG leaders and eCommerce teams, by answering their questions:

This is a summary of the work we have done using hybrid AI/Human analysis of shopper reviews of the sweet biscuit category in Ocado. This analysis uses AI to understand what is new and different across huge volumes of text while the experienced human sifts the output looking for category relevance and actionability.

Highlights

• Ocado has 875k (11.4%) of the 7.7m reviews across all categories in the Top 6 online grocery retailers*.

• The Category has 4k (1%) of the 421k reviews across all brands in Ocado over 2021-23. 

• 85 Biscuit brands have reviews on Ocado with an average of 47.8 reviews per brand

• There is a big opportunity for all brands to improve their review presence in Ocado by getting at least 30 reviews per SKU and the important area to shoppers of the most recent 3 reviews.

• Looking at individual SKUs in the category (see the Appendix for the full category list) 277 of the 308 listed need new reviews to optimise their sales online and in-store (see “How to get more reviews” below).

*Reports are available for the Top 6 grocery retailers (Tesco, ASDA, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Ocado and Waitrose plus Boots and Superdrug)