Shopper marketing blog

Product reviews are a hot topic in FMCG and eCommerce, but we regularly hear feedback from some that just don’t stack up against the data. Whether it’s scepticism about their impact on sales or outdated beliefs about how shoppers engage with reviews, these misconceptions can hold brands back. We will cover:

• The impact of product reviews on sales is minimal
  Based on case study data, we’ll show how reviews drive long-term sales growth.
• Reviews only matter to online shoppers
  In-store shoppers use reviews too—66% check them before purchasing.
• If my product is good, I can ignore negative reviews
  A product with an average rating below 4.0 is losing trust and sales—here’s why.
• Product reviews are just for retailer websites
  Smart brands use advertising, packaging, and in-store reviews to boost conversions.
• Reviews don’t matter for own-label products
  The gap between branded and own-label reviews is growing—own-label needs to catch up.

Now, let’s examine myth and reveal the truth about the power of product reviews.

Category management in Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) is a delicate balance of art and science. While data-driven insights have always played a key role, product reviews have become a powerful tool for sharpening strategies and boosting category performance. These reviews offer a goldmine of consumer feedback and can guide decisions from product reformulation to marketing focus.

This post will explore how incorporating product reviews into your category management strategy can unlock new opportunities for brands and retailers. The five areas of opportunity are:

1. Understanding consumer preferences
2. Optimising product performance
3. Driving category growth
4. Supporting retailer listing decisions
5. Enhancing the impact of shopper marketing

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 Always 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?

At the request of one of our brand partners, we are stepping into the world of FMCG brand tracking. We are going to research some of the top brands in the UK and find out what shoppers think of them in terms of buyer recommendation, and the results may surprise you. 

These are the brands we included were:

Brand	Owner	Brand	Owner
Coca-Cola	Coca-Cola Co	Mr Kipling	Premier Foods
Comfort	Unilever	Muller	Muller Diary
Fairy	P&G	Pepsi	PepsiCo
Heinz	Kraft Heinz	Pringles	Kellanova
Kellogg	Kellogg	Walkers	PepsiCo
Kinder	Ferrero	Warburtons	Warburtons
McCain	McCain	Yeo Valley	Yeo Valley
McVitie's	Pladis Global

NB All these brands are "Top" brands in the UK. They were chosen after shoppers selected ones they bought regularly from a long list of brands to ensure a significant number of responses for every brand. As a result, this list's "bottom" performers are still amongst the most frequently bought and top recommended brands in the UK.

When a product’s rating falls below the critical 4.0 mark, it is easy to panic or bury your head in the sand. After all, consumers rely heavily on reviews to guide their choices, and a poor score can signal trouble ahead for your products. Yet, rather than viewing these ratings as a dead-end, they can represent a valuable opportunity for growth and improvement.

At CheckoutSmart, we see these poor reviews not as a problem but as a unique opportunity to transform your product with SmartReformulation.

 

The Hidden Opportunity in Poor Reviews

Our analysis reveals that the bottom 20% of products with at least 30 reviews in UK supermarkets since 2023 have an average rating of less than 4.0. This figure underscores a vital truth: these products don’t need more reviews—they need reformulating to succeed.

Instead of trying to drown out the negativity with more reviews (which is rightly banned under recent legislation), it’s time to listen to your customers. Using the right tools, these less-than-ideal reviews can become a goldmine of insights that guide product improvement, revitalise your brand, and boost your sales.

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?

The recent meteoric rise of artificial intelligence (AI) models is revolutionising how we interact with computers and access information online. But has AI made a significant difference in ratings and reviews, and is it what shoppers want?

Amazon has rolled out generative AI to create succinct product-level summaries of reviews for many of its products to support shoppers' decision-making process. Several clients have asked us to explore how this has impacted a shopper’s experience when using Amazon and understand how these features are perceived compared to ‘traditional’ ratings and reviews.

To do this, we created a study to research how regular Amazon shoppers use the site. The study simulates the shopping process for a selection of grocery category products. 

We received over 2500 responses, and our key findings challenge the notion that AI automatically benefits users.

The 4 key takeaways are:

1. Individual Ratings and reviews are as important as ever
2. Shoppers don't hang around when shopping for groceries on Amazon
3. Amazon's AI features are hardly used or even noticed
4. There is little evidence of AI improving the shopping experience, but the generations split opinion

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.

The Top 3 points he made were:

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:

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.