It has been six months since Macy’s opened its Web site to customer comments and reviews, and Peter Sachse, the chairman and chief executive of macys.com, regularly finds himself surprised by what the company is learning from its clientele. The site now gets upward of 350 reviews a day, some full of praise, others with serious concerns.Marketing companies have longed for years to have a window on how consumers use their products, in order to develop product innovations and improve marketing. Procter & Gamble, for example, follows mothers for weeks at a time to see how they use Tide detergent and Olay skin-care creams. P&G has even had women strap video cameras to their heads to see what they do moment by moment.
More Likely to Buy
Now, as more and more retailers have opened up their sites over the past year, they have been able to listen in on conversations that couldn’t even take place before. Customer feedback is opening the eyes of the industry, changing the way they market, manufacture, and merchandise. In one recent example from Macy’s, consumers complained that a metal toothbrush holder was rusting countertops. Sachse and his staff took notice — and promptly pulled the item from the site.
Customer reviews have long been part of cutting-edge sites like Amazon.com and Netflix, but the practice is spreading dramatically these days to a broader array of retailers. By the end of 2006, 43% of e-commerce sites offered customer reviews and ratings, almost double the 23% figure at the end of 2005, according to New York research firm MarketingSherpa
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