Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

The premise that consumers would find more articulate and intelligent-sounding comments more persuasive is as logical as it is disconcerting. It's disconcerting in that it reopens the "should we change the comments in any way and, if we do, how far should we go? And, who should do it and what should the rules be?" debate. Is the boost in sales worth the higher copy editing costs? Are automated systems (Zappos has been using Amazon Mechanical Turk for just such an effort) sufficiently accurate? Here's a frightening one: If you go the copy edit route, are you obliged to do it for all comments? What if you only cleaned up the positive reviews, leaving the negative ones verbatim, hoping the typos and poor grammar will dissuade other shoppers from being discouraged from buying?Read more...

This tactic is hardly new, as many chains—including Price Chopper and Wegmans—have been doing this for at least a year and several very large retailers are exploring it. But Costco is the largest retailer to have launched it on such a large scale.Read more...

Costco's deployment of Costco Reviews went out of its way to avoid anything controversial or, for that matter, innovative or creative. Almost all of the functionality has been outsourced to an Austin-based social commerce vendor called Bazaarvoice, which will review all comments and post them within 24 hours, once any profanity or "completely inappropriate" comments are removed, said Ginnie Roeglin, Costco's Senior VP for E-Commerce. Read more...

That's way outside the traditional scope of an E-Commerce president. Then again, Durchslag's lack of retail experience and tech background might explain much of his optimism—and his scope creep. And he's still up against Best Buy's reputation as a victim of showrooming, unknowledgeable associates, high prices and the customer perception that it's the electronics retailer of last resort—after Amazon, Walmart, Target and Costco have turned up empty. Durchslag understands some of the huge perception issues his team must overcome. "Showrooming is a symptom, not a cause," he said. "It's arrogant to think that you're going to cause or prevent that kind of behavior. It is a reality that is happening today. The only question is: Are you going to harness that and make things easier, or are you going to try and put your head in the sand and deny reality?"Read more...

It's for that reason that recent actions from a site specializing in consumer reviews are so baffling. The site, Yelp, has championed the power of customer reviews and it reports some 31 million consumers visiting its site last month. But Yelp then gave vendor advertisers the capability to select which reviews would lead certain pages and it also selectively—and secretly, in the sense that it didn't flag it to its visitors—removed various reviews.Read more...

A rather blatant incident that was widely reported last week (Jan. 16) involving Amazon and electronics manufacturer Belkin has sharply reinforced those fears among e-tailers. Even worse, it has the potential to shatter the confidence of online shoppers.Read more...

Like every major sales and communications advance that preceded it, e-commerce's 12-year existence has moved along in phases, as it slowly abandoned earlier methods to accept the new reality.
Offline and online brands were initially kept distinct, then they were awkwardly merged. Initial e-commerce efforts were flashy brochure sites, with rudimentary shopping carts and checkout. Read more...