Bazaarvoice: Supercharge your commerce engine

I’m Alastair Forbes. Feel free to call me Al. You can reach me at al@bazaar.com. I lead the partnerships team at Bazaarvoice across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. We’re developing a new and exciting partnership with Rusty Monkey, which is why I’m thrilled to be here today. The brief I was given was to be interesting and not too salesy—something I think all of today’s speakers are aiming for. So you’ll get thought leadership and industry insights from me, rather than a product pitch. A bit of fun fact about me: I studied in Nottingham and graduated in 1997—this is my first time back since. I also spent a year studying at UNB in Canada. My university friends used to joke that you should ignore 50% of what I say and disregard the rest… hopefully I’ve evolved since then! Today, I want to talk about how to “supercharge your commerce engine”—a very American phrase, but appropriate here. I work for an American company, after all. At Bazaarvoice, we’re based in Austin, Texas—home to real Texan BBQ. In fact, I brought a BBQ apron with me to give away! To kick things off, I put $12 trillion on a slide and asked the audience what it could mean. It’s not Apple’s cash balance or Louis Vuitton’s valuation. It’s the projected global spending power of Gen Alpha by 2030. Gen Alpha, born between 2010 and 2024, will begin leaving school from this year onwards. There are 2 billion of them—making them the largest generation in history. One staggering stat from Accenture’s lifestyle commerce research: 40% of Gen Alpha—800 million people—will have made money online before they leave school. I have five nephews in this generation—three have already made money online. One earns $3,000 AUD a month from helping people play Geometry Dash. Others have made smaller amounts on YouTube through unboxings and POV content. Another big number: 27%. That’s the percentage of global household expenditure Gen Alpha already influences. In the UK, that’s 26%, equating to £3.3 billion today. I see it myself—my kids come home talking about electric cars and food ethics. They even challenge our holiday choices on environmental grounds! Social shopping is fast becoming the battleground for brands. If Gen Alpha’s spending hits $12T by 2030, then $7B of that is expected to happen via social platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Brands are responding. Unilever’s CEO Fernando Fernandez announced that 50% of their marketing budget is going toward user-generated content (UGC). They’re working with 20x more creators to co-create content. Why? Because social and user-generated content is more authentic, more trusted—and more effective. It’s notoriously difficult to track ROI from traditional paid ads. ROAS (return on ad spend) typically falls between 2–4%, and attribution remains murky. UGC, on the other hand, has been shown to convert at 25–30%, and when combined with paid media, that can rise above 40%. Social has evolved: from entertainment to discovery, to search engine, to storefront. In fact, 59% of Gen Z are making at least one purchase a month on social channels. Across 12 European countries, 18–24 year-olds spend €175/month on social media purchases. Still, trust remains an issue. Many people worry about scams, fake brands, and identity theft. I’ve experienced this myself—I once bought a playpen on Instagram that turned out to be a space blanket. There was no way to track the order. UGC helps combat these issues. Peer reviews and authentic content provide reassurance. Brands can further increase trust by steering users from inspirational content on social to product detail pages (PDPs) they own. One jewellery brand did an A/B test—adding review stars to their checkout basket. In just 10 days, they saw a 4% increase in conversion. So even small tweaks to showcase UGC can yield big results. Every year, Bazaarvoice publishes the Shopper Experience Index. One finding: social shopping isn’t as impulsive as people think. Only 27% reported impulse buys on low-cost items (~£12). Most users research and price check before purchasing. Top-of-funnel content should be more shoppable; bottom-of-funnel content should tell better stories. That’s what Mondelez’s CMO said at Shoptalk, and it aligns with our full-funnel approach at Bazaarvoice. In 2023, social was key to discovery—39% of shoppers used it to find new products. Although 2024 dipped slightly, the trend remains strong. Invest in creators and UGC to win at the top of the funnel. For consideration, reviews and demos matter. Kraft Heinz, for example, works with creators to share recipe content featuring their sauces—driving impressions and time-on-site. Purchasing through social is growing fast. In 2024, 31% of shoppers buy via social—up from 17% in 2021. Frictionless checkout, proper tagging, and a seamless user journey are essential. At the bottom of the funnel, loyalty and advocacy can’t be left to chance. Brands need to nurture relationships through content, exclusive drops, and creator partnerships. Here’s a thought we posed at a dinner with 24 fashion leaders: Do you own your brand—or does the market? The room was split. Fernando Fernandez of Unilever clearly thinks the market does, hence the pivot toward UGC. Look at brands like Shark Ninja—they’ve embraced social. Their competitors? Some still think they own their brand entirely. It’ll be interesting to see which approach wins. 70%+ of consumers engage with creator content before making a purchase. Gen Z especially trusts influencers more than ads. They treat reviews like recommendations from friends. Even conservative industries like golf are shifting. Golf brands now invest in YouTubers instead of pros—because creators are more relatable, trusted, and influential. In 2024, the categories with the highest UGC conversion rates were electronics, apparel, and health & beauty. Bazaarvoice has been around since 2005—two years older than the iPhone. We’ve focused on ratings and reviews, scaling content syndication across 2.5 billion monthly shoppers and 9 billion PDPs. To go full-funnel, we’ve acquired platforms like Affable (creator marketing), Influenster (sampling), and Curalate (social commerce). We’re also integrating UGC into SMS and email to support seasonal campaigns and cart abandonment. Email response rates to creators average 4%. SMS? 30%+. The read rate is in the high 90s. Embedding UGC links in SMS works. Moderation remains crucial. We use AI plus 300 human moderators to ensure authenticity. That’s a big reason Zalando—once fined €19M for fake reviews—now works with us. We source, curate, amplify, and optimise UGC with full-funnel analytics. Our platform, Bazaarvoice VIBE, tracks ROI on every piece of content—an industry first. Through our partnership with Rusty Monkey, we’re offering to activate VIBE galleries on your site, fund sampling campaigns, and support integration—all at no cost to test impact. VIBE is accessible, with options for SMBs and enterprise brands. If you’re curious, talk to us upstairs. Final stats:

• 3B social impressions monthly
• 59% of social storefront visits convert to ecom journeys
• 251% increase in revenue per session with UGC

Thank you—and happy to take any questions.