Customer Advocacy Lowers Product Returns at Petco

Bazaarvoice, the market and technology leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales, announced that PETCO Animal Supplies has significantly decreased return rates by encouraging customers to rate and review products on PETCO.com.

On average, products with reviews have a 20.4% lower return rate than products without reviews. PETCO also found that the return rate continues to decline as the product gains more reviews. In fact, products with more than 50 reviews have a 135% lower return rate than products with less than five reviews.

The significantly lowered return rate on products has resulted in considerable annual savings for PETCO.com. Bazaarvoice has helped PETCO.com creatively use ratings and reviews content to increase the reach and relevance of the customer voice through:

Email: PETCO realized a 5X increase in email click-through rates by including relevant ratings and reviews content in the campaign promotion.

Site Navigation: Top-rated products path featuring four and five-star products in each category delivered 49% higher conversion and 63% higher spend as compared to the traditional shopping paths on PETCO.com.

Site Search: Searchers that sort by ratings spend 41% more than searchers using conventional sort methods.