Best Buy wants to hear what customers have to say.
As part of its newly redesigned website, the company is letting consumers review and rate products and post their comments at Bestbuy.ca
Kaisen Choi, senior merchant manager for the website, said the move is a response to customer demand for consumer-generated information.
Choi said consumers usually research technology online before making a purchase. Wanting to take advantage of its high volume of online traffic, Best Buy began redesigning its website this spring. Choi admitted s that Best Buy’s the old site was cluttered, but says said the company retailer has made changes to the website based on industry research and customer feedback to make it more user-friendly.
Because Best Buy sells a lot of big-ticket items, Choi said customers want as much information as possible before they make their final decision. “People want to make sure [they’re buying] the right product,” he said, adding that customers feel more confident getting reviews from an independent sources than from a manufacturer.
Best Buy has also partnered with GameSpot.com, a video-game and system review website. Best Buy’s website now links to reviews from GameSpot.
Best Buy decided to do a soft launch of the new website to work out the bugs before the influx of back-to-school and Christmas traffic. Choi said that with one of the biggest retail seasons starting, the site will have many more customer-generated reviews before the Christmas season starts. A large marketing push aimed at directing traffic to the website is planned later this autumn.
