Consumers trump marketers in battle for purchasing influence

Austin, Texas – If your brand’s consumers aren’t slapping up photos of how they’re decorating with your products IRL, it’s time to step up your game. A new survey of more than 7,000 global shoppers found that the power behind brand marketing has moved from B2C to C2C.

According to Bazaarvoice’s  annual Shopper Experience Index, shopper-generated content beats brand-generated content in swaying purchasing decisions. In the U.S., 71% of consumers say that photos from other shoppers on a product page increases the likelihood of their buying a product.

While 53% of Americans want brands to use a mix of both professional photography and user-generated content (UGC) when showcasing products, 54% said that UGC makes them more confident in their purchase decision than professional photography (46%) does. Half said they would still buy a product if there are no professional product photos on the product page.

Other key points from the survey:

• 69% of consumers have been inspired by social media to make a purchase.
• Some pandemic shopping habits are sticking; 64% said a hybrid of online and in-store shopping has been their primary way of buying products of the past six months.
• Half of Americans saying they didn’t buy on social media prior to 2021. But now, 47% purchase on social media one to two times a month, up from 38.5% in 2021.
• 54% said they’d be more likely to buy from social media if they could simply click the post to make a purchase.

“What used to be business-to-consumer marketing, is now becoming consumer-to-business, and in some sectors, already morphing into consumer-to-consumer as consumers value and trust what other shoppers say about a brand and its products more than branded content,” said Zarina Lam Stanford, CMO at Bazaarvoice, a provider of product reviews and user-generated content solutions

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