Retailers Invest in Reviews, Shipping Upgrades to Better Compete With Amazon

As retailers know, much of Amazon’s success can be credited to its many innovations, from supply chain to customer experience to merchandising and more. To keep pace with the e-commerce leader and its many technology innovations, retailers have started to implement new technology capabilities of their own.

In the chart below, taken from Total Retail's most recent research report, The Amazon Effect: How Retailers Are Adapting Their Businesses to Better Compete With the Industry Leader, you can see that 26 percent of retailers surveyed have added customer recommendations and reviews in the past two years. Amazon offers shoppers tons of product reviews. This is particularly important, as consumers are significantly more likely to trust another customer about the quality and value of a product than they are to trust the retailer itself. Therefore, retailers have invested in customer reviews to make the customer experience as similar to shopping on Amazon as possible.

In addition to reviews, retailers are choosing most frequently to invest in their shipping capabilities in order to better compete with Amazon. Twenty percent of respondents said they have added free or expedited shipping options due to membership in loyalty program, order size or other criteria. Again, this makes sense considering the massive appeal Amazon Prime — and its promise for free, two-day shipping on all orders in exchange for a $99 annual fee — holds for most consumers.

We’ll continue our coverage of "The Amazon Effect: How Retailers Are Adapting Their Businesses to Better Compete With the Industry Leader," next Tuesday, when we analyze retailers’ thoughts on how consumers’ expectations for order delivery have changed because of Amazon's proficiency in this area. In the meantime, make sure to download the full report!