Wal-Mart Buyers Write Candid Product Blog
March 3, 2008
In a relatively bold move toward marketing transparency, Wal-Mart has launched a new web site called Check Out that allows their low-level product buyers to write honest (and occasionally unfavorable) reviews of the products in Wal-Mart stores. I really feel that this is a great strategy. It positions Wal-Mart as an honest source for product information online, allowing visitors to connect with Wal-Mart employees as real people instead of cogs in a giant impersonal entity.
Positive reviews of products will definitely have positive effects on in-store and online purchases, but I feel that the opposite effect isn’t as much of a risk. By giving the product buyers freedom to pan products in online reviews, Wal-Mart probably won’t see traumatic results for sales in the store where point-of-sale advertising is still going to dominate and be geared toward price conscience and impulse buyers. Now… if Wal-Mart suddenly starts posting negative reviews on pieces of paper right next to the products in the store, the strategy might not work so well, but I doubt we’ll be seeing that any time soon.
Read more in the New York Times article by Michael Barbaro titled “Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write Unfiltered Blog“.
