Bazaarvoice Wins Austin Business Journal's "Tech Innovation" Award in Software Category

Bazaarvoice, the market and technology leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales, today announced that it has received an Austin Business Journal “Tech Innovation” award for its hosted Ask & Answer™ service. The award recognizes Bazaarvoice for pioneering an important new way for multichannel businesses to tap into the social nature of the shopping experience to drive sales, satisfaction, and loyalty. Bazaarvoice manages social commerce capabilities for more than 150 leading online businesses including Bass Pro Shops, Dell, Macy’s, Overstock.com, PETCO, QVC, Sears, and ZipRealty.

Bazaarvoice was presented with the award, sponsored by Eureka Software, on Thursday, November 29 at a ceremony held at the Sheraton Austin Hotel. Bazaarvoice was selected as a finalist for the award from among dozens of Austin-based software companies, and then chosen as a winner by the public.

''We set out to find some of the best and brightest innovators in Central Texas,” said Lyn Chasteen, publisher of the Austin Business Journal. “The team at Bazaarvoice is helping online retailers and consumers communicate in a brand new way.”

“People are much more likely to purchase when they can share their credible, experienced opinions with each other about specific products and services; in fact some 68 percent of consumers trust each other’s reviews about products more than any other source of information,” said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “The tremendous success of Ratings & Reviews, and now Ask & Answer, proves that social commerce capabilities have become a must-have for all companies that want to drive sales, improve profitability, and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. As an Austin native and entrepreneur, I am very proud to see us recognized by the Austin Business Journal and their readers.”

Launched in May 2007, the Ask & Answer service encourages shoppers to engage their peers in purchase decisions by posting and responding to specific questions about products and services directly alongside standard product information. Companies who implement Ask & Answer on their sites are able to tap the power of online communities to address the unanswered questions that can stop a purchase and send a visitor to a competing site. Client interviews and implementation specifics are available at the Bazaarvoice blog (http://www.bazaarblog.com).

“Less than 3 percent of shoppers make a purchase when they visit a retail site because they have unanswered questions,” said Sam Decker, CMO of Bazaarvoice. “Ask & Answer is designed to capture questions written in customers’ own words, facilitate credible answers from customers and the company, and archive this content so that site visitors can make informed purchases on the spot.”

Bazaarvoice is committed to building products that help online businesses improve the way they do business by connecting them with their customers to provide a better shopping experience. Bazaarvoice’s profitable business model is based on the industry’s most customizable hosted technology, reliable and accurate content moderation, dedicated client services, and seamless integration with over 30 leading eCommerce partners.

Bazaarvoice is expanding quickly in Austin and London. All current job openings can be found at http://www.bazaarvoice.com/jobs.html.

About Bazaarvoice
Bazaarvoice offers outsourced technology, services, analytics, and expertise to help companies enhance the online shopping experience with social commerce applications that drive sales. Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews™ and Ask & Answer™ deliver immediate success by minimizing implementation risk and maximizing the strategic impact of user-generated review content through complete customization, deep integration, community management, advanced analytics, search engine optimization, and syndication across the Web and to offline channels.

Bazaarvoice was named a Red Herring Top 100 company in 2006 and received the 2006 ClickZ Marketing Innovation of the Year award. Bazaarvoice currently serves over 150 eCommerce leaders including Bass Pro Shops, Dell, Macy’s, Overstock.com, PETCO, QVC, Sears, and ZipRealty. The company has headquarters in Austin, TX and offices in London, UK. For more information, please visit the company’s Web site at www.bazaarvoice.com or email document.write('info@bazaarvoice.com<\/a>'); info@bazaarvoice.com .