Commun{IT}

Challenge

How do most people make purchase decisions? While marketing & advertising plays a role, most purchase decisions are still based on reviews & recommendations. In today's world, the consumer is inundated with tens of brands, hundreds of products and thousands of SKUs. With this chaos, it is only natural for the customers to get confused. And what do customers do when they feel confused, they delay buying decisions till someone else makes the decision for them.

Background

Before advertising gained prominence in the mid-20th century, reviews and recommendations were pretty much the only way for businesses to gain new customers. Fast forward to the age of internet, a lot of companies like Amazon have tapped into this fundamental human urge of seeking reviews, and built a system of crowd sourced reviews inside their platform. And the consumers love it. It makes it extremely easy for them to make their buying decisions. The rationale is, if something works for hundreds of people, it might as well work for them. Going by someone else's recommendation is an extremely helpful shortcut too. First it eliminates the confusion, and second and more importantly, it removes the guilt of having made a bad decision. After all, it wasn't someone else who made the decision for them.

Authentic feedback directly from the existing users doesn't just help new users make the purchase decisions, it also helps brands. First, it helps brands better understand their customers. Second, it helps brands optimize marketing ROI by spending on the right products. And third, it makes it easy for brands to determine the direction of product development.

Solution

Commun{IT} is a platform that creates a virtual community of verified customers for their ratings, feedback and reviews. The community helps new buyers leverage their experiences and influences the decision making process.