| Bizrate Insights | |
| Type: | Subsidiary |
| Industry: | Market research |
| Founded: | 1996 in Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Founder: | Farhad Mohit, Henri Asseily |
| Hq Location City: | Los Angeles |
| Hq Location Country: | United States |
| Products: | Online ratings |
| Parent: | Dotdash Meredith |
Bizrate Insights Inc., trading as Bizrate Insights, is a market research company that provides consumer rating information to their customers. As a Dotdash Meredith company, Bizrate Insights is based in Los Angeles, California.
Consumers can see the ratings and reviews from buyers to help inform their purchase decisions.[1] Bizrate Insights also provides businesses with customer satisfaction, advanced analytics, and competitive benchmarks.[2] [3] [4]
Binary Compass Enterprises, later Bizrate, was founded in June 1996[5] by classmates at the University of California Los Angeles and Wharton School of Business, Farhad Mohit and Henri Asseily. The pair used a school project they authored while attending the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania as the basis for their original model of a research company.[6] [7] [8] [9]
The first retailer reviews were collected in 1997 after launching and rebranding the website as Bizrate.com. Services were later expanded to include comparison shopping.[7] In August 1999, Bizrate partnered with Consumer Reports to provide ratings in both the print and online editions of the Consumer Reports.[10] During this year, Bizrate also launched its "Don't get e-screwed campaign".[11]
In 2004, Bizrate rebranded to Shopzilla, while still providing ratings and reviews to Bizrate too.[12] In 2010, Bizrate Insights formed a partnership with Google to begin distributing retailer ratings and reviews from Bizrate Insights to Google Product Search and Google AdWords ads.[13] Since then, this has been expanded to include syndication to several partners across the internet.
In June 2005, E.W. Scripps acquired Shopzilla, which included all operating websites and Bizrate Insights.[14] In June 2011, Symphony Technology Group acquired Shopzilla, including all operating websites and Bizrate Insights. In September 2014, Shopzilla.com rebranded to Connexity, Inc.; Bizrate Insights continued to operate under the Connexity umbrella.[15] In June 2015, Connexity acquired PriceGrabber. Customer feedback collected under PriceGrabber was then collected by Bizrate Insights. In September 2016, The Bizrate Insights division of Connexity is acquired by Synapse Group Inc., a division of Time Inc.[16] [17] [18]
Bizrate Insights's Bizrate Survey is conducted on the order confirmation page. It covers point-of-sale topics such as overall satisfaction, product selection, ease of finding products, and checkout. The survey is emailed to consumers who responded.[8] [19] [20] The Bizrate Insights Site Abandonment survey is available to retailers who used the Buyer survey. This survey asks customers to provide feedback when leaving the site without completing a purchase.