Company description
PowerReviews (www.powerreviews.com) is the Internet's most comprehensive developer of customer-review solutions for retailers and their shoppers. We provide customer reviews and social merchandising solutions to multi-channel retailers and their shoppers.
Our technology platform for collecting, organizing, structuring and moderating relevance-based reviews helps online retailers significantly boost their sales. PowerReviews' user-generated content and community drives the highest sales uplift in the industry, and in addition to working with more than 350 online retailers, including Staples, Toys "R" Us, REI, Ritz Camera, Walgreen's, Diapers.com and The Sports Authority.
We have also launched our own shopping research portal, Buzzillions (www.buzzillions.com). The company is based in San Francisco and is backed by Menlo Ventures and Draper Richards.
Team
Andy Chen, Founder and CEO
Andy is co-founder and CEO of PowerReviews, where he is responsible for the overall vision and strategic direction for the company.
At Fogdog, Andy led the customer acquisition and creative teams to create a world-class brand based on providing an extraordinary customer experience. Following the acquisition by GSI Commerce, Andy served as Vice President, Product Development and Vice President, Product Management for GSI. In these roles, he worked closely with GSI's ecommerce partners to ensure that the features and functionality of their sites provided an optimal customer experience.
Following GSI, Andy joined Yahoo! Shopping in 2004 as Director of Product Management. There, Andy was responsible for overseeing site features and functionality with a goal of positioning Yahoo! Shopping as the starting destination for customers shopping online. Andrew attended Stanford University.
Robert Chea, Founder and COO
Robert Chea is co-founder and chief operating officer of PowerReviews. In this role, Robert is the company's product and technology visionary, ensuring PowerReviews' features and functionality continue to meet the evolving needs of retailers and brands in today's research-intensive shopping environment.
At Fogdog, Robert led the technology and development efforts, and focused on delivering superior technologies and services to establish Fogdog as a leading online retail brand.
Robert also served as Chief Technology Officer for GSI, directing the company's overall technology infrastructure and development strategies to support ongoing rapid growth. Robert later transitioned into the role of Vice President of Strategy, where he led product management, user experience, and search strategy. Robert is a graduate of Stanford University.
Jim Morris, VP and GM, Buzzillions.com
Jim is VP of Shopping at PowerReviews, where he oversees the consumer research website, Buzzillions.com. His passion is creating a user-centric site where the actual words from real consumers lead shoppers to the best buying decision.
Born into the Internet in 1996, Jim has spent the last 11 years architecting, creating and managing large scale eCommerce services for hundreds of online retailers. He was part of the team that created the review service for Fogdog.com and knew then that reviews would revolutionize the buying experience.
Prior to PowerReviews, Jim served as an e-commerce architect and consultant to a variety of innovative eCommerce companies including GSI Commerce and NapaStyle. Jim is a graduate of Stanford University.
Business model
To date, we have collected over 1.5 million customer reviews across hundreds of thousands of products. These reviews are found on both our retail client sites (REI.com, Staples.com, ToysRus.com, etc.) as well as our own consumer site Buzzillions.com.
Through Buzzillions we are able to monetize traffic on a CPC/CPA revenue model.
Competitive advantage
Because we power the review technology and services for our clients, we are able to know whether a person writing a review has actually purchased the product or not, which we call "Verified Buyers." This adds a high level of credibility to our reviews, something that no other review site or shopping comparison site can offer.
Shammara Hussain
