Measure a seller's reputation with 'Frooly Score'

Monday 22nd August saw the release of frooly's long awaited tool to showcase seller reputation; Frooly Score.

Word of mouth makes the local commerce world go round.

It takes years of consistent service and happy customers to build a local reputation, but only seconds to destroy it.

We've all heard the stories of a favourite local restaurant or boutique that has lost its way. I suppose it's proximity - everyone loves a good gossip!

Why is reputation important?

A good reputation, means a seller is well respected, they have good products / service and deliver on time.

Recent research shows that a personal recommendation is worth 20 TV Adverts when it comes to purchase intention. People are like sheep, we all like to go to that 'cool' bar, but its hard to measure 'cool' or 'reputation' when it comes to e-commerce.

Services like Klout are great for measuring personal reputation. The frooly score applies a similar logic to help you make informed decisions about who to support and where to shop.

It's real world reputation, but applied to the web, which is the promise of social commerce.

How is the Frooly Score worked out?

The Frooly Score is our attempt to measure the shopper 'signals' to give a reputation score.

We measure Facebook Likes, Frooly Fans, Shop Sales, Traffic, Customer Enquiries and more to build a picture of a seller. These raw figures are given a weighting, for example a shop sale has more value than a Facebook Like, but they all contribute to the total score.

How does Frooly use the Frooly Score?

At the moment, we display the Frooly Score in the seller info on product listings. We also rank the top 12 Frooly Shops based on reputation - these are displayed on the frooly.com landing page:

We include a Frooly Score weighting in our search results algorithm and we're working on a dynamic league table for shops, locations and categories.

So that you can find the best Vintage Shop in London based on frooly score.

For now, we're open to your feedback about the weighting we give to shopper 'signals'. and how you think we should use the score to help shoppers.

Thanks

Michael

Ps.

If you have a shop on frooly, one way to gain more prominence is link your Facebook Fan Page, this way we can count your 'likers' into your score.

Here's a video of how to link your frooly shop and facebook page.