Our goal is to provide genuine and authentic "Long-lasting Reviews" that accurately reflect the quality and performance of electronic products over time.

Our reviews can help customers make informed purchasing decisions, regardless of where they choose to shop.

It's important to note that our "Long-lasting Reviews" have a far-reaching impact beyond just the retail industry. By sharing all data collected with manufacturers, we can provide them with invaluable insights into how their products perform over time, which can lead to improvements in product design and durability. It will benefit not only our customers but also the wider industry.

In France, Darty is the leading retail brand in home appliances. Darty is part of the French legacy for decades and is valued by the French for its quality of service (especially after-sales services). In addition, it’s a company that’s committed for years towards sustainability and thanks to some of its pioneering initiatives, is often quoted as a benchmark by the industry. For instance, l’Ademe (the French Governmental Agency for Ecological Transition) has already leveraged Darty unique capabilities to create a standard for the whole industry when it came to set a sustainability score to help consumers in their choices. So, this is all about to let you know that when Darty does or says something on sustainability, they are listened to. Their voice has a strong power on the industry, and this comes with strong responsibility as well. We can’t bullshit things. We can’t run a scam.

In 2018, Darty’s CEO Enrique Martinez decided to put sustainability at the core of the company strategy and not just as something nice to say. A strategy that aims to fight against overconsumption, obsolescence and ressources exhaustion, by offering people solutions to increase the longevity of their products at every step of their lifecyle, even if it means selling less. That’s why this strategy led Darty to shift it business model, in order to keep growing by finding value beyond sales. But you may have the vision and the tools, it’s useless as long as people don’t embrace it. At the end, the power and so the change belong to all of us, as consumers and that’s why the objective was nothing more than onboarding them on Darty’s journey.

Let’s be fair, it’s a simple idea that looks like quite obvious once you have the problem in mind. However, it has never been done before. It’s about changing the rules of reviews to ensure that we let time take its course, by asking people to share their feedback after more than one year of use.

Simple, but powerful to change habits without changing habits.

Simple, but powerful to reframe the way we assign value to things.

Simple, but powerful to help people make choices through the lens of long-term.

Simple, but powerful to instill this new mindset at the core of the commerce machine.

The importance of customer reviews cannot be denied, and it’s evident from the fact that a majority of Darty's customers (55.2%) consider the durability of products as their top priority when making a purchase. These customers are also more selective than the average French consumer, as they meticulously scrutinize the reviews posted on platforms, with a margin of 5% more than national average.

Despite some inherent biases, customer reviews are here to continue to be a valuable source of information for consumers.

Rather than questioning the relevance of customer reviews, we aimed to empower them by revolutionizing the review engine. Our new initiative, "Long-lasting Reviews", invites customers to provide feedback on products they have used for over 18 months, making the reviews more credible and reliable. By doing so, we hope to enhance the usefulness of customer reviews and provide consumers with valuable insights that can inform their purchasing decisions.

To implement our new initiative, "Long-lasting Reviews", we began by utilizing our customer database to send an email invitation to those who had purchased a product at least 18 months ago. In the email, we explained the initiative and invited them to rate their product based on two key aspects: product efficacy and looks. Additionally, customers were given the opportunity to write a detailed review of their experience with the product.

After collecting the data from the reviews, we analyzed it to create long-lasting grades that showcased the durability of the products. We were then able to start showcasing long-lasting grades, helping our customers make wiser choices.

First, the launching advertising campaign on the “Let’s make it last” has delivered strong results (source: CSA institute, 2023):

• A trustworthy brand: +23 points

• A leading brand: +17 points

• A brand that offers products with good value for money: +19 points

• A brand I feel connected to: +23 points

• Desire to learn more about the brand: +18 points

• Desire to recommend the brand: +26 points

• Desire to purchase products offered by Darty: +21 points

Then, when it comes to the long-lasting reviews, the ambition was to push the initiative to our consumers (to date 3 845 663 consumers have been reached, for 18 225 products to be reviewed) but also to anchor it at an industry level. And we worked in collaboration with l’Ademe (French Governmental Agency for Ecological Transition).