Food Circle Supermarket is not your average retailer.

Instead of looking to produce more food, they want to try and reduce food waste and the enormous strain it puts on our planet. They do this by selling surplus products from some of the largest snacking brands in the world and help distribute any product that is short dated, overstock, has old branding, or would otherwise be wasted.

Their business model works well because it’s a win for everyone involved. They’re able to sell the surplus products at a heavily discounted rate and ship them right to their door, saving their customers time and money on the products they need. And they’re able to help brands from having to waste surplus products and deal with the logistical headache that comes with disposing of them.

A customer nudge towards customer reviews

Because their prices are often more than 50% less than what the usual price would be, it was hard for them to be seen as trustworthy to new customers. Many of them just assumed there was a catch or that it was a scam. They actually started using Trustpilot’s free platform after a customer reached out to them in 2019 and suggested they get a Trustpilot page — specifically because their prices seemed too good to be true!

By the time they had accumulated around 200 reviews – almost all of which were 5-stars – they realized the impact that positive reviews could have on their brand reputation online. At this point they could clearly see the effect customer reviews had on building trust and they knew that upgrading to a paid plan would get them more review invitations and other helpful features.

Better ways to showcase their customer feedback

Their new plan also came with better ways to use their reviews throughout their customer journey and highlight the online trust they were working so hard to build. They started by implementing a live carousel of customer reviews right on their homepage, to build trust with any new visitors to their site. And with their industry becoming more and more competitive, any additional trust they could convey was a huge help in giving them a competitive edge.

Since their reviews have been so overwhelmingly positive, they also want to point customers back to their Trustpilot page wherever possible. They started including their rating at the bottom of their emails with a link to direct people to their profile page and point them to all of their positive reviews.

This way – regardless of the email’s call to action– anyone who is on the fence can take a look at the feedback from all of their happy customers and know they’re in good hands. With some help from Trustpilot’s social media tools, it also became quick and easy to turn customer reviews into an eye-catching social post.

Every brand knows that coming up with unique content for their social channels is extremely challenging. They’re aware that they need to post on a regular basis to keep up a social presence, even though the majority of branded content is something their audience doesn’t actually want to see.

Instead of wasting time trying to reinvent the wheel and post the same repetitive posts about their brand, they’ve unlocked a steady stream of visual content — that their customers are truly interested in — and that helps drive sales.

Integrations to make their teams’ lives easier

For any business, systems that don’t integrate together can create massive headaches for your teams. Food Circle Supermarket uses Shopify, so it was really important that they find a review platform that had an integration with them.

As a result, they’re able to add review carousels and widgets to their site in seconds, so there’s no hassle to make changes or adjustments. It’s quick and easy.