Stephanie Fierman - Marketing Observations Grown Daily

Stephanie Fierman Gets It Right With Consumerist

Wednesday December 31st 2008, 11:00 am
Filed under: blogs,customer service,Internet,market research,retail,women online,word of mouth

If you’re like me, you don’t need external affirmation or reinforcement of your decisions all the time… but sometimes is nice!

Back in June, I told you about The Consumerist, a wonderful online community and blog owned by Gawker. I raved about its informative stories about good and bad customer service experiences (“Shoppers Bite Back”), along with all the corporate phone numbers, addresses, etc. you frequently wish you had at your fingertips. The site also does a great job for its 1.8 million readers of promoting great deals and discounts.

Now comes the affirmation I mentioned: Consumer Union has just purchased The Consumerist! Jim Guest, President and CEO of Consumers Union, says that the Consumerist community’s passion for helping consumers shop in a “fair, safe and just marketplace” will add exponentially to his company’s relevance and reach. It will also bring younger readers into the Consumer Reports fold.

And for The Consumerist and Gawker: WOW. The site’s new owner knows a thing or two about online marketing and revenue generation. With 3.3 million loyal, paying readers, ConsumerReports.org is the largest paid-subscriber website in the world.

A good deal all around! Let’s just hope that Consumerist readers will continue to have access to its content free of charge… with some heavy-duty Consumer Reports cross-sell pitches thrown in, of course.

Consumers Union Consumer Reports consumerreports.org The Consumerist Consumers Union Buys Consumerist