***User Generated Content (UGC)***
"1. Situation Analysis"
**- CUSTOMERS -**
“Story:” As a customer seeking to make an informed purchase decision, I need to know what the user community thinks about a product. This information should be unbiased, insightful, and presented in a way that is easy to understand. Targets: All customers/visitors coming to Walmart.com
**Behaviors/Trends (Data/VOC):** UGC continues to play a bigger role in e-commerce and the format in which customers consume content continues to evolve. 
**Needs/Problems to Solve (Data/VOC):**
1. Breadth 
2. Depth 
3. Quality 
**- COMPETITION -**
**Key Competitors:** Amazon
**Advantages/Disadvantages:** Amazon is the #1 
destination for ratings & reviews. Amazon has greater breadth, depth, and quality of reviews across their site. 
**Positioning/Moves:** Their key competitive advantage is that they have more transactions, thus leading to more native reviews via email solicitation. 
**- WALMART CAPABILITIES -**
Strengths: Authenticity, syndication, leveraging in-store customer through Savings Catcher
Weaknesses: Low frequency customers, limited 
technology resources, 3rd party dependency 
Opportunities Get to parity with UGC– leverage loyal customers to increase reviews
Threats: Amazon

"2. Strategy and Plan"
Business lead: Jenny Sidorova
*** - OKRs -**
Objective: Improve breadth, depth, and quality of customer voice and reviews on Walmart.com
**Key Results:** Review coverage rate, SKU coverage rate, average word count per review, UGC imagery on the item page for relevant categories, % of customers who interact with UGC, conversion impact from those customers, share of native reviews
**- STRATEGY -**
1. Optimize end-to-end review creation process / increase share of native content generation
2. Evolve instrumentation and measurement of customer interaction with UGC to guide strategy through analytics
3. Grow syndication program Alpine – improve barrier to entry
4. Build discovery and kick off for in-house solution
5. Non traditional content collection and display, introducing new touch points to collect content

**- "OPERATING PLAN" -**
**Prioritized Initiatives:**
1. Deploy Bazaarvoice ROI Beacon (Q3 FY17)
2. Product innovations to optimize native reviews (Q4 FY17)
3. Sign on ~700 suppliers for Syndication (completed Q4 FY18)
4. Identify build for in-house solution (Q4 FY18)
5. Sampling Program through 3rd party (FY18)
6. Curations on item pages (Q3 FY17), explore new formats (chat, etc.) - Ongoing

**Product Roadmap:**
1. 10 reviews shown versus 5, Curations, ROI Beacon (Q3 FY17)
2. Submission form optimization, Search in Q&A, Review highlights, Reviews in My Account (Q4 FY17)
3. Allowing users to recover rejected reviews (Q1 FY18), identify and deploy new touch points to collect content (Q3-Q4 FY18)
4. Build discovery, technology implementation and optimization (FY19, FY20, FY21)

**Dependencies:** Technology, Engineering, Vertical teams, Email

"3. Investment Case"
Product lead: Azad Zahoory
**- COSTS -**
People/Teams: UGC Business, Product, 
Engineering, Bazaarvoice, and all Vertical teams 
related
T-Shirt Size – Overall: Medium
Product T-Shirt Size: Medium
Budget T-Shirt Size: Medium-Large
- FINANCIAL BENEFITS
**Revenue (GMV) & Profit :**
FY18 REVENUE:$258M
FY18 PROFITS:$8M
FY19 REVENUE:$139M
FY19 PROFITS:$5M
FY20 REVENUE:$675M
FY20 PROFITS:$24M
FY21 REVENUE:$1,096M
FY21 PROFITS:



***KPIs (Customer & Operating)***
**KPIs’ Metrics:**
• L1 & L2 KPIs targets by Qtr
• 3 KPIs targets by Qtr
Metric 1: Review coverage rate; Baseline: 5.43%; Goal: 8%
Metric 2: Sold sku coverage rate; Baseline: 21.5%; Goal: 20% 
Metric 3: Page view sku coverage rate; Baseline: n/a; Goal: 10%
Metric 4: Native review growth (new native reviews); Baseline: 1MM; Goal: unlimited 
Metric 5: Average characters in a review (quality indicator);  Baseline: 47; Goal: 8%
Metric 6: Review submission rate; Baseline: ~4%; Goal: 8%
Metric 7: Was this review helpful? (only relevant for native reviews); Baseline: 12.5%; Goal: 20%
Metric 8: percentage of users who interact with UGC; Baseline: 3.8%; Goal: 10%
Metric 9: Conversion impact on above users; Baseline: 2x; Goal: 4x
Metric 10: Skus with reviews; Baseline: 361K; Goal:100% of sold skus



***Situation Analysis: Past and Current Results***
– UGC performance (past, FY17 YTD, and FY17 projected):
• Review Volume: Native and Syndicated Reviews

**"KPIs to keep monthly track of"**
• **Long range KPIs:** will not change frequently but need to be affected over time with key business and product strategies
• **Frequency contributor:**Mutli-touch attribution study performed by TAO team has confirmed UGC contributes to higher frequency. We will further explore and develop KPI in FY17 &18

Metric: FY16; FY17; YTD FY17; EOY Forecast Long Term Goal
Review submission rate: ~4%; ~4%; 5%; 8%
Was this review helpful? (only relevant for native reviews): 15% 12.5% 15% 20%
%age of users who interact with UGC Not available 3.8% 4% 10%
Conversion impact on above users Not available 2x 2x 4x
Skus with reviews 332K 361K Need sold sku forecast for total 
site to be able to calculate 100% of sold skus
Metric FY16 FY17 YTD FY17 EOY Forecast Long Term Goal
Review coverage rate 5.43% 4.7% 1.6%* 20%***
Sold sku coverage rate 21.5% 22%** 22% 100%
Page view sku coverage rate n/a 75% 75% 85%
Native review growth (new native reviews) 1MM 475K 1.8MM unlimited
Average characters in a review (quality indicator) 47 46 46 60

*Based on current plan to carry 25MM Skus (+310% comp YoY) on the site by EOY FY17, and grow sales by a +13% comp, review coverage will significantly decrease
**FY17 YTD: total sold sku coverage rate = 22%, total sold sku coverage rate on 1P = 36%, majority of sku growth is coming from Marketplace thus underlining review and sold sku coverage rates dependencies
***Industry average = 20%, Amazon’s is 5% according to Bazaarvoice



***Situation Analysis: CustomersSegmentation/Targeting***
• All customers visiting Walmart.com Needs/Problems to Solve
• 1. "Breadth"
- Only 5% of Walmart.com item pages have reviews, which leads to poor discoverability for the other items as well as lower conversion. 
• 2. "Depth"
- Even for items with reviews, more reviews will lead to higher conversion.
- Only 15% of items with reviews have +10 reviews
• 3. "Quality"
- Reviews with higher word count and imagery lead to higher conversion and positively impact SEO. 
• 4. Walmart.com's review coverage is highly driven by syndication 
and dependent on 3rd party Bazaarvoice
- 85% of total reviews are syndicated reviews
- Syndication does NOT drive breadth - review coverage ("of 5% coverage rate, only 0.5% comes from syndication")
- If we stop syndication with Bazaarvoice, we lose the reviews

**Behaviors/Trends:**
• UGC continues to play a bigger role in e-commerce and the format in which customers consume content continues to evolve. As e-commerce wins share from B&M, UGC plays a bigger role.
• ~90% of e-commerce customers read reviews before making a purchase*
* Bazaarvoice industry data Needs/Problems to Solve
• 1. Breadth 
- Only 5% of Walmart.com item pages have reviews, which leads to poor discoverability for the other items as well as lower conversion. 
• 2. Depth 
- Even for items with reviews, more reviews will lead to higher conversion.
- Only 15% of items with reviews have +10 reviews
• 3. Quality
- Reviews with higher word count and imagery lead to higher conversion and positively impact SEO. 
• 4. Walmart.com's review coverage is highly driven by syndication and dependent on 3rd party Bazaarvoice
- 85% of total reviews are syndicated reviews
- Syndication does NOT drive breadth - review coverage ("of 5% coverage rate, only 0.5% comes from syndication")
- If we stop syndication with Bazaarvoice, we lose the reviews
Customer “Story:” As a costumer, I reference reviews whenever I consider buying something online. I turn to other customer feedback because I know they are real shoppers like me and their opinion will be authentic and unbiased. I want to see several reviews but I also want them to be relevant and easy to find.





***Situation Analysis: Competition**
**Key Competitors:* Amazon
**Advantages/Disadvantages:**
• Amazon is the #1 destination for ratings 
& reviews. Amazon has greater breadth, 
depth, and quality of reviews across their 
site. Amazon also has high frequency 
customers.
• Amazon has far more dedicated 
resources as well as a true in-house 
solution for UGC (moderation & 
authenticity as well as native review 
generator programs).
• Amazon Vine – sampling program
• Optimized PIE
• Employee review generator program
• Estimated they have large in–house team 
dedicated to UGC, product resources to prioritizing where the reviews are.

**Positioning/Moves:**
• Amazon’s key competitive advantage is that they have more transactions, thus leading to more native reviews (sales drive native reviews).
• Amazon has programs in place to drive native reviews post transaction.
• Reviews are very discoverable and 
prevalent on the site, making Amazon a true research destination for reviews.




***Situation Analysis: Walmart.com Capabilities***
**Strengths:**
• Authenticity – Reviews on Walmart.com are not 
questioned for authenticity (contrary to Amazon)
• Syndication - process in place for syndication 
with Bazaarvoice
• Leveraging in-store customer through Savings 
Catcher – we sent PIE (post interaction email) to 
Savings Catcher customers to capture reviews

**Weaknesses:**
• Low frequency customers
• Sales not planned to comp at same growth as 
available SKUs and native reviews which drive 
review coverage are highly dependent on sales
• limited technology resources
• 3rd party dependency on Bazaarvoice

**Opportunities:**
• Get to parity with UGC– leverage loyal customers to increase reviews and increase share of native reviews
• Leverage syndication with lower priced model, 
removing barrier to entry
• Huge long-term opportunity to remove dependency on 3rd party and build in-house solution
• Increased ad revenue via higher traffic generated through improved UGC

**Threats:**
• Losing GMV and traffic to Amazon because 
customers go to Amazon first as a destination to 
research products via UGC
• Evolving Industry and user behavior’s and 
expectations




***OKRs and KPIs:***
**The WHAT: Objective(s):**
• Improve breadth, depth, and quality of reviews on Walmart.com
• Continue to further define value of UGC
• Solve for long-term in-house review solution

**THE HOW: Key Results:**
• Improve breadth by driving increased number of 
reviews across Walmart.com by improving native 
content generation programs and thus increasing 
review coverage rate and sku coverage rate
• Improve depth with more reviews per sku, 
increasing impact on conversion 
• Improve review quality through higher average 
word count per review and continuing to refine 
imagery moderation guidelines within reviews

**KPIs:**
• review coverage rate
• sold sku coverage rate
• page view sku coverage rate
• average word count per review quality indicator)
• Review submission rate
• Was this review helpful? (only relevant for native reviews)
• UGC imagery on the item page for 
relevant categories
• % of customers who interact with UGC
• conversion impact from those customers
• native review growth (new native reviews)

Year/Importance: Q3 FY17 GOOD (baseline)
Objective: Continue to further define value of UGC
Strategy: Evolve instrumentation and measurement of customer interaction with UGC to guide strategy through analytics
Tactics: • Deploy Bazaarvoice ROI Beacon
• Align on regular reporting and strategy based on data shared
• Partner with internal TAO team on further relevant testing
Additional Headcount Required: • Cart checkout resource needed for pixel integration-roadmap
Additional Budget Required:• None 
Conversion impact:• Flat

Year/Importance: Q4 FY17 GOOD (baseline)
Objective: Improve "breadth" of reviews
Strategy: Optimize end-to-end review creation process
Tactics: • PIE optimization, submission form optimization, moderation guidelines optimization, add Reviews to My Account.
Additional Headcount Required:• Email resource required-roadmap
Additional Budget Required:• None
Conversion impact:• Flat

Year/Importance: FY18 GOOD (baseline)
Objective: Improve "depth" of reviews
Strategy: Grow syndication program Alpine lowering the barrier to brands syndicating, continuing to solve problem for items with no reviews/sales
Tactics:• 18 month program in partnership with 
Bazaarvoice launching August 2016 to sign on 
~700 suppliers, removing barrier to entry
Additional Headcount Required:• None
Additional Budget Required:• None
Conversion impact:• Flat

Year/Importance: FY18 BETTER (+6 resources)
Objective: Improve breadth, depth, and quality of customer voice on Walmart.com
Strategy: Non traditional content collection and display; introducing new touch points to collect content
Tactics:• Curations on item pages with Social UGC imagery displayed as well as Brand Curated 
Content
• Chat exploration (iChat or other?)
• ‘Customer voice feed‘ integration (eg. Sur la 
Table experience)
• UGC collection CTAs at check out (new touch 
point to collect)
Additional Headcount Required:
• 1 dedicated product manager
• 1 dedicated UX designer
• 4 additional engineers: 1 on the email team, 1 on Apps, 2 on the core team 
Additional Budget Required:• None
Conversion impact:• +3bps increase 
• +2% growth in traffic via SEO

Year/Importance: FY19 and beyond BEST (+4 resources & $$)
Objective: Solve for long-term in-house review solution
Strategy:“build" discovery and kick off for in-house solution, save $$ on Bazaarvoice partnership
Tactics:• Invest internally to build out capabilities and have long-term in-house solution for UGC 
generation and management
• Technology integration
• M&A looked into and is not feasible
• Sampling
Additional Headcount Required: Engineering:
• +1 headcount to build syndication
• +2 headcount to build moderation
Business:
• 1 Manager for Moderation implementation & sampling
• Budget for contractors to moderate reviews: 
$1M per year
Additional Budget Required:
Conversion impact:• +1bps increase
• +1% growth in traffic via SEO

***Operating Plan/Roadmap***
**FY17 Q3:**
• 10 reviews displayed on item pages (versus 5)
• Curations (user photos via social media)
• ROI Beacon deployed
• Launch Alpine Syndication 18 month program

**FY17 Q4:**
• Redesigned review submission form
• Product reviews via CNET

**FY18 Q1:**
• Identify and deploy new touch points to collect content
• My Account review enhancements: read and write your reviews from My Account
• UGC Video AB tests via 3rd parties

**FY18 Q2:**
• R&R email optimizations based on purchases, pageviews, trigger windows, and more. 
• “Ask a Product Owner” to increase engagement w/Q&A

**FY18 Q3:**
• Allow users to recover rejected reviews
• Build an internal UGC data store to reduce load on Bazaarvoice to save $ on future contract
• Search in R&R, Q&A

**FY18 Q4:**
• Complete Alpine 
Syndication 18 month program 
• Define build discovery solution to deploy
• Review highlights
• Pre-moderation of reviews before sending to BazzarVoice moderation

**FY19 
and +:**
Build home grown solution of moderation, authentication, and syndication (FY19 and beyond) 
- Launch in-house Sampling Program




***Dependencies/Resources Needed***
**Teams:**
• Technology and engineering resources
• Vertical teams to implement the BV Beacon 
needed for contract savings
• Email team to help optimize the CRR (R&R 
email solicitation) 
• Dependencies on other teams to help us 
integrate new UGC touch points
• Resources needed to optimize feed (multiple 
teams involved)
• Internal DSO and Merchant teams to drive 
Alpine – Syndication

**Distribution:**
• Engineering: front-end engineers to implement 
the user experience, back-end engineers to 
ensure the seamless integration between 
Bazaarvoice, our data layers, and the front-end
• UX: visual designers, user experience 
researchers
• PM: product management 
• DSO: site merchants / business partners

**High Level Estimate:**
• T-shirt sizing (S, M, L)
T-Shirt Size – Overall: Medium
Product T-Shirt Size: Medium
Budget T-Shirt Size: Medium-Large

**Risks:**
• **Dependency on Bazaarvoice:** e.g. if 
Bazaarvoice “goes down” during holidays, 
R&R will NOT work and thus hurt the business
• Decrease in the rate of new reviews collected 
via syndication as most large vendors have 
already syndicated to walmart.com via Bazaarvoice
• Viability of Bazaarvoice as a long term partner
• Inability to get other dependent Vertical teams 
aligned to grow UGC across the site. 'Fyi: Walmart.com acquired Jet.com, which in turn acquired Moosejaw.com, Hayneedle, Bonobos, ModCloth, and Shoebuy.com; those five brands are refered to as the Vertical(s)'


***Scenario Analysis***
• **Current UGC landscape:**
‒ **Business side:** 2 people, Product: 1 person, Engineering: 2 engineers

**"• If we gain 10% budget/resources:"**
‒ Budget in terms of gain would be allocated to technology/engineering resources, not 3rd party or new product through 3rd party investment (Bazaarvoice).
‒ +10% more time of engineering would allow the UGC team to ensure FY17 and FY18 roadmap items gets implemented
‒ +10% of engineering would ensure gains: decreased bug count, reduced technical debt

**"• If we lose 10% budget/resources:"**
‒ Given the current landscape of rapidly increasing SKUs, if we were to lose any headcount, 10% or otherwise, we would put the product domain at risk and increase 
the likelihood that business critical functions on the site such as Ratings & Reviews would be negatively impacted
‒ -10% of engineering would ensure loss: decreased conversion




***Financials, incremental revenue & profit***

[**Revenue (GMV) & Profit :**
Year: FY18; FY19; FY20; FY21; FY22
GMV: $258M; $139M; $675M; $1,096M; x
Profits ($8M); ($5M); ($24M); ($83M); x]

**Impact of Key Levers on FY18 Revenue (i.e.,GMV) & Profit**

Revenue (Range) & Profit (Range)
**Lever 1: Traffic:**
GMV Range: $77M to $153M, based on traffic change range of 1% to 2%
Profit Range: ($2M) to ($5M); based on traffic change range of 1% to 2%

**Lever 2: Conversion:**
GMV Range: $34M to $102M; based on conversion change range of 1 bps to 2 bps
Profit Range: ($1M) to ($3M); based on conversion change range of 1 bps to 2 bps
• Revenue/Profit range shows incremental impact based on various range of each lever (traffic and conversion)
• In extended years, incremental impact is compounded as each lever 
improves on a bigger base year-over-year
• FY18: +2% growth in traffic via SEO and +3bps conversion impact, based on +6 additional headcount (best case) 
• FY19 and beyond: +1% growth in traffic via SEO and +1bps conversion impact, based on +3 engineers +1 business (headcount) and additional $1MM a year contractors budget

**Risk & Opportunity**
**Risk:**
FY19 and on: +$1.5-$2M a year paid to 3rd party Bazaarvoice if no in-house build solution is implemented

**Opportunity:**
Building in-house solution would cost $1M per year for contractors + ~3 additional headcount resources but allow for unlimited content collection and save $1.5-$2M a year due to end of 3rd party dependency on Bazaarvoice

**KPIs’ Metrics:**
• L1 & L2 KPIs targets by Qtr
• 3 KPIs targets by Qtr
Metric 1: Review coverage rate; Baseline: 5.43%; Goal: 8%
Metric 2: Sold sku coverage rate; Baseline: 21.5%; Goal: 20% 
Metric 3: Page view sku coverage rate; Baseline: n/a; Goal: 10%
Metric 4: Native review growth (new native reviews); Baseline: 1MM; Goal: unlimited 
Metric 5: Average characters in a review (quality indicator);  Baseline: 47; Goal: 8%
Metric 6: Review submission rate; Baseline: ~4%; Goal: 8%
Metric 7: Was this review helpful? (only relevant for native reviews); Baseline: 12.5%; Goal: 20%
Metric 8: percentage of users who interact with UGC; Baseline: 3.8%; Goal: 10%
Metric 9: Conversion impact on above users; Baseline: 2x; Goal: 4x
Metric 10: Skus with reviews; Baseline: 361K; Goal:100% of sold skus

###Prompt Requests; ISA, “answer each of the below using your full consolidated comprehensive refined concise pragmatic objective understanding of the all the actual information above:”

1. Using widely used and accepted FP&A jargon among the Finance professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area tech companies, systematically list, using your practicality-grounded logic, the key assumptions underpinning the revenue assumptions in the actual presentation above.

2. Using widely used and accepted FP&A jargon among the Finance professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area tech companies, systematically list, using your practicality-grounded logic, how sensitive are the actual revenue forecasts, in the presentation above, above to changes in these in each individual revenue assumption in answer 1.

3. Using widely used and accepted FP&A jargon among the Finance professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area tech companies, systematically list, using your practicality-grounded logic, the key assumptions underpinning the expense assumptions in the actual presentation above.

4. Using widely used and accepted FP&A jargon among the Finance professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area tech companies, systematically list, using your practicality-grounded logic, how sensitive are the actual margins forecasts, in the presentation above, to changes in these in each individual expense assumption in answer 3.

5. Using widely used and accepted FP&A jargon among the Finance professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area tech companies, systematically list, using your practicality-grounded logic, the key assumptions underpinning the cash flow assumptions in the actual presentation above.

6. Using widely used and accepted FP&A jargon among the Finance professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area tech companies, systematically list, using your practicality-grounded logic, how sensitive are the cash flow forecasts, in the presentation above, to changes in these in each individual assumptions in answer 5.