Platforms built around peer participation are embedding this logic directly into their ecosystems. “Platforms like Depop show how fashion discovery now flows through peer taste and seller reputation, while Strava turns workouts, routes, and recommendations into shared community signals,” says Botsman. “For the people making the recommendation, sharing what they love is also a way of signaling taste and identity.”
At the same time, AI is becoming an unavoidable layer of the discovery process. While some consumers are comfortable asking tools like ChatGPT for product recommendations, that shift does not diminish the importance of reviews. If anything, it amplifies it: LLMs draw on aggregated online sentiment when surfacing products, meaning the reviews consumers leave today may influence not just other shoppers, but the algorithms guiding them.
Community, not campaigns
Trust used to be built vertically, through top-down authority: advertising, celebrity endorsement, expert approval, and carefully managed image. Today, it is built laterally, through networks of peers and the circulation of lived experience
For brands, all of this marks a deeper structural shift than the usual advice to lean into user-generated content (UGC). “The most valuable brand asset today is not reach but recommendation,” says Botsman. In her view, the brands best positioned to earn trust are those that understand how to show up consistently in communities and conversations, rather than simply through campaigns.
That means treating reviews not as something to manage at the margins, but as part of the product experience itself. For example, Alo Yoga builds reviews directly into its e-commerce interface: product pages prominently surface star ratings and written feedback from customers, while bestseller filters and “most loved” tags on their homepage guide shoppers towards pieces that have already accumulated strong peer validation.
“Customer reviews are incredibly important to Alo’s growth because they build trust at scale — especially as we continue expanding globally,” says Summer Nacewicz, EVP of marketing and creative at Alo. “We incorporate learnings from customer reviews into a feedback loop that is closely monitored across design, merchandising, and buying. Recurring themes around fit, fabrication, and performance inform future development — for example, consistent requests for additional inseam lengths led to expanded options in key trouser styles.”
Other brands are experimenting with similar mechanics in more overt ways. Glossier, for example, built much of its early growth around user feedback loops, encouraging customers to review products and shaping launches around that community input. London-based label Peachy Den takes a similar approach through a “close friends” community, where some of its most dedicated customers are invited to review upcoming product launches and help refine them before release.
As more influencers are paid to promote or review products online, however, the question of authenticity becomes harder to ignore, making the operational details of trust especially important. For beauty marketplace Lookfantastic, transparency within review systems is key. Billie Faricy-Hyett, chief buying officer, says the retailer has “partnered with Bazaar Voice, which has leveled up our offering here, adding clarity on reviews which are verified purchasers vs incentivized reviews vs reviews syndicated from other websites vs non-verified reviews. This increased level of clarity on where the review came from gives our customers increased confidence in the quality and credibility of the reviews on our site.”