Trustpilot
 | |
| Privately held | |
| Industry | Business ratings and online reviews |
| Founded | August 2007 |
| Founder | Peter Holten Mühlmann |
Area served | United States, United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Spain, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Poland, Greece, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Finland, |
| Products | Consumer-facing review website, review collection |
| Website |
www |
Trustpilot is an online review platform for ecommerce founded in Denmark in 2007 by Peter Holten Mühlmann. Trustpilot is active in 16 countries including Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy the USA and Australia. Over 12 million company reviews have been posted on Trustpilot.
Trustpilot has a license agreement with Google allowing Trustpilot reviews to be listed as Google Seller Ratings (aka "Google Stars").[1]
Trustpilot has over 300 employees[2] in four offices: New York, London, Copenhagen, and Melbourne.
Funding
Trustpilot received an initial capital investment from Seed Capital in 2008 (app. $300K) and then raised an additional $4.5M funding from Northzone in November 2011.[3] In January 2014, Trustpilot received an additional $25M from DFJ.
Users and reviews
Anyone can become a Trustpilot user by writing a review on Trustpilot. Account creation requires an email address or Facebook account to authenticate the user. If users choose to connect their Trustpilot profile to a social network such as Facebook, users permit their social network identity (e.g. name, year of birth and approximate location) to be used to identify them on Trustpilot. The enriched profile is made available to a wide variety of third parties, including companies that have been reviewed on Trustpilot, price comparison websites, search engines and any other service that has a relationship with Trustpilot.[4] All reviews are subject to Trustpilot reporting processes and procedures.[5]
Reporting reviews
Due to the volume of reviews created on Trustpilot, Trustpilot does not initially block a review pending approval, they therefore allow anyone to say anything about anyone with no proof or justification, this being the core of their ethics. Trustpilot relies on detection software, as well as their user base at large, to report reviews.
Specific reviews may be reported if they contain coarse language, sensitive information, or references to other websites or companies (other than the company under review).
A review may also be reported if it is suspected of being false, in which case the writer of the review will be asked to supply proof of purchase or an orderID.
Companies cannot remove or edit any reviews, but they are allowed to publicly respond to reviews, or report a review(s) to Trustpilot for further investigation if the review(s) violate Trustpilot’s user guidelines.[6]
Business model
Trustpilot offers companies both free and paid options. Only companies who are paying customers of Trustpilot may brand their own company profile page, employ consumer-generated advertising, use Trustpilot's automatic feedback service, or use Trustpilot widgets and badges on their website or Facebook page.[7]
Industry Categories
Trustpilot offers a comparison service within industry categories.[8] These identify the top-ranked companies within that category, regardless of whether those companies are paying Trustpilot customers.
References
- ↑ http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/11/with-nearly-7m-reviews-of-100k-sites-trustpilot-raises-13m-from-index-and-more-to-build-out-a-yelp-for-the-world-of-e-commerce/
- ↑ "https://www.linkedin.com/company/862573?trk=vsrp_companies_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A82522621403655672070%2CVSRPtargetId%3A862573%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary".
- ↑ Arctic Startup (2011-11-03). "Trustpilot Secures €3.3 Million In Funding".
- ↑ "Privacy Policy – 2: Disclosure of Personal Data". TrustPilot. November 2013. Archived from the original on 2014-10-18.
- ↑ "http://blog.trustpilot.com/review-comments/".
- ↑ "Trustpilot Blog". 2012-10-02.
- ↑ http://business.trustpilot.co.uk/plans
- ↑ http://www.trustpilot.co.uk/categories