Carpenter bees - have you heard of them? For anyone with wooden structures in their home, carpenter bees can be a real nuisance. They make their nests in decking, porches and wooden frames, leaving you with a home resembling Swiss cheese. But there’s help at hand from Best Bee Brothers, who develop patented chemical-free bee traps to help families minimize damage to their homes. A small family business, Best Bee Brothers turned to their agency, LJ Strategies (LJS), for support building their Shopify site and all facets of digital marketing (PPC, SEO, Email, content management). Working together, LJS and BBB have increased website sales by 150% and site conversion rates by 25%. They’ve also improved their product to be the best on the market. Oh, and they successfully moved their business from Amazon to their own site along the way. Here’s more...
Why Trustpilot?
To understand why LJS came to Trustpilot - and why they were able to recommend Trustpilot to their clients, including Best Bee Brothers - we need to ask a more pressing question: ‘Why reviews?’
“We’ve learned how important third-party reviews are to build trust. And the most important learning we’ve had is that a perfect 10/10 score is not realistic,” says Lauren Luedeke, Founder of LJ Strategies.
“Companies like BBB are run by humans, and there are bound to be things to learn from. If customers see a perfect score they are bound to believe the reviews are fake. That is why verified reviews from Trustpilot are so important.
“Overall, customers want to see very happy customers from genuine reviews.”
LJS discovered Trustpilot while researching Google-certified third-party review systems for another client. They found such value from that experience, they were happily able to recommend Trustpilot to Best Bee Brothers.
“LJS had such a good experience with Trustpilot the first time around, it was an easy decision to introduce Best Bee Brothers when they were ready to take the next step in the eCommerce world.”
Best Bee Brothers became a Trustpilot client in mid-2016, thanks to LJS’s recommendation. And they haven’t looked back since. They now display their reviews across their marketing, including their website and social channels:


How Best Bee Brothers recovered from the unreliability of Amazon
Prior to 2018, 80% of BBB’s business during the busy season came from Amazon. But in April 2018, BBB could no longer rely on Amazon and had to redirect all sales to their website. To recover, they’d have to stand out in search engines to capture more traffic than Amazon.
“We had a very minimal budget, but we were quickly able to use Trustpilot to drive more PPC and organic traffic to Best Bee Brothers,” says Lauren.
“When customers were looking for ‘carpenter bee traps’ on a search engine, BBB was on the first page all season long. The Trustpilot stars were displayed in the results to give customers ease of mind,” says Lauren.
This new jolt in popularity meant some quite astounding results:
By the end of the season, website sales increased by 150%
Website conversion rate shot up 25%
Improving the product and customer relationships
Not only have Best Bee Brothers seen sales benefits from Trustpilot reviews, but their patented product has been redesigned according to the feedback customers share in reviews, making their traps the best option on the market.
Though LJS manages much of Trustpilot on behalf of BBB, the company’s customer service is called into action when a review below three-stars comes in. They’re notified in real-time, so they can respond to poor experiences and turn them around.
Collecting and sharing reviews with Trustpilot
To collect reviews, LJS use the Automatic Feedback Service. “It integrates seamlessly with Shopify,” says Lauren.
“The first review request email goes out seven days after an order is placed. We do this so customers can receive the product before they place a review, to make sure the package arrives properly and in good condition. The customer also receives a review reminder within seven days if they hadn’t placed a review yet.”
Alongside this, Best Bee Brothers use Trustpilot product reviews, and display reviews in cart abandonment communications to restore confidence in customers.
With so much commitment to Trustpilot, Best Bee Brothers and LJS are securing a trusted, transparent future. Isn’t it time you joined them?
About LJ Strategies:
LJ Strategies (LJS) helps eCommerce clients navigate the email world. LJS also assists clients with affiliate marketing to drive additional revenue for eCommerce clients and small eCommerce website builds.
About Best Bee Brothers:
The Best Bee Brothers are Mike and Paul Ryan of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They design and sell an effective, chemical-free, pesticide-free trap for carpenter bees, helping people minimize damage to their homes.