As Black Friday looms, Efficiency Vermont offers one-stop shopping research tool

Burlington, VT

Vermonters in the market for a new appliance this Black Friday have a new tool to help find the best deal; both in the store and on their energy bills.

Launched this fall, the Efficiency Vermont Marketplace empowers Vermonters to research appliances in a variety of categories including electronics, heating & cooling, home and office, and laundry.   The Efficiency Vermont Marketplace is a collaboration between Efficiency Vermont and Enervee, a company that provides a suite of software applications and services designed to drive more energy-smart decisions from consumers.

Efficiency Vermont worked with Enervee to customize the company’s data-driven consumer choice engine to include features uniquely relevant to Vermont shoppers:

• Instant information about available Efficiency Vermont rebates for qualifying models.
• One-click connection to Efficiency Vermont’s “Find a Retailer” tool to make it easier to buy local.

The Vermont-specific customizations are in addition to the standard features of Enervee’s platform, which include:

• An Enervee Score® showing how energy efficient a model is compared to other products in the same category, based on a 0-100 scale. 
• Estimated energy bill savings over the life of the product, compared to typical, similar products.
• Product price comparisons pulled from e-commerce sites around the country.
• Customer reviews from large retailer websites such as Amazon.com, Home Depot, and Best Buy.

“The Efficiency Vermont Marketplace providers customers with a research tool that makes picking the best product easy – providing a one-stop resource for pricing, customer reviews, and energy efficiency information,” said Carol Weston, Program Director for Efficiency Vermont.

Online research has become a critical part of most consumer purchase decisions, especially for major purchases such as household appliances. According to a 2014 study by MineWhat.com, 81 percent of consumers conduct online research before buying.

The Efficiency Vermont Marketplace is an example of a behavioral approach to promoting energy efficiency, by providing a tool that is responsive to customers’ needs and preferences and using data and insights to influence better-informed purchasing decisions.

About Efficiency Vermont

As the nation’s first Energy Efficiency Utility, Efficiency Vermont has helped Vermont avoid over 13.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions and has received the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program Partner of the Year – Sustained Excellence award for the last eight consecutive years. Efficiency Vermont works with partners to help our state transition to more affordable, low carbon energy use through education, incentives, and support for our clean energy workforce. Learn more at www.efficiencyvermont.com.

Efficiency Vermont Press Contact
Matthew Smith
Phone: (802) 540-7662
[email protected]