Online retailer Legendary Whitetails sometimes has difficultly explaining what it sells.

The retailer sells everyday apparel related to hunting, but very little hunting gear. “That’s tough to message to people sometimes,” says Jared Poppert, social media and digital manager for Legendary Whitetails’ e-commerce site deergear.com.

The retailer decided to call on its existing customers to help explain what Legendary Whitetails is all about. And what better way than sharing social media photos. Legendary Whitetails now posts pictures on its website of customers using its products that the shoppers posted on social media. The merchant uses customer reviews vendor Bazaarvoice Inc.’s curations tool to publish the images in a gallery section, in category sections and on product detail pages.

“This is a great opportunity to leverage our customer base and show them doing their everyday activities while wearing our apparel,” Poppert says. “We can showcase them to potential customers that can relate to this type of visual.”

The retailer rolled out the curations tool in 2015 and is satisfied with the bump it has received in sales, Poppert says. In the six month period September 2016-March 2017, Legendary Whitetails published 6,000 customer photos and 1.4 million of its shoppers saw the images, according to Bazaarvoice measurement tools. Consumers who view these shared photos have an average order value that’s 32% higher than consumers who don’t, and those shoppers who have seen the images have a 34% higher conversion rate than shoppers who don’t see the photos.

When a consumer uses the hashtag “#LegendaryWhitetails” on social media, such as Instagram or Facebook, the picture is captured online and sent to a portal for moderation. Either a Bazaarvoice or Legendary Whitetail employee will review the photo to make sure it fits the retailer’s criteria to publish on deergear.com. For example, the employee ensures that a consumer is wearing a Legendary Whitetails product, no swear words are included in the post and the photo doesn’t show guns with alcohol. About 80% of photos pass muster, Poppert says.

If a photo is approved, the retailer will ask the consumer via the same social media channel if it is OK for the retailer to publish the photo on its website. If the consumer agrees, which is the majority of the time, Poppert says, the retailer will then tag the photo to indicate where it should go on the website, such as linking it with a specific product number. The whole process takes 24 to 48 hours, Poppert says.

85% of Legendary Whitetails’ sales are generated in the fourth quarter because it includes the holidays and prime hunting season, Poppert says. During that time of year, the retailer receives 10-15 photos a day from customers, Poppert says. Although Legendary Whitetails’s largest social media following is on Facebook, with 1.5 million likes, most of the photos it receives come from Instagram, he says.

The retailer encourages customers to tag the business on social media by using Legendary Whitetails’ handles for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google Plus.

Legendary Whitetails also runs sweepstakes promotions which, for entry, require customers to tag the merchant on social media. In the email Legendary Whitetails sends customers asking them to write a review of the product they just purchased, the email will encourage them to post a picture of themselves on social media using the product and to tag Legendary Whitetails.

When the retailer asks a customer via social media for permission to post his photo on the website, many of that consumer’s friends or followers see the request, which leads to comments on the photo and helps generate excitement, Poppert says.

In one case, the retailer noticed a shopper who routinely posted artfully arranged photos of herself on outdoor adventures, such as hiking or snowmobiling, in the retailer’s gear. The online merchant asked her to do a photo shoot and she is now featured several places on the website. Using real customers like her and not models helps the retailer connect with customers, Poppert says.

It took about three months to launch the Bazaarvoice tool on its site and a couple Legendary Whitetails employees were involved. On a daily basis, Poppert says he spends less than five minutes maintaining the feature. He declined to disclose what the feature costs.

Legendary Whitetails started selling online in 1999 in addition to its catalog sales. The retailer still sends eight to 10 catalogs per year, and in 2016 it generated 10s of millions of dollars in total sales, which was a double-digit increase over 2015 sales, Poppert says.