In 2015, iFLY had zero online reviews. No customer voice. No digital presence. No brand story told through the words of real shoppers. Today, iFLY is the most reviewed luggage brand in North America—outpacing legacy players and becoming the go-to luggage label on Walmart.com.

The success of iFLY’s review strategy would ultimately lead the company’s President and CEO to co-found Wholescale and ReviewHub, alongside iFLY’s digital strategy leader. Together, they built and scaled the system that transformed iFLY from a label into a brand—turning customer voice into a national growth engine and developing the technology that now enables other brands to do the same.

This is the story of how one wholesale-first, third-generation family-owned brand became a ratings & reviews powerhouse—and what your brand can learn from it.

Starting From Scratch

When the team at Calego International Inc., the parent company of iFLY, started their review journey, they didn’t have a DTC site, a customer list, or even a digital marketing team. Every iFLY product was sold through third-party retailers—meaning no direct access to customer data.

Instead of accepting this as a limitation, they saw it as a challenge.

In an industry where most brands hoped their retail partners would do the work of collecting reviews, iFLY took matters into their own hands.

Cracking the Code: The Four Actions That Built iFLY’s Review Engine

Calego followed a disciplined, repeatable methodology that any brand—especially those in wholesale or private label—can replicate. It centered on four core actions:

1. Sell Product: This is key in any business and goes without saying. Driving sales is the primary engine of growth—and in the reviews space, it’s the fuel that powers the review engine.

2. Earn Engagement: Calego didn’t lead with a review request. They led with value. Using packaging inserts and product experiences, they encouraged customers to register their product—creating a touchpoint and building trust before ever asking for a review.

3. Capture Data: Once a customer engaged, Calego captured minimal but essential data: customer name, email and purchase information. No bloated forms. Just clean, simple data capture synced within their backend systems.

4. Ask for the Review: With timing and context in mind, iFLY then requested authentic, unbiased reviews—never incentivized, never paid for. This created a cadence of reviews that felt real, because they were.

Zero Incentivized Reviews. 250,000+ Organic Ones.

Calego never paid a single person to review an iFLY product. Not one.

Instead, they mastered the art of creating experiences that customers naturally wanted to talk about—whether that was the quality of the spinner wheels, the pop of the color, or the surprise at just how light the suitcase felt.

The result? iFLY amassed over 250,000 reviews across retailers like Walmart, turning what was once a quiet label into a top searched brand.

What Followed? Sales, Awards and Growth.  

The ratings & reviews strategy didn’t just earn iFLY digital clout—it earned them retail wins:

• Walmart Supplier of the Year

• Top 5 Hottest Holiday Accessories Brands (NPD, 2019)

• Great Brand Honoree at the Consensus Advisors Show

But more than that, it unlocked expansion. Retailers came to Calego, not the other way around. Because ratings & reviews weren’t just a vanity metric—they were a proxy for trust, popularity, and velocity.

What Made the Difference? The Four Pillars.

Calego’s strategy was built on what they call the Four Pillars of Effective Reviews:

1. Rating – High average star ratings help at the top of the funnel, increasing visibility and CTR.

2. Volume – Review count signals popularity. More reviews = More reviews = more perceived desirability.

3. Authenticity – Authentic reviews, written in natural customer language, outperform incentivized or overly polished ones. Real voices drive trust—and trust drives conversion.

4. Recency – Newer reviews drive confidence. A five-star review from 2024 doesn’t convert in 2025.

By focusing on these pillars, iFLY’s reviews did more than just fill space—they sold product.

Why This Matters

Most review strategies and apps are built for DTC brands. But iFLY proved that even if you haven’t yet interacted directly with your end customer, you can still generate a scalable review pipeline that drives growth.

Whether you're a national brand, a private label manufacturer, or a licensee, the lesson is clear:

Your ability to generate reviews determines your ability to win at retail.

And if you’re not actively generating and syndicating your own reviews, someone else is. Probably your competitor.