10 STATS & 3 USEFUL TAKEAWAYS FOR E-COMMERCE PERSONALIZATION IN 2018

Personalization is a must, yet make you do it right

In 2017 the PwC’s Total Retail survey revealed that 59% of consumers who buy apparel via web-stores want personalized offers. At the same time, Conversant stated that 94% of marketing professionals from different industries consider personalization very important. And according to Evergage, 85% of organizations include store personalization in their marketing strategies.

No doubt, personalization is nothing new today. However, despite all the buzz around gathering customer data, segmentation, targeted offerings, and communication, reality stays a bit less bright. A recent survey carried out by Bronto Software showed that many web-stores collect customer data and still fail to use even such trivial parameters as gender and browsing behavior to better target their customers. Customers that actually sacrifice their time to submit their personal data, expect a retailer to do their homework as well and serve relevant offerings in return.

So, the first takeaway from these surveys is to revise the approach to personalization and check whether you use all customer data available while delivering targeted emails and offerings in the web-store. Bronto Software suggested a nice experiment that a retailer can do as a starting point. Merchants can try creating several email accounts and testing possible customer pathways. This can give insights regarding personalization gaps.

Get out of your way to give customers a perfect match

According to a survey published on E-Commerce Nation, 95% of online clothes shoppers in the UK consider perfect-fit items the most crucial factor while shopping online. The same study showed that for 44% finding their fit online became a major obstacle, and 41% agreed they would appreciate seeing only the items that fit them.

So, our takeaway is that, to deliver products to customers with respect to their needs,  merchants need to upgrade their web-stores with specific customer segmentation tools relevant to their platforms. For example, this Customer groups for Magento 2 allows managing the visibility of particular products for different customer groups and this way increases the accuracy of product suggestions.

One more creative approach to serving customers is offered in a Fit Match add-on by Rakuten Fits Me. The idea is to upgrade a search engine and product filters with a tool that uses a customer’s body data (height, weight, and measurements) and deliver only results that match these parameters and are in stock. This helps a customer find a product they need much faster.

Personalize communication even after they abandon carts

Many merchants face a problem of a high cart abandonment (on average, around 70% of customers exit without completing a purchase according to Baymard). At the same time, SaleCycle states that the open rate for abandoned cart emails is 44.1% and a click-through rate is 11.61%. The figures hint that retailers can return lost customers to their stores if they invest enough effort in their abandoned cart emails. Personalization can help here as well. Here’s how:

• First, a retailer can include a discount on a product left in the cart as 54% of shoppers say they will return to purchase products that they left in the cart if these items get cheaper (Nchannel).
• Second, the abandoned cart email can include an invitation to return and join the retailer’s customer community and this way unlock extra bonuses and get a discount or free shipping as a reward.
• Third, merchants can be persistent and send one more email even if the first abandoned cart email failed. Kate Spade also includes personalized suggestions for alternatives in such reminders.
• Fourth, to make it easier for a customer to go on shopping, merchants can use an abandoned cart email to feature items in the cart and offer a quick checkout.

Afterword

For sure, most merchants already use personalization to a certain degree, yet it’s important to make sure that their efforts indeed contribute to customer experience. Though not a being a complete guide, these tips will help retailers deliver a more personalized experience to customers and re-engage them if they drop-off.

About the author : Darya Yermashkevich As an Amasty author, After work, she loves writing fiction stories, practicing yoga, and hiking in picturesque places.