Undoubtedly, the coronavirus pandemic shifted the way businesses conduct eCommerce at present. The current year saw the decline of traditional retail sales, while eCommerce enjoys a 129% year-over-year growth in US and Canadian orders as of April. To survive the crisis, most retail stores opted to shift their services online.
At the rate that it’s going, eCommerce sales worldwide will reach $4.2 trillion by the end of 2020. As a result, the companies that embraced the eCommerce trend way before other brands set their sights on a possible expansion.
However, creating a website and selling products online alone isn’t enough to achieve those expansion goals. Unfortunately, revenue won’t just flow in after the successful launch of an eCommerce site. The competition only gets even steeper as time passes, and customer behavior changes more quickly than ever before.
The ever-changing economy calls for all entrepreneurs to keep up with emerging eCommerce trends that will allow their businesses to get noticed and attract more clients. One of the emerging growth trends to leverage this year and beyond is personalization.
eCommerce Personalization
The process of personalization in eCommerce revolves around the delivery of personal experiences on eCommerce platforms by dynamically providing content, specific offers, and product recommendations based on clients’ previous actions. These actions include their purchase history, browsing behavior, demographics, and other personal data.
Personalization is becoming increasingly important to merchants seeking to engage their clients, incite repeat businesses, increase conversion rates, and drive sales. It comes in several forms, from marketing emails to delivering a personalized showroom of items to consumers, and custom product recommendations on a product detail page, among other applications.
The following statistics lay the importance of personalization in eCommerce:
- 77% of consumers choose, recommend, and pay more for a brand that provides a personalized service or experience.
- 44% of consumers are more likely to become repeat clients after a personalized shopping experience with a company.
eCommerce Personalization Strategy: a Brief Look
At the heart of every personalization strategy is the attainment of customer-driven goals. It’s not always about delivering business demands; it’s also about meeting customer preferences while helping them reach important milestones.
After all, customer needs vary depending on the season and occasion. For instance, a customer’s needs from a home goods store on most days may be different during Thanksgiving or the Yuletide season. Every client interacts with businesses in several different ways, and a strong personalization strategy makes sure to look beyond who they are and what they are trying to achieve.
Understanding how to best implement personalization, especially in the earlier stages of the business, boils down to three main questions:
Where in the experience will personalization occur?
After pinpointing the platforms and touchpoints that get the most engagement from customers, businesses can determine where a personalized element helps the most. It can be in the form of inspirational content, location-based services, product recommendations, among others. Customers will benefit from a more contextual experience in any of these elements.
What information should be used to create a personalized experience?
Businesses can also utilize tools, such as marketing automation, A/B testing, CRM, and other transactional systems that offer a wealth of customer information. After determining where the personalization should occur, these tools will provide the required information needed to identify the gaps in data that will help fulfill its visions and goals.
How will human insights and technology be used to create this personalization?
The biggest question among the three – this involves bringing together both data and engagement platforms to come up with a contextual, personalized experience at scale.
Personalized eCommerce as the New Frontier
In 2020 and beyond, successful eCommerce companies will leverage technologies to provide their consumers with a customized experience.
Since eCommerce doesn’t employ a salesperson’s services to recommend products based on consumer preferences, interest, or taste, data is at the forefront of its operation. In this particular instance, the magic of personalization comes in as it mimics a consumer’s actual in-store experience by providing a customized customer journey online.
Statistics show that customers are willing to spend 48% more when their shopping experience is personalized. Also, 57% of consumers are comfortable providing their personal information with a brand if doing so will lead to a customized shopping experience.
Personalization, when done right, will make customers feel like brands are reading their minds. The resulting emotional response generates a sense of loyalty, which companies need to achieve the highest ROI possible for their business.
For more tips and expert advice on how to personalize your brand, get in touch with us today!
