Me-commerce: Is personalisation the way forward for ecommerce businesses?

You might have noticed in recent years how many brands are opting for personalised customer service, something originally stemming from brick and mortar stores has quickly evolved into a huge part of the ecommerce industry.

Whilst great for a time, the ‘one size fits all’ approach to ecommerce no longer works, instead businesses should be offering a personalised shopping experience.

What is personalisation?

Ecommerce personalisation refers to the personal experience customers are offered when buying products or visiting your website. From offering similar items to previous purchases to giving your customers deals for specific items which appeal to them, personalisation is an important step when it comes to optimising your online store.

Using dynamic tools you can analyse customer data in order to cater for specific customers, showing them certain messages, suggestions and deals for your customers.

Advantages of personalisation

A personalised ecommerce experience can have a number of great advantages for your business including:-

• Positive customer experience
• Makes customers feel in control
• Increases leads
• Creates rich customer data
• Encourages sales
• Builds customer relationships

How to utilise personalisation

Many ecommerce stores still feature static content which applies to every single customer despite knowing that each shopper has unique and tastes and needs, not only is this ineffective but it can result in losses for businesses. If you want to stand out and utilise personalisation there’s a number of ways you can do so.

Personal preference

Offering returning visitors the opportunity to view items they’ve previously bought or items they may be interested in can be a perfect way to increase sales. Viewing your customers on site browsing history and purchase history means you can offer specific items and deals based on their previous browsing behaviour, allowing you to inform them of new deals and offers to appeal to their interests.

Creative messages

With these insights it’s important that you get your messages right. Getting your message in front of the right shopper at the right time may sound like a simple task but there’s a lot to think about. It’s important your messages aren’t just personal but also innovative, instead of the usual “Hi *Name* here’s 20% off for you today” how about considering messages related to location, messages directed at repeat customers or even messages aimed at customers who found your website for specific keywords.

Questionnaires

Another way you can not only implement personalisation, but also gather customer data, is through questionnaires. Featuring an introductory questionnaire before customers head to the checkout process allows you to capture enough data to provide your customer a unique shopping experience. You can even offer a reward of a discount or deal in order to encourage your customers to complete the questionnaire, which will not only benefit you, but make your customer feel like they are getting something from it.

Bonus – Email marketing

Whilst not a element of your website, this marketing technique is a great way to send personalised emails to customers to encourage them to visit your website. From sending emails based on customers buying behaviour to follow up abandoned cart emails to even sending specialised messages and deals for customers birthdays, a personalised email campaign along with a personal website it’s a step in the right direction for generating sales.

Personalisation has been shown to improve conversions dramatically so it makes sense to integrate personalisation techniques into your ecommerce website. In todays competitive market you can’t afford for your competitors to get ahead of you, get started and get personal and you’ll soon seen the difference in your conversions.