A Complete Blueprint for E commerce Personalization in 2022!

Surya SK
March 3, 2022

As a business owner, manufacturer, or retailer, you always have to find ways to stay ahead of the competition. Satisfied customers are the gateway to your success, and there's no secret in that. But, what are you doing to satisfy your customers and create a sense of loyalty to your brand with them? Know that the one-size-fits-all approach can't cater to every audience, and meeting the needs of every customer isn't really viable through this approach. Creating a personalized customer experience is essential to stay relevant in the market and grow exponentially. 

The more personalized your content is for the customer, the more chances for your brand to increase its potential, which directly translates to higher sales. eCommerce personalization is a diverse area that businesses need to tap into. In this blog, we'll talk in detail about eCommerce personalization and how you can take advantage of it to hack your business to the next level.  

Table of contents

What do you mean by eCommerce personalization?

eCommerce personalization is a method or approach taken by an eCommerce store to further facilitate a customer's likes by showcasing content, products, and services of a particular customer's interest by aggregating the demographics, search intent, and history of purchase, browsing, and more.  

You can experiment with your personalized content and completely personalize the customer experience based on user journey tracking.

How essential is personalization for eCommerce?

Personalization is a way to eliminate unwanted unnecessary showcases to your customers and ensure that only relevant data is being showcased to the relative customers. Consumers feel wanted and special when content is specially catered and personalized towards them. Failing to give out a tailored experience only results in losing customers to your competitor. A study even concluded that about 80% of customers are more inclined to make a purchase if their eCommerce experience is tailored for them.  

What are the benefits you reap from eCommerce personalization?

Personalization in eCommerce can be the ultimate difference-maker as to customers choosing your brand or drifting to your competitor's company. But, apart from holding in customers and creating a loyal ecosystem, what are the other reasons you should personalize when selling your products online? Here are some of the most important reasons:

1. Higher rate of conversions

Higher rate of conversions

As said before, customers like to feel special. You have to make it seem like your module is exclusively catered towards giving the customer a tailored experience by keeping their likes, needs, and tendencies in mind. Giving everyone the same one-size-fits-all treatment isn't going to cut it. If you showcase the products that a particular customer is looking for or might look for without them searching for it, you already have them hooked on to your store, and congrats! You just increased your chances of making better sale conversions. Product recommendations are one such tactic that can help you with this. 

2. Enhanced brand engagement

If you possess the data that predicts the types of products that people are inclined to buy and the place from where they choose to, then the process of personalization becomes easier. Furthermore, personalizing your eCommerce store can help you to create a special bond with your customer, thus enhancing overall brand engagement.  

3. Establishes customer loyalty

Ecommerce personalization establishes customer loyalty. By showcasing to customers that your brand exactly knows what the customers need and you are ready to facilitate them at all times, you create a sense of trust, which earns you loyal customers that visit your store again for multiple purchases. Thus, never lose customers to your competition.  

4. Improved customer experience

Improved customer experience

Personalization stimulates the mind of the customer to feel heard and important. When your brand already knows what a specific customer needs or might need, you make the time the customer spent in your store enjoyable and worth it. Everything from product recommendations, evaluation of purchase history, storing payment methods and sending in personalized emails & app notifications about specific deals are ways to enhance the overall shopping experience of your customer. 

5. A deeper understanding of customer behavior

Apart from enhancing the customer's shopping experience, eCommerce personalization also helps you comprehend the customer's tendency and behavior. Personalization is a fantastic way to study a demographic. It's an essential collection of data to enhance user experience, and with data, there's no ceiling to advancements. You can explore specific demographics, the products that are trending at a particular location, and more. This will help you produce more products or terminate products depending on the demand. 

6. Acts as an upper hand

Personalization acts as an upper hand for your brand to stand apart from your competition (if your competition doesn't make use of personalization). If your eCommerce store is giving out a personalized experience, the chances of your customers abandoning your store are slim. Why would your customers leave your shop and go to your competition's store if you have everything tailor-made for them? So, personalization always has an advantage when it's all said and done.  

How do you personalize your eCommerce store for the customer?

Advanced personalization tactics might not be feasible for certain companies, and due to this, they settle for basic levels of personalization. For example, including the customer's name in email campaigns is one essential way to a personalized approach. But, keep in mind that customers expect more than their name being displayed in emails. By using the apt technology stack, companies can leverage eCommerce personalization by producing personalized content throughout the customer's shopping experience. Here are a few ways to get started:

1. Localized and selective content

Pushing out content that is relevant to a respective customer's region, language, demographics, and likes will draw the customer in with ease. That content includes banner content, blogs, and product descriptions.

2. Product descriptions

Product descriptions

Product recommendations are a great way to push out products under the chance of conversions. Showcasing related products that coincide with the customer's purchase will kindle the customer's interest more without a sense of being too abrupt and random. For example, if a person purchases a phone, you could showcase products like phone cases, tempered glasses, pop grips, and more. 

3. Selective discounts

Selective discounts

Your eCommerce CMS can opt to provide discounts on products from the customer's history of purchase, or you can even choose to give out related products to the purchase in bundles at a relatively lower price than what the customer would pay for each product individually.

4. Adjustment of webpage navigation

Generate enough customers, and you have repeat customers who visit your site multiple times. You can identify their pattern of search on your website and help ease the navigation of web pages for them. This minor adjustment can go a long way.

5. User-generated content

Word of mouth and reviews from fellow shoppers are what give a brand certain credibility more than any other aspect. By making use of user-generated content, you can showcase the credibility of your products with the help of reviews from fellow customer peers.  

Why should CMS be integrated to enhance personalization?

Brands often think they can use their eCommerce platform to take care of content and eCommerce together. But, the problem is eCommerce platforms don't really specialize in personalization, and even if they do, it's pretty basic. They help with product catalogs and probably tailoring the checkout process. But that's about it. 

Worry not. With an eCommerce CMS, you have the ability to take advantage of the content management system's inbuilt eCommerce abilities or integrate the CMS with your eCommerce software to give you the best chance of personalizing your eCommerce store. Using a CMS for personalization and content management while also using an eCommerce platform for its functionalities is a great way to go. 

How can headless CMS amplify your omnichannel personalization?

First things first, you need to make ensure that your CMS has headless capabilities.

A headless CMS produces content via API calls—which means content can be created to any channel or device without any limitations. 

With the help of headless capabilities, you possess the ability to create an omnichannel personalization strategy; here they are

1. Offline personalization

Track down a customer's online tendencies and interests and purchase history. Translate it to your brick-and-mortar store (if you possess one). Start sending personalized messages depending on the demographic through push notifications, in-store screens, etc. Now, sync their offline purchase data with their account, which will help you with further personalizations. 

2. Mobile and intelligent app personalization

Mobile and intelligent app personalization

Expand your website's personalization towards apps and wearable devices. Send out relevant push notifications by making use of geofencing.

3. Omnichannel personalization

Build a unified customer data platform and track down all interactions that a customer has had with your brand, from finding a specific product query about the product to purchasing a product and visiting again. This allows you to provide an individualized shopping experience offline or online.

Conclusion

In 2022, there is no reason one shouldn't take advantage of personalization. eCommerce brands should do everything in their power to give out a personalized experience for their customers. Extract data, study and observe your customers and tailor your shopping experience around the specific demographic. Always lookout for ways to narrow down to specifics. Good luck!