Personalization in retail: an example of how it works

Industry   |   
Published July 18, 2019   |   

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Personalization is a great way for enterprises, such as online retailers, to build brand loyalty. Recommending products based on a customer’s personal taste results in higher conversion rates. But is personalization all you need to increase a client’s revenues?
Let’s set a little context.
We recently had a meeting with one of our European clients – the largest electronics retailer in the region. At the time of writing this article, we were in the final stages of a PoC.
While analyzing the results prior to this meeting, realization dawned upon us. The placement of the personalization widget on the e-commerce website is just as important as actually personalizing the products displayed on the site. Even if it interferes with certain business interests of clients.

The problem statement

maya.ai’s personalization widget provided 241% higher click-through rates when placed on the home page of the client’s website. In comparison to the BAU widget. You’d think this would translate to a huge increase in eventual purchases, right?
That wasn’t entirely the case. Only 48% of the visitors per day saw the personalized section of the website. And out of the remaining 52% customers, a large chunk left the home page without buying anything at all.
The home page! That’s the very first page, and the client was already losing a large number of visitors. On a daily basis.
On the other hand, maya.ai’s personalized exit pop-up was able to retain 7% of visitors per day. But why should a customer have to wait for this pop-up?
Here’s what the problem was. It took a least 3 scrolls on a screen, to reach the maya.ai personalization widget. And believe it or not, a major chunk of consumers today simply do not have the time or patience to keep scrolling.
Here’s additional proof to this unique problem. maya.ai’s personalized boutique page showed 93% higher click through rates. But less than 1% of visitors per day actually reached the personal boutique.

Here’s how we fixed it!

Our client was completely in sync with us, over this problem. Here’s how the maya.ai for retail team fixed it!
We brought the maya.ai personalization widget to the top of the home page. Et voila! There was an almost immediate improvement in the number of visitors retained on the home page.
According to a recent Sabre report, 73% of shoppers will buy from brands that personalize the experience for them. And in my humble opinion, this makes complete sense!
Someone (wink wink, nudge nudge) once said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it”.
So, why wait for 3 scrolls? Or extra clicks? Show the customer what they want to see…serve it up quickly and directly and watch those numbers improve!