Ecommerce Product Recommendation to increase your sales

With rising e-commerce business, customer acquisition has become tough than ever. If you are one of the small scale retailers selling on omni channel and have a website, you know the problem better than anyone. It’s an everyday agony.

One of the factors behind disappearing online store is Customer acquisition. It is not just difficult but almost impossible to get new customers every time someone accesses your site. Customers are now looking for more of a brand association and a personalized touch to the shopping experience.

So why is it, that there are very few retailers who succeed in maintaining the e-commerce store, while another fade away slowly, unnoticed.

Surveys suggest that cost isn’t the only dominating factor in the purchase  process, it’s the emotions that play a major role in the purchase decision. While buying, chances are your customers will stick to the already choice made be it right or wrong. This is due to the need of an hour, and confidence in oneself.

With personalized product recommendations, you can offer relevant products to your potential customers at several shopping phases. Intuitive and useful product recommendation

Offered especially in a bundle package, is likely to sell more than individual products. It not only earns you loyalty and long term customers but fills the long conversion gaps.

What are personalized product recommendations?

Personalized recommendations are not just intuitive guess or assumptions; they are calculated bundled products offered together keeping in mind user behavior.

A product customer has been keeping track of lately, or viewed or generally items bought together. You have seen this all over Amazon, right under product description based on user’s purchase behavior.

With the set of historical user data, Amazon uses AI to deduce customer behavior and purchasing history to offer personalized customer recommendation. These can often be spotted on your homepage when logged in, or at the bottom of each page: 

So why should sellers use product recommendation for online store

A study published by Barilliance, indicates that up to 31% of e-Commerce site revenues were generated from personalized product recommendations during Q4 2014. On Amazon.com, nearly 30% of traffic is via click-throughs on recommendations.

As it is said, “ Figures don’t lie”.  All businesses run on number game and hence as a retailer, you too should offer this product recommendation for following reasons:

Incaeasing Average Order Value

Providing compatible product recommendations on the respective product page is one of the many successful strategies applied to gain Average Order value. This enables you to drive larger deals. Your customer is likely to respond, provided you offer them a specific offer that is cost effective and useful.

For instance, Sephora shoppers are damn loyal and highly motivated, needless to say, how evident it is since Sephora offers high tiers and rewards. They do not hesitate in trying products and are known for brand faith. Hence Sephora came up with personalized product recommendations for Beauty Insider members.

These individual product recommendations are typically borrowed from prior shopping history. Personalized products exhibit a relationship with the customer that builds a positive affiliation with your brand. Not only does this prompt customers to buy more products (that you know they will like) but also offers a personalized experience that they become a brand loyalist.

Control Merchandising and Inventory Rules

A recommendation engine enhances your marketing and inventory control directives. It offers flexibility to control the items to be stocked and highlighted by recommendation system. The last product bought by the customer is likely to be his preferences and it works great for a smart product recommendation.

As a small-scale retailer, using third party tools like Unbxd you can leverage this data to create a personalized recommendation for your customers.  Tailoring bundles according to customer’s prior transactions and creating efficient algorithms that enhance the bundled marketing helps to increase revenue and boost sales significantly.

Also when you don’t have a specific product or out of stock times, offering other results helps customer stay and might consider the option you suggest compared to what they earlier planned on

Conversion rates increase with the above two factors:

Conversion is at the center of any business, especially e-commerce. You have thousands of visitors daily but not everyone comes with an intention of buying. Hence, getting them hooked to lucrative offers is one of the ways to get them back again and again. Social shares are the major turn ons for conversions. You might end up getting max traffic from Instagram, pinterest, Facebook or Snapchat.

And, Zappos is giving some serious Social Shares Goals

This inspires buyers to share their purchase orders and flaunt,while Zappos sits back and gather ample data for the trendy product and buyers preferences. With social shares, clicks and comments it becomes easy to analyze the favorite product on market and the kinda stuff people love

This not only inspires/ motivates buyers but they look out for such bundles often, bringing them brack to the site. To sweeten the offer further, they also offer free shipping to their customers.

Final Thoughts:

Product recommendations are compelling and potent. The changes and improvement in automation can surely bring back the traffic to your site and help you establish brand image stronger than ever.

With Amazon leading in the Artificial intelligence and Machine learning, we are likely to see retailers using third party tools or in-house data analytics to analyze customer behavior and offer seamless shopping experience.

Product recommendation will no longer be limited to big shots, and is likely to become mainstream for eCommerce business irrespective of their scale.