Personalizing the online retail experience is arguably the single most important innovation retailers must embrace to thrive in the new omnichannel world. The convergence of brick and mortar operations with digital retail is happening faster than most ever expected. By altering how, where and when consumers shop – digital technology is redefining the very nature of the consumer-retailer relationship.
More than ever, mobile devices connected to the internet will take center stage both in terms of relative spending value and transaction volume. With the average shopper owning three connected devices, maneuvering between a personal computer, smart phone and tablet requires tailoring a seamless, buyer centric experience.
Inundated by technology and access to an overwhelming variety of content, merchants and products, consumer expectations are at an all-time high. The top performing retailers will learn to leverage the power of personalization to connect with customers across multiple touch points.
While many retailers are aware of this imperative, solid execution is still languishing and lost in a fragmented technology ecosystem. Only a handful of retailers actually connect the necessary tools of point & click personalization technology while maintaining consumer privacy and presenting laser-targeted offers.
If you’ve just embarked on your own retail personalization journey, start with these three personalization pillars when formulating a holiday season game plan:
Contextuality
Retail shoppers are known for being hesitant to share personal information online. Many marketers find this obstacle gets in the way of implementing an effective personalization strategy. In a hyper-connected marketplace, every shopper unlocks a treasure trove of information that does not require physical input. Capturing geo-locations, gender, or past shopping behavior can unlock a contextualized experience. By identifying such actionable insights a retail marketer can fine-tune audience targeting down to the individual.
Tapping into big data and predictive analytics tools, everything you need to implement contextual engagement is literally at your fingertips. This way, retail marketers can produce actionable insights that impact the bottom line by delivering that 1-to-1 personalized experience consumers crave.
Consistency
By 2017, we can expect consumers to own at least five connected devices per person. This holiday season will set a record for the most mobile purchases in history. Increasingly, shoppers are favoring online purchases, moving to smartphones, even if it means peaking in the physical store before hitting the checkout button at home on their tablet. Retailers who anticipate and indeed encourage this consumer behavior will emerge as winners in 2015.
Optimizing across channels is imperative to success this holiday season. While each channel is independent, mobile may require more work than online or vice versa. Optimizing each channel, retailers can expect shoppers to stay longer and convert more while significantly increasing their brand loyalty.
Forecastability
For retail marketers, the biggest challenge is always to stay ahead of consumer demand. The shift to mobile retail is happening faster than analysts ever expected. With the development of wearable technology such as Apple’s iWatch, the opening shots in the battle for a post-PC future have just been fired.
Integration is key in today’s world for shoppers who want a seamless shopping experience. Such trends as wearables, ibeacons, and mobile GPS provide tremendous opportunities to engage with consumers across multiple touch points.
Imagine your favorite shoe retailer knew your running shoes were nearing their 500 mile mark. They would send you an alert letting you know it’s almost time to get a new pair and will even offer you an early bird discount if you pay right then and there on your phone. Such personalized offers are available even today with wearables’ popularity just taking off.
We are rapidly entering an age of converged advertising, marketing and sales – all laser targeted, segmented and ultimately, personalized. The key to every marketer’s success will be to master the personalized consumer journey by engaging with the right buyers, just in time, for the ultimate buyer-friendly experience.
Liat Fuchs is VP of Online Marketing at Dynamic Yield.