MyBuys Messenger - Summer 2008
“Captivating Customers” Webinar Gets Huge Response
More than 350 e-merchants signed up for the MyBuys/e-tailing group webinar on June 4 to hear Lauren Freedman, president of the e-tailing group, and Lisa Joy Rosner, vice president of marketing at MyBuys, present the latest findings on personalized product recommendations (PPR).
“Our research shows that consumers value the convenience, time savings and ease they get from a more relevant interaction with a merchant,” said Freedman. “The growth of e-tailing over the past decade has created an entirely new set of expectations on the part of consumers around the level of personalization in their shopping experience.”
“We commissioned this study to validate our belief that consumers want to be captivated with a personalized online shopping experience. This study confirms that the market is ready to implement personalization,” said Rosner. “Merchants who embrace personalized product recommendations can increase average order value, bottom-line revenue and improve customer loyalty. This trend is underscored by the strong results MyBuys’ clients across many categories are already recognizing.”
The webinar summarized the results of a MyBuys-commissioned study conducted by the e-tailing group. The resulting 33-page white paper, “The Executive Guide to Captivating Customers: Personalized Product Recommendations Through the Merchant and Consumer Lens,” presents study findings and distills key take-away messages for online merchants.
Among those findings:
- A significant percentage of consumers not only welcome but expect online merchants to provide personalized experiences and product recommendations.
- Some 77% of consumers report that they have made additional purchases when they have encountered personalized product recommendations online.
- Contrary to many reports in the media, the vast majority of consumers—75%—are willing to provide some meaningful amount of personal information in exchange for a more personalized, relevant shopping experience.
- More than one-third of consumers (36%) indicate they award more loyalty to merchants who effectively meet their demand for true personalization in the shopping experience.
- More-targeted email programs, redesigned web sites and improvements to onsite search are on the priority lists of two-thirds of merchants contacted—but increased personalization is only an initiative for 41% of merchants.
- A large percentage of merchants who do attempt to personalize the e-tail experience still rely on manual, hard-coded methods for providing additional product recommendations to online shoppers based not on individual behavior, but simply on the products currently being purchased.
- Some merchants remain skeptical that personalization technology is worth what they see as a significant cost in both time and pain around technology integration. They would be much more open to solutions that would be easy to test on a small scale and then quickly “flip the switch” to full-scale implementation.
- Merchants want assurances that the personalization technology they adopt goes beyond merely helping with customer acquisition, but rather ensures long-term retention of the customer.
The study looks at consumer and merchant results in combination and concludes by making 10 recommendations for merchants looking to capitalize on PPR technology.
If you missed the webinar, you can get your free copy of the whitepaper here.