Consumers have high expectations for their shopping experiences, so it’s important to build an eCommerce site with their full customer journey in mind.
Personalizing the eCommerce experience delivers additional value to customers that builds loyalty and retention. According to McKinsey, 71% of consumers now expect personalized interactions from businesses, and 76% are frustrated when they don’t receive them.
Building personalization into the customer experience will look different for each eCommerce business. For retailers who sell apparel, you may want to suggest personalized product recommendations or targeted marketing. For retailers who focus on subscription services, consider personalized content or refined pricing, while merchants who specialize in healthcare or financial services may choose to use personalization to deliver targeted, relevant and context-aware communication to their customers.
If you’re looking for ways to improve the customer experience to see more conversions and increased revenue, consider these tips to help you personalize the eCommerce journey.
Deliver Relevant, High-Quality Content
Delivering exceptional content to customers is often overlooked as a form of personalization. The fact is the basis of personalization is providing a unique, relevant experience to each customer that interacts with your site. Using cookies to target specific segments of site visitors allows you to show them personalized content.
Use high-quality product images and include lifestyle photos to allow customers to envision a product as part of their own lives. Create personalized content like style guides based on earlier purchases or what is already in their cart. Display recently viewed items to capture customers who previously visited your site.
Incorporate Geolocation Personalization
Offering Shop by Store or allowing customers to filter their browsing by country delivers the most relevant content to them based on location. Further personalize their experience by allowing them to view the site in different languages. For example, Canadian-based retailer Little Burgundy allows customers to browse in both English and French, making the shopping experience even more seamless for customers.
Offer Data-Driven Product Recommendations
Product recommendations can be driven by past purchases, browsing behavior, demographics (like age, ethnicity, and location) and psychographics (like interests, attitudes, and habits).
One of the most effective ways to increase average order value is to make product recommendations based on what is in the customer’s cart already. When you browse in a physical store, you may walk in looking for a specific item, but something else will catch your eye and you will end up buying more items you did not plan to buy.
According to Segment, 40% of US consumers bought something more expensive because their experience was personalized. 49% of shoppers bought a product they did not intend on buying after receiving a personalized recommendation. Upselling and cross-selling techniques on your site enable product discovery without physically browsing a store.
You can also recommend products based on seasonality (rain boots on the East Coast in April or thick socks during the winter) or suggest items a customer may like using a callout such as “Customers also purchased….” The more personalized the recommendation, the more likely the customer is to add the item to their cart.
Incorporate A/B Testing and User Testing
A/B testing involves trying out two different versions of your site to see which one performs better. The differences between the two can be as simple as a different placement of the “Add to Cart” buttons or may involve showing two completely different homepages to different consumers based on their segment. The secret to perfecting your site’s conversion rate is to test everything.
User testing, such as using heat maps for tracking how customers interact with your site, can tell you what changes to make. Sometimes something as simple as changing the color of a button or moving the cart logo on your site can have a dramatic impact on your bottom line.
Recognize Holidays and Birthdays
On a customer’s birthday, sending a personalized email with a discount code is an effective way to encourage a purchase. Birthdays are also an excellent time to use direct mail. For example, sending a handwritten note with a coupon or promo code is an individualized touch that a customer is far more likely to hold on to, and it further strengthens their relationship with the brand.
Capture Customers Before They Leave
When a customer shows signs of leaving your site, it is called exit intent. Google Tag Manager supplies a solution to track exit intent and allows you to display pop-ups that could keep visitors on your site.
A discount for signing up for a newsletter that appears in a pop-up when a customer is about to leave your site can increase conversions and prevent them from leaving.
Capturing feedback on why a customer may want to leave your site (“Didn’t find what you were looking for? Talk to a customer service agent through our live chat system”) is also an effective way to help customers find what they were looking for.
Consider implementing a pop-up that offers customers a coupon for signing up for communications. You can use this to encourage your customers to make a purchase and re-engage with your brand later.
Win Back Customers
Optimizing your site and your checkout process will help reduce your exit rate. Despite your best efforts, some customers will still decide to leave your site without making a purchase. Win back those customers with abandoned cart emails, retargeting ads, or even by sending a discount through email or direct mail. Customers leave for a variety of reasons; if they are not converting, your prices could be too high for them and they could be waiting for a sale or discount, checkout could have been too tedious or slow, or customers may simply get distracted and move on to something else. If you’re struggling with abandoned carts on your site, Virid can help.
Next Steps
Personalizing the customer experience is crucial to growing your eCommerce business. To optimize your site for a healthy eCommerce conversion rate, you will need to begin by conducting a thorough audit of your current CX. That’s where Virid comes in. Request a free site assessment, and our experts will review your eCommerce site and deliver actionable recommendations for you to grow your business.
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