What You Need to Know About Online Shopping Personalization

What is online shopping personalization? It’s a tactic most online shopping sites use to allow customers to have a unique and efficient experience while shopping on their site.

Online shopping personalization is big in the e-commerce world so you’ve probably received personalization without even realizing it! Read on to discover what you need to know about online shopping personalization and how it will affect you.

Not as High-tech As You May Think

While the concept of personalizing an online shopping site for each individual shopper may sound high-tech and new age, we promise it’s not. Here are some ways the sites you probably use have been personalizing your shopping experience for years.

  • By showing your recently viewed items
  • By giving you a birthday discount
  • By showing items related to the one that you are currently viewing
  • By giving you a “first-time visitor” or “new email subscriber” coupon or discount

If you’ve ever bought anything online, you know that many of these practices are standard in the online shopping world and have been used for years.

Behind the Scenes Personalization

On the flip side, online shopping sites may be personalizing your shopping experience in ways you don’t know about behind the scenes. Here are a few ways that might happen-

  • By using your geographic location to offer you products relevant to your area (for example- if you live in New York and it’s January, the swimsuit company may not need to be marketing to you right now)
  • By using your age/ stage in the life cycle to offer you the most relevant products
  • By using your previous purchases to predict what you may want to buy next

All of these “behind the scenes” techniques are completely safe and only happen if you share cookies with the site. But at the end of the day, if you don’t feel comfortable sharing information and want to do the work yourself to find the most relevant products, then that’s okay too!

What Does This Mean For The Future Of Shopping?

So what does the rise of online shopping personalization mean for the future of shopping, and for our day-to-day shopping experience? There are two key takeaways-

  • The first is that the line between in-person and online shopping will continue to blur. As e-commerce sites become more personalized, it won’t be hard to shop without a sales associate. And the differences between the two will become slimmer.
  • The second is that you should expect to receive advertisements in ways that aren’t at all like the ways your friend in another state or another age range is receiving advertisements. The idea of a “universal shopping experience” isn’t going to be commonly used.

That being said, the online shopping world is changing every day and these takeaways may be completely irrelevant by the year 2030. What we know is that the e-commerce world is stepping up its personalization game. And by doing so, that makes the shopping experience much more enjoyable and efficient for the customers.