At a session Tuesday at Shop.org's 2015 Digital Summit, Molly Baab, VP of product management at the flash site, Rue La La, lamented that most retailers efforts at personalization online are still largely limited to offers around past product purchases.
Noting the limitations of that approach, she said, "What I was interested in a couple days ago is not what I want now."
Other challenges to personalization highlighted by Ms. Baab included:
- Data issues: Having systems that "talk to each other well";
- Organizational challenges: Finding the permissions and protocol to make changes;
- Multi-dimensional consumers: Customers that "keep moving around" across platforms.
Source: ruelala.com
Regardless of the hurdles, Ms. Baab encouraged retailers to become a "little bit more relevant based on what we already know," including not only data on past purchases, but also page views, devices used and other factors.
Personalization can be broken down to implicit versus explicit attempts, she said.
Implicit communication may be a call-out, such as the return of a certain brand the member has bought in the past. Rue La La offers "secret sales" that are only available to certain members and relevant to their taste. The site also offers free-shipping relevant to items already in a member's cart. Rue La La's "What's Trending" section is tailored to each member, although members often assume "everyone else is seeing the same thing."
Personalization could also be about acknowledging best customers. With explicit personalization, a member, for example, can choose to view only certain sizes across brands, or express which parts of a site they like to shop most.
Her six tips to for getting started were:
- Build a vision for the future, but start small;
- Begin with known customer segments and most important customer touchpoints;
- Consider third-party tools;
- Don't go too complex;
- Don't worry about having perfect data;
- Test everything.
Third-party vendors can drive quick insights to better gauge where to invest. She urged retailers to "start with the low-hanging fruit" while noting the temptation to layer too many messages on the consumer. Stressing continued testing, Ms. Baab said if, "You can't see all the permutations of things; you can lose sight of what the lifts are."
Asked which websites excel at personalization, Ms. Baab said that, in her apparel space, Zulily is "killing it" with hundreds of versions of their home page and e-mails stocked with relevant selections.
"But I'm disappointed a lot of time," said Ms. Baab. "They don't know me when I go there."