Hey there online shopper! Thanks for visiting our e-commerce site, where offer beauty products, fashion, accessories, shoes, home appliances and household goods.
Don't know what you're looking for? Don't worry. We have a one-size-fits-all e-commerce sales associate who knows everything about every product we have, every product category and is as knowledgeable about the latest women's fashion trends as they are about the warranty conditions of refrigerators. Because this is e-commerce and not one of our brick-and-mortar stores, we don't need to provide you with an expert in women's fashion who understands you like the in-store women's fashion sales associate does. Nor do we need to provide you with a beauty-expert who understands your skin and beauty needs like the in-store beauty consultant does. We call it "personalization". And its "just for you". Based on how you navigated our website, you clearly belong to customer category B, so we've got you covered.
Hello online shopper? Are you still there? Hmm, wonder what happened. The Internet-connection must have failed.
Does the above narrative feel familiar? Perhaps it should. This is what 99% of e-commerce retailers are doing to shoppers today when using personalization techniques and programmes that are generic regardless of product categories and information about the consumer outside of the e-commerce store.
One-size-fits-all does not work. It may provide you with a short-term gain or uplift, but the fundamental problem one-size-fits-all recommendation solutions are trying to solve is a problem for you as an e-commerce store. And that's why they fail. These solutions fail to solve a problem for your customers. They fail to solve a problem for your customers in the way the in-store sales associate in the women's fashion department solves a problem for your customers. The way the in-store beauty consultant solves a problem for your customers.
Without using solutions that focus on your customers as individuals, not as part of a group of people sharing the same behaviour patterns, your e-commerce store will never reach its full potential.
