I shudder at the personalization attempts I encounter while shopping on the web. How many times do I have to see an email or homepage pushing products based on what I bought 6 months ago? I've moved on. How about what I want to buy now?
Over time, I've found that I'm usually more impressed by sites that can help me "in the moment" than by sites that know my life story. Apparently, I'm not alone. Two very good articles by Jack Jia, one in the E-commerce Times and the other in DM News ran recently. They indicate that targeting offers based on the shopper's current context gets it right 62% of the time, while targeting based on historical behavior gets it right only 18% of the time.
I recently came across a few new site concepts that appear to be the seeds of a new world of personalized shopping; one which I will welcome with open arms, both as a retailer and as a customer.
Vertical Search: Check out Zafu.com. They use the vertical search/affiliate model to create personalized shopping help for a specific product - in this case, to help me find the right jeans (and who doesn't need help finding jeans?). By answering a few questions about my body type, I can see a range of jeans from a variety of retailers that are likely to fit me. At last, an affiliate site that truly adds consumer value (not to mention that it delivers me to the retailer's site as a highly qualified lead).
Social Apps As Personal Shopper: This is a bit out there, especially for those of us over 25. A recent article in the New York Times introduced me to Zebo.com. On Zebo, you post pictures of your stuff. Your clothes, your furniture, your electronics, etc. Friends (and ultimately retailers, I assume) can comment on your stuff, ask you where you got it, and tell you where you can find shoes to go with that dress or a chair to go with that couch. For those that don't mind the self exposure, there may be something here. It can't be too long before you can go to your favorite handbag site, post a picture of your new shoes, then let site editors and other customers suggest handbags to go with them.
Live Help From an Expert: Check out LivePersonalShoppers.com, an offshoot of LivePerson, which provides live chat customer support to online retailers. On LivePersonalShoppers, you can choose from a number or live agents to help you find what you're looking for anywhere on the web, either via live chat or email. It's early stage, and so far there's no revenue model, but I think we can all see where this might go if it catches on.
Clearly, extensive product data, aggregated customer shopping data and robust technology are required to pull any of the above off at scale. But so far, I like all of them a whole lot better than the "you bought this bag last year, so now we think you'll like another one almost like it" approach.
And just in case you're depressed about how far we have to go to make web shopping truly personalized, read an article that appeared in WSJ : "Prowling the Racks With Personal Help". It's the story of the writer's quest to get highly personalized attention via "personal shopping" services at various brick & mortar stores, most of which fell short of expectations. Getting it right in person appears to be just as difficult as getting it right online.
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