As part of our continued series on developing personalization best practices, we have discussed how Behavioral Targeting Gives Your Loyal, Repeat Customers a Personalized Experience, and given some Product Detail Page Personalization Next Practices.

In this iGoDigital blog we'll discuss the cart page. On one hand, you want your customers to move quickly and easily through this page. One the other hand, retailers know exactly what a shopper is interested in at that given point and have an opportunity to increase the Average Order Value. There must be a balance, but what is that balance?

From one standpoint, you want to get out of the consumer's way and let them make a purchase. The other standpoint is screaming, "Up-sell them on related and beneficial products." If you’re just getting out of the way and letting a shopper complete the order without trying to introduce relevant up-sell merchandise, YOU ARE LOSING REVENUE, plain and simple.

So again, we will remain focused on balance. We'll show you how you can provide an experience that is not only beneficial to the end-user based on behavioral targeting, but also the top line.  Luckily, if you are providing an experience that introduces the appropriate cross-sell and up-sell products, it will drive bottom line revenue increases.

Let's look at a consumer behavior buying technique that keeps the process simple and relevant and is PROVEN to drive extra dollars.

Personalized Up-sell Recommendations:

When making these personalized product recommendations, there are two critical pieces of data to consider. The first is the merchandise in the cart and the second is that individual’s preferences. Here are three key questions you should consider:

Q: What merchandise would complement the item being purchased?

Display products that will add value or help the customer enjoy that product more.  As an example, if that customer is purchasing a blue ray player, recommend items such as HDMI cables or blue ray movies.

Q: How close are they to your free shipping threshold?

Dynamically inject products that will get that customer to that free shipping level, increasing the overall experience of the site. Now we know they are purchasing a blue ray player and they are $70 away from free shipping, let’s recommend newly released blue rays (higher priced items than older discount movies) and high end HDMI cables – which will get that customer to that free shipping tier.

Q: What does that customer prefer and how can we add value to the experience?

Observe shopping behavior and use the data collected to show the most relevant products based on expressed actions. Now we can understand preferences such as comedy and action films, allowing us to recommend newly released comedy and action films, complimented with an HDMI cable.

While this is an anecdotal example, by answering those three questions in real time, personalized cart recommendations can instantly create more revenue. The key is not to distract the customer with similar products, but to display products that are supplemental and beneficial for the item and individual.

Now that we are putting the right products in front of the new customer, how do we make the process simple for research and adding products to the cart? Here are a few ideas to help accomplish that balance:

1. Add ratings and reviews – Quick research tool and credibility
2. Add a scroller – Easy browse functionality introduces a wide array of merchandise
3. Add an "add to cart" button – One step button to add items to cart (Not Shown)
4. Add a quick view button -  Allows for product research without leaving the page, plus simple add to cart functionality including size, amount and color

Cart Recommendations need to be carefully balanced with the goal of creating more value from each individual shopper. Each of these e-commerce personalization solutions should be tested and optimized based on how customers interact with your website and brand.           

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