Online merchandising is more than just showcasing products; it’s capturing your audience’s attention, keeping them engaged, and guiding them smoothly toward a purchase. Let’s explore the essentials of online merchandising, breaking down actionable tips and strategies to elevate your e-commerce storefront.
What is Online Merchandising?
Online merchandising is the art of strategically organizing, showcasing, and promoting products on your e-commerce site to maximize engagement and conversions. Think of it as combining the precision of data analytics with the creativity of visual storytelling. Whether it’s through well-optimized product pages, eye-catching images, or personalized recommendations, the goal is the same: making shopping intuitive and enjoyable.
The Rise of Mobile-First Merchandising
Mobile is king in e-commerce. Have you ever noticed that smartphones seem to be glued to our hands? You’re not alone. According to Statista, over 54% of global website traffic now comes from mobile devices. For e-commerce, this means a mobile-first approach is non-negotiable.
How to master mobile merchandising:
Responsive Design: Online shopping is no longer linear. You have to ensure that your site is responsive across devices for a smoother shopping experience. This means making sure your design is responsive on desktop, mobile, and tablets.
More speed = more spending: According to Deloitte, a mere 0.1s change in loading time can improve the customer journey and improve conversion rates. It’s time to start minimizing code, optimizing images, and reducing redirects to speed up your mobile performance.
Streamlined Filters: Simplify searches with easy-to-use filters that don’t feel overwhelming on a smaller screen.
Mobile-Friendly CTAsand Buttons: On desktops, consumers click. On mobile, visitors tap with their fingers. A CTA (or any button) that’s too small can lead visitors to click on the wrong icon and derail their user journey. The CTA should be an optimal size (around 44×44 pixels) to avoid frustration.
Make your words worth it: With the constraints of a smaller screen, you may need to adapt your copy. Something as simple as changing your CTA button from “Contact Customer Service” to “Contact Us” can have a big impact.
Pro Tip: Dive further into mobile-first merchandising with our Smartphone Survival Guide to see how mobile impacts consumer behavior and how you can optimize your user experience to boost conversions.
Merchandising During Sales Periods
Sales periods like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Singles Day, Valentine’s Day, or other seasonal events are more than just discounts galore – they’re an opportunity to drive traffic to your website, clear inventory, and welcome new visitors.
How to maximize impact during sales
Curate Themed Landing Pages: Think “Gifts Under $25” or “Holiday Must-Haves.” Tailored pages simplify the shopping journey and give customers exactly what they’re looking for while saving them time browsing.
Urgency Tactics: Phrases like “Limited Stock” or “24-Hour Sale” pressure visitors to buy quicker by creating a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out).
Bundle Deals: Push more products in your inventory by highlighting bundles. Grouping products into bundles with a “frequently bought together” algorithm increases the average order value while offering perceived savings.
These strategies not only boost sales but also make your customers feel like they’ve struck gold on your website by finding just what they’re looking for.
The Power of Personalized Product Recommendations
Ever added a pair of shoes to your cart and instantly been tempted by a matching belt? That’s cross-selling at work. Personalized recommendations, when done right, are like having a helpful salesperson who’s available 24/7 to help you find what you need. So, how do you implement recommendations?
Implementing Recommendations:
Use AI to Analyze Behavior: With experience optimization platforms like AB Tasty, you can implement personalized recommendations by using their AI-powered recommendation engine to predict and personalize what visitors might like based on past activity.
Offer Related Products: When visitors start browsing different products, you can show complementary items to help your customers have the most complete purchase. Selling skincare? Why not recommend helpful products to help your visitors “complete their nighttime routine.”
Personalize Email Follow-ups: Abandoned carts? Send a friendly nudge with personalized email recommendations to remind your customers what’s waiting in their basket.
Want to see the results of recommendations in action? Check out Alltricks’s success story where they saw a +5% in average order value or Jacadi earning +13% more revenue per user with AB Tasty’s recommendations and merchandising solution.
Optimizing Product Pages for Search Engines
Your product pages are like magnets for customers – if they’re SEO-optimized. According to AB Tasty’s E-commerce Consumer Trends Report, nearly half of online experiences begin with a search engine. By improving your SEO and therefore visibility, you’ll make it easier for shoppers to find you.
Must-Have SEO Features:
Targeted Keywords: The more details – the better. It’s always best to use longer, search-friendly terms like “women’s waterproof hiking boots” rather than generic ones like “boots.”
Enticing Meta Descriptions: In addition to a descriptive title, the meta description is your one opportunity to communicate key information about your product with a short, clickable summary to draw in potential buyers.
Alt text for images: Not only does alt text help you meet accessibility standards, but it also improves your chances of showing up in Google Image results.
Detailed Product Descriptions: write descriptions that are informative and keyword-rich while avoiding keyword stuffing.
Leveraging Customer Reviews and Returns Data
Did you know that the majority of consumers read reviews before buying? In fact, Gen Z considers reviews to be the most important thing to consider before making a purchase (source). Reviews help build trust and provide social proof which helps undecided shoppers feel more confident in their purchases.
Ways to Leverage Reviews:
Spotlight success stories: We all love a zero-to-hero story! Highlight top-rated reviews directly on product pages to give confidence to your potential buyers.
Encourage feedback: Be proactive in building reviews for your e-commerce site by sending a post-purchase email asking for reviews (bonus tip: offer a small discount or loyalty points as an incentive).
Feature photos: Take your reviews a step further by encouraging your buyers to upload user-generated images of your products in real life to help build trust.
Turn returns into opportunities
Returns aren’t the end of the world, they’re learning opportunities. Analyze return trends to identify products, flaws, sizing issues, or misleading descriptions. Then, tweak your strategy accordingly to reduce future returns.
Conclusion:
Online merchandising is where creativity meets strategy. By embracing mobile-first designs, leveraging AI, optimizing for SEO, and personalizing the shopping experience, you can turn casual browsers into loyal customers. In today’s competitive e-commerce world, standing out isn’t optional – it’s essential.
With these best practices, you’re not just selling products, you’re creating an experience worth remembering.
FAQs: Online Merchandising
What is online merchandising, and why is it important?
Online merchandising is the process of strategically presenting products on your website to boost sales and engagement. It’s vital because it directly impacts the customer experience and your bottom line.
2. How does mobile-first design impact online merchandising?
A mobile-friendly site ensures a seamless experience for the majority of shoppers, who browse and buy via smartphones. This boosts conversions and reduces bounce rates.
3. How can I optimize my product pages for better visibility?
Use targeted keywords, detailed descriptions, high-quality images, and SEO-friendly meta tags to improve both search rankings and user engagement.
4. Why are customer reviews crucial for online sales?
Reviews provide social proof, build trust, and influence purchasing decisions. Highlighting reviews can significantly boost conversions.
5. What tools can help with AI-driven merchandising?
Platforms like AB Tasty offer advanced AI features to personalize recommendations and enhance the overall online shopping experience.
In the vast and competitive world of e-commerce, simply having great products isn’t enough. Your online store is like a stage, and how you present your products can make or break the show. Enter e-merchandising—the art and science of guiding your customers through a shopping journey that’s as smooth as silk and as engaging as a blockbuster movie.
Whether you’re looking to captivate first-time visitors or inspire returning customers, the right merchandising strategies can transform your site from a digital storefront into an experience that keeps customers coming back for more.
Ready to dive in? Here are five e-commerce merchandising strategies, with real-world examples, to help you create a shopping experience that truly shines.
1. Branding and Homepage Messaging: Your Digital First Impression
“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is a great mantra to apply to our personal lives, however, this proverb doesn’t apply to the e-commerce world.
Your homepage is more than just a landing page—it’s the welcome mat to your online store, and it needs to speak volumes. From the moment someone lands on your site, they should know who you are, what you stand for, and how you can make their life better.
Why it matters:
First impressions count. A compelling homepage can turn curious browsers into engaged shoppers.
Returning visitors want to see something fresh and relevant, not the same old same old.
Pro tips:
Tell your story boldly: Your brand story should be front and center. Use a powerful tagline or headline that captures your essence.
Test, test, test: Use A/B testing to find out what messaging resonates most with your audience.
Show, don’t tell: Include social proof like testimonials and customer reviews to build instant credibility.
Real-world example: Homepage
JOTT, a French clothing retailer, noticed that their homepage was experiencing a higher bounce rate than expected. Realizing that first impressions were crucial, they ran a no-code A/B test using AB Tasty’s experience platform to see if rearranging the homepage layout would improve engagement.
By moving product categories to the above-the-fold section and pushing individual product displays lower down, they achieved a 17.5% increase in clicks on the product category blocks. This optimization reduced bounce rates and guided more users deeper into their shopping journey, enhancing overall engagement.
2. Group Merchandise into Collections: Curate Like a Pro
Ever walked into a store and felt overwhelmed by choice? The same thing can happen online. Grouping your products into well-thought-out collections can turn chaos into clarity, making it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for—and maybe even discover something they didn’t know they needed.
Why it matters:
Curated collections simplify the shopping experience, helping customers quickly find what they’re after.
They also encourage customers to explore more, potentially increasing their basket size.
Pro tips:
Get creative with collections: Don’t just stick to the basics. Think outside the box—consider seasonal themes, trending items, or even influencer picks.
Use data wisely: Analyze purchase patterns to create collections that reflect what customers are actually buying.
Spotlight special collections: Use banners or pop-ups to draw attention to limited-time offers or new arrivals.
Real-world example: Collections
Balibaris, a leading French men’s fashion brand, revamped its e-commerce strategy by intelligently reorganizing its product displays to better match customer preferences and behavior. By dynamically sorting products and emphasizing best-sellers and seasonal items, Balibaris saw a significant increase in conversion rates compared to the previous year, even without special promotions. This strategic move not only enhanced the online shopping experience but also boosted overall sales while freeing up the digital team to focus on more impactful projects.
3. Showcase Products with Visual Merchandising: Let Your Images Do the Talking
In the world of e-commerce, a picture is worth a thousand clicks. Visual merchandising isn’t just about slapping up a few product photos; it’s about creating an emotional connection that makes customers want to reach through the screen and grab that item. High-quality images, videos, and even virtual try-ons can bring your products to life and help customers see how they’ll fit into their lives.
Why it matters:
Stunning visuals can make or break a sale. They help customers imagine the product in their own lives.
Lifestyle images and videos build an emotional connection, making customers more likely to hit “Add to Cart.”
Pro tips:
Go high-def: Invest in top-notch photography that shows your products from every angle.
Tell a story: Use lifestyle images or videos to show how your products can be used in real life.
Mix it up: Consider adding videos or 360-degree views to give customers a more immersive experience.
Real-world example: Visual Merchandising
Galeries Lafayette, one of France’s most iconic department stores, sought to enhance the online shopping experience by testing the impact of different product image styles. They compared standard packshot images to premium images featuring models wearing the products.
The results were striking: the premium images not only increased clicks by 49% but also boosted the average order value (AOV) by €5.76, adding a potential €114,000 in profit. This shift towards higher-quality visuals resonated with customers, leading Galeries Lafayette to prioritize premium images across their site, significantly improving user engagement and sales.
4. Implement Effective Site Search: Help Shoppers Find Their Perfect Match
When a customer knows what they want, nothing should stand in their way—especially not a clunky search function. A well-oiled site search is like a personal shopper, helping customers find exactly what they’re looking for, faster.
Why it matters:
Customers who use search are often more ready to buy, so it’s crucial that they find what they’re looking for quickly and easily.
An effective search can turn casual browsers into buyers by surfacing relevant products.
Pro tips:
Optimize filters & facets: Let customers narrow down their search results with relevant filters like size, color, and price.
Smart error detection: Make sure your search can handle typos and synonyms—because we all make mistakes.
Autocomplete magic: Help customers out by suggesting popular search terms as they type.
Never show a dead end: Avoid zero-results pages by offering suggestions or related products instead.
Real-world example: Site Search
VAN GRAAF, an international fashion retailer, recognized the need to elevate their online search functionality to meet the high standards of their physical stores. By integrating AB Tasty, VAN GRAAF significantly improved the customer journey on their e-commerce site. The results were impressive: online orders from search increased by 30%, conversion rates rose by 16%, and the average order value (AOV) saw a 5% boost. Additionally, the share of sales from search grew by 4.3%. This transformation not only enhanced the shopping experience but also reduced the time the team spent managing search functionalities, allowing them to focus on other critical optimizations.
5. Cross-Sell and Up-Sell Products in Your Shopping Cart: The Power of Suggestion
You’ve done the hard work of getting a product into a customer’s cart—now’s your chance to suggest a few more. Cross-selling and up-selling are subtle yet powerful ways to increase the value of each sale by offering customers items that complement what they’ve already chosen.
Why it matters:
Personalized recommendations can boost your average order value and make customers feel like you really “get” them.
It’s a win-win—customers discover more great products, and you see a bump in sales.
Pro tips:
Personalize everything: Use AI to suggest products based on what’s already in the cart or what similar customers have bought.
Bundle it up: Show products that are frequently bought together as a bundle to encourage more sales.
Test placement: Experiment with where you place these suggestions—product pages, the shopping cart, or even during checkout.
Real-world example: Cross-sell and Up-sell
Figaret, a high-end French shirtmaker, significantly boosted its online sales by integrating personalized product recommendations. By strategically placing recommendation blocks on product pages and in the shopping cart, Figaret achieved remarkable results: 6% of visitors used these recommendations, contributing to 10% of the site’s total revenue. Additionally, these users spent on average 1.8 times more than those who didn’t engage with the recommendations. This approach not only enhanced customer engagement but also drove substantial revenue growth.
Measuring Success in E-merchandising: Are You Hitting the Mark?
You’ve put in the work, but how do you know if your e-merchandising strategies are actually working? Measuring success isn’t just about looking at sales numbers; it’s about understanding how each element of your strategy contributes to the bigger picture.
Key Metrics to Watch:
Website traffic: Keep an eye on where your visitors are coming from and what they’re doing on your site.
Conversion rate: This is the percentage of visitors who actually make a purchase—one of your most important metrics.
Sales data: Analyze overall sales, average order value, and revenue from specific merchandising strategies.
Average basket size: Track how many items customers are purchasing per transaction to gauge the effectiveness of your cross-selling and up-selling efforts.
Pro tips:
Set benchmarks: Compare your metrics against industry standards to see where you stand.
Use analytics tools: Platforms like Google Analytics or Matomo can give you insights into how visitors interact with your site.
Keep iterating: Don’t settle for good—strive for better. Regularly review your data and tweak your strategies to keep improving.
Conclusion: Trial and Better—The Heart of E-Merchandising Strategies
E-commerce merchandising isn’t a “set it and forget it” task—it’s a continuous journey of trial, error, and improvement. The best strategies evolve over time as you learn more about your customers and the market. So don’t be afraid to experiment, take risks, and, most importantly, keep pushing for better. Every tweak, test, and change you make is a step towards creating an online store that not only meets but exceeds customer expectations.
Ready to take your e-commerce merchandising to the next level? Download our comprehensive guide on e-merchandising best practices or schedule a free demo with AB Tasty today. Your journey to better starts now.
In a highly competitive digital marketplace, optimizing your website for a unique and seamless digital customer journey is no longer just a competitive advantage — it’s a necessity.
It’s important to remember that the digital customer journey does not begin and end with a purchase – it’s a web of all customer interactions and touchpoints with your brand.
AB Tasty has mapped out seven customer phases that we consider crucial in the journey. To craft unique experiences, you’ll need to differentiate these seven phases customers pass through and understand how to animate their digital journey.
Once you have a better understanding of these phases, you will be better equipped to set your business goals and properly optimize your website for growth and impact.
Click to view the full-sized infographic in a new tab
How exactly can you optimize each phase of the digital customer journey? Let’s dive right in and take a look at some examples.
Phase 1: Awareness
When visitors land on your website for the first time, a great first impression is crucial. Your page needs to be both visually appealing and intuitive. A dynamic above the fold design is a great place to start.
In this first phase, it’s important to let your best ideas shine to capture and keep your visitors’ attention. You can accomplish this by creating personalized welcome messages for first-time visitors, displaying your value proposition and organizing high-impact elements for better visibility.
Let’s take a look at Just Over The Top’s experiment to modify the layout of their homepage. They used AB Tasty’s experience optimization platform to test if their users responded better seeing a layout with product categories rather than individual products.
Original:
Variation:
After creating a test variation to run against the original layout, they saw a 17.5% click increase on the three blocks below the hero image. This brought many more users into the second phase of their customer journey.
Phase 2: Discovery
When consumers reach the second phase, they’ve already discovered your brand and they’re getting curious.
To accommodate visitors during this phase, your website should be optimized for an excellent browsing experience. Whether this means making your search bar more visible, creating dynamic filters while searching, or using a virtual assistant to get to know your visitors’ interests with a series of questions, an easy browsing experience with intelligent search is key.
In this example, Claudie Pierlot focused on optimizing the customer browsing experience by testing the search bar visibility. In their variation, the small search icon was made more visible by adding the word “recherche” (or search in English) in the top right-hand corner.
Original:
Variation:
This clear above the fold design made it easier for visitors to identify the search bar to begin their browsing experience. With this simple A/B test, they saw a 47% increase in search bar clicks and a 7% increase in conversion rates coming directly from the search bar.
In another example, Villeroy & Boch, a ceramic manufacturing company, wanted to leverage intelligent search on their website. With the help of AB Tasty, they implemented an AI search algorithm to navigate online shoppers.
With our solution, they designed a new and intuitive navigation complete with filters and a comprehensive autosuggestion feature.
By changing their search functions, Villeroy & Boch saw a 33% increase in search results clicks and a 20% increase in sales through the search function.
Phase 3: Consideration
Now is the time when your visitors are considering your brand and which products they are interested in. Showcasing your product pages in their best light during the consideration phase might be exactly what your visitor needs to continue moving down the funnel.
Let’s look at how Hanna Anderson optimized their product pages during this phase.
The clothing retail company wanted to experiment with the images on their product listing pages. Previously, their toddler line had only images of clothing sizes for an older child. They were convinced there was room for improvement and decided to run a test by changing their images to include toddler sizes.
Original:
Variation:
After implementing age-appropriate clothing images, the results were clear. During this test, the clicks on PLPs increased by almost 8% and the purchase rate on those items skyrocketed by 22%.
Phase 4: Intent
During the intent phase, your visitors are on the verge of becoming customers but need to be convinced to make a purchase.
Social proof, urgency messaging, and bundling algorithms are a few ideas to lightly nudge visitors to add to cart or add more to cart.
Let’s take a look at the impact that urgency messaging can have: IZIPIZI, an eyewear retailer, decided to add a special message flag next to their product description to show viewers how many people have purchased this product. The idea of this message is to show viewers that this product is popular and to encourage them to take action.
With this simple sentence of social proof to validate a product’s desirability, they saw a 36% increase in add-to-basket rate.
In another scenario, you can see that adding a progress bar is a simple way to upsell. With a progress par, you are showing your customer how close they are to earning free shipping, which entices them to add more to their cart.
Vanessa Bruno experimented with this additive with the help of AB Tasty and saw a 3.15% increase in transactions and a €6 AOV uplift.
Phase 5: Purchase
Purchase frustration is real. If customers experience friction during checkout, you risk losing money.
Friction refers to any issues the visitors may encounter such as unclear messaging during the payment (did the payment actually go through?), confusing or expensive shipping options, discounts not working, double authentication check-in delays, difficult sign-in, and more.
Optimizing your checkout sequence for your audience with rollouts and KPI-triggered rollbacks can help you find a seamless fit for your website.
Let’s look at an example for this phase: Galeries Lafayette, the French luxury department store, saw an opportunity to optimize their checkout by displaying default payment methods that do not require double authentication.
During this test, they saw a €113,661 increase in profit, a €5 uplift in average order value, and a 38% increase in the conversion rate by adding the CB (bank card) option for a quicker checkout.
Phase 6: Experience
Optimizing the buyer experience doesn’t end after the purchase. Now is the time to grow your customer base and stop churn in its tracks. So, how do you keep your customers interested? By maintaining the same level of quality in your messages and personalization.
Let’s look at how Envie de Fraise, a French boutique, leveraged their user information to transform a normal post-purchase encounter into a personalized experience.
One of their customers had just purchased a maternity dress and had been browsing multiple maternity dresses prior to their purchase. By knowing this information, they experimented with using the “you will love these products” algorithm to gently nudge their customer to continue shopping.
With a customized recommendation like this, Envie de Fraise saw a €127K increase in their potential profit. As your customer spends more time with your brand, you will learn more about their habits and interests. The more time they spend with you, the more personalized you can make their experience.
Phase 7: Loyalty
In the final step of your customer’s journey, they move into the loyalty phase. To turn customers into champions of your brand, it’s important to remind them that you value their loyalty.
This can be done by sending emails with individual offers, social proof, product suggestions, or incentives for joining a loyalty program to earn rewards or complete product reviews.
Another example of this is sending a personalized email displaying items that are frequently bought together that align with their purchase. This will remind the customer about your brand and give them recommendations for future purchases.
Why Optimizing the Digital Customer Journey is Essential to Boost Conversions
The fierce competition in the e-commerce marketplace is undeniable. In order to attract and retain customers, you have to focus on crafting personalized user experiences to turn passive visitors into active buyers.
Understanding their needs in each phase and optimizing your digital space is your best solution to nudge visitors down the purchasing funnel.
By personalizing the experience of your customers during each phase of the digital customer journey, you can ensure an optimal shopping experience, boost purchases, increase customer satisfaction, and see more repeat customers.
AB Tasty is the best-in-class experience optimization platform that empowers you to create a richer digital experience – fast. From experimentation to personalization, this solution can help you activate and engage your audience to boost your conversions.
Using personalization to enhance your customer journey
With the vast array of products and brands to choose from, customer loyalty has become more important than ever. By focusing on personalizing the digital customer journey, you can reduce the chances of your customer abandoning their purchase or opting for another brand.
An individualized customer journey is beneficial for the following reasons:
Option overload: As online brands fight for the attention of consumers, it’s important to set your brand apart from the rest, with a customer journey that is tailored to their needs.
Analysis paralysis: With a plethora of information now readily available to customers who are researching and comparing potential purchases, your digital customer journey can help to deliver the information they need with ease and offer them the best shopping experience, thereby tipping the scale in your favor.
Lack of loyalty: The ease with which a customer can change service providers has increased the pressure and importance of meeting their needs during the entirety of the digital customer journey. Every interaction matters.
Offering a personalized experience elevates the customer journey and helps to ensure customer satisfaction. By leveraging the power of personalization, you can adapt the individual phases of the customer journey to each customer’s needs for an optimal e-commerce experience.
Personalization is the key to customer satisfaction
There is no way to deny the intense competition in the e-commerce space. Attracting and retaining customers is more difficult now than it has ever been. To advance ahead of the competition, you must understand customer needs and personalize each user journey with the help of a customer journey model.
By personalizing each experience your customers have with your brand, you can be sure to give your customers an optimal shopping experience, guarantee customer satisfaction, and encourage customer loyalty.
The future of digital experience optimization has arrived and it’s driven by AI.
Are you ready for it?
AI can often be a sensitive subject, as loud voices in the room will boast how AI can replace people, careers, or even entire sectors of society. We’re scaling back the dystopian imagery and instead finding ways where AI can be your sidekick, not a supervillain.
There are two sides to the coin with AI: it can help optimize your time and boost conversions, but it can also be risky if not used properly. We’ll dig into the ways AI can be a helpful tool, as well as some considerations to take.
The positive impact of AI on your customer experience roadmap
In one of our last pieces about AI in the CRO world, we discussed 10 generative AI ideas for your experimentation roadmap. Since the publication of this article, we’re back with even more ideas and concrete examples of successful campaigns.
1. Display reassurance messages to visitors who value it
Some shoppers value their privacy and data safety above all else. How can you comfort these visitors while they’re shopping on your website without interfering with other visitors’ journeys? While salespeople can easily gauge these preferences in face-to-face interactions, online shoppers deserve the same personalized experience when they shop independently.
Let’s see an example below of how you can enhance the digital customer experience for different shoppers at the same time:
MAAF, a French insurance provider, knows just how complex buying auto insurance can be for visitors. Some shoppers prioritize safety and reassurance messages, while others don’t. With AI systems that segment visitors based on emotional buying preferences, you can detect and cater to this type of profile without deferring to other shoppers. “Intuitive” profiles are receptive to reassurance messages, while “rational” profiles tend to see these extra messages as a distraction.
The team at MAAF used advanced AI technology to overcome this exact challenge. Once the “intuitive profiles” were identified, they were able to implement personalized messages ensuring their commitment to their customers’ data protection. As a result, they saw an increase of 4% in quote rates for those directed to the intuitive segmentation, and other profiles continued on their journey without extra messaging.
2. Segment your audience based on their shopping behavior
With so many online shoppers, how can you possibly personalize your website to give each shopper the best user experience? With AI-powered personalization software.
Some online shoppers have a need for competition. Don’t we all know someone who loves to turn everything into a competition? These “competitive” shoppers are susceptible to social-proof messaging and are influenced by the opinions of other customers while searching for the best product. One of the best ways to personalize a listing page for competitive shoppers is to show ratings from their peers.
Meanwhile, what works for competitive shoppers, will not work effectively for speedy shoppers. Shoppers with a need for immediacy will appreciate a clear, no-frills browsing experience. In other words, they don’t want to get distracted. Let’s look at the example below.
This website implemented two different segments targeting online shoppers with a need for “competition” and “immediacy.” These two segments brought in a 9% increase in conversion rates and a 2% increase respectively. The campaign was a success, but how did it work?
Using AB Tasty’s AI personalization engine, EmotionsAI, this online shop identified its visitors’ main emotional needs and directed them toward a product listing page best suited for them. EmotionsAI turns buyer emotions into data-driven sales with actionable insights and targeted audiences.
Want to learn more about EmotionsAI? Get a demo to see how AI can impact your roadmap for the better!
3. Automate and personalize your product recommendations
European backpack designer, Cabaïa, used an AI-powered recommendation engine to generate personalized recommendations for their website visitors based on user data collected. The team at Cabaïa previously managed product recommendations manually but wanted to shift their focus to improving the digital customer experience.
AI recommendation tools put the right product in front of the right person, helping boost conversions with a more tailored experience. Since implementing this AI-powered recommendation engine, they’ve had +13% revenue per visitor, increased conversions by 15%, and raised their visitor’s average cart size by 2.4%.
4. Innovate your testing strategy with emotional targeting
According to an online shopper study (2024), traditional personalization is no longer enough. Personalizing based on age, location, and demographics just isn’t as precise anymore.
The team at Groupama, a multinational insurance group, wanted to take A/B testing a step further and better adapt their approach to fit their customers’ unique emotional needs. By using an AI-powered emotional personalization engine, they were able to identify two large groups of website visitors: emotionals and rationals.
They created an A/B test based on these customer profiles. One variation catered to the “emotional” buyers by showing reassuring messaging on the insurance quote to protect their data, and the other catered to “rationals” that displayed the insurance quote without any extra messaging that allowed them to have a distraction-free buyer journey. Within 2 weeks, Groupama saw an instant win with a 10% increase in quote submissions.
5. Simplify the customer journey and build buyer confidence
Like many financial services, purchasing insurance is inherently complex. Consumer behaviors and expectations in insurance are quickly changing.
As a leading insurer in Singapore, DirectAsia has embraced innovative technologies to better serve their customers. By pioneering new technology, Direct Asia was able to segment their visitors based on emotional needs.
The team at DirectAsia identified that the ‘safety’ segment (buyers needing reassurance) was the top unsatisfied emotional need for visitors on both desktop and mobile devices. With these insights, DirectAsia ran an experiment on ‘safety’ visitors, displaying two banners to reassure them and move them further down the form to the quote page.
The banners led to + 10.9% in access to the quote page for one, and +15% in access to the quote page for the other.
The potential risks of AI on your customer experience roadmap
Artificial intelligence has been evolving (very quickly!) over the past few years and it can be tempting to run full speed ahead. However, it’s important to find the right AI that works for you and helps you achieve your goals. Is AI powering something you need, impacting your business, or is it just there to impress?
With that in mind, let’s consider some precautions to take while using AI:
Unfactual or biased information on data reports, website copy, etc.
When researching or asking for data sources, it’s important to keep in mind that artificial intelligence can get it wrong. Just as humans can make mistakes and have biased opinions, AI can do the same. Since AI systems are trained to produce information following patterns, AI can unintentionally amplify bias or discrimination.
Lack of creativity, dependence, and over-reliance
Excessive reliance on AI can reduce decision-making skills, creativity, and proactive thinking. In competitive industries, you need creativity to stand out in the market to capture your audience’s attention. Your roadmap could suffer if you put too much faith in your tool. After all, you are the expert in your own field.
Data and privacy risks
Protecting your data should always be a top concern, especially in the digital experience world. You will want a trusted partner who uses AI with safeguards in place and a good history of data privacy. With the fast-developing capabilities of AI, handling your data correctly and safely becomes a hurdle. As a general best practice, it’s best not to upload any sensitive data into any AI system – even if it seems trustworthy. As these systems often require larger quantities of data to generate results, this can lead to privacy concerns if your data is misused or stored inappropriately.
Hallucinations
According to IBM, AI hallucinations happen when a large language model (LLM) thinks it recognizes patterns that aren’t really there, leading to random or inaccurate results. AI models are incapable of knowing that their response can be hallucinogenic since they lack understanding of the world around us. It’s important to be aware of this possibility because these systems are trained to present their conclusions as factual.
Conclusion: Using AI in the Digital Customer Experience
As with any tool or software, AI is a powerful tool that can enhance your team – not attempt to replace it. Embracing the use of AI in your digital customer experience can lead to incredible results. The key is to be aware of risks and limitations, and understand how to use it effectively to achieve your business goals.
Most online shops implement e-commerce product recommendation systems. But if you take a look at how these recommendations are displayed, you’ll start to notice some big differences. Depending on how the recommendation system works, different variables impact which products are prioritized for personalization.
Since recommendations depend on personalization and user data, it’s possible to choose how to suggest items. In the following article, you’ll learn about various recommendation systems and how to choose the right one for your shop.
Relevant recommendations through personalization
Product recommendations are most impactful when they are relevant to the customer. It is possible to achieve maximum results by ensuring that the recommendations are personalized and account for the individual preferences of customers.
With this, it should be noted that the most effective type of personalization depends on the e-commerce product recommendation system and strategy used.
Personalization requires dialog
Personalization is very complex. It can be used at various touchpoints and implemented using different systems. It means presenting online visitors with product recommendations that are as close as possible to their preferences.
To do this, you first need data on the user’s click and purchase behavior. This can be collected through a dialog with the customer, which is established via their engagement with the online shop. Once data is collected, it can be combined with product data and expert knowledge in a knowledge base.
In this knowledge base, all data is processed and evaluated. One approach is to use artificial intelligence (AI). This allows data (click and purchase behavior) to be processed into information by experts via data mining. The information is then turned into knowledge using algorithms (reinforcement learning).
This knowledge is ultimately used to provide customers with relevant recommendations. Product data, click and purchase behavior, and expert knowledge all converge in the knowledge base.
Dialog-based AI
To provide customers with the best results, an algorithm must first determine what the customer needs. The term dialog-based AI is used for such processes.
A so-called response engine, which uses sensors to record and analyze click and purchase behavior, plays a crucial role here. This takes on the task of identifying a customer’s goals and interests from their engagement with the online store.
Various possibilities for dialog
There are many ways to track customer engagement with an online shop. These are distinguished in the form of:
Reactions
When a customer browses an online store, numerous reactions can occur. Based on user engagement with the content (clicks, product selection, purchases, etc.), you can find out what they want. Once you have this information, you can present customized content to customers.
Language
We naturally think of language when we hear the word “dialog.” That said, a dialog between humans and machines based on language has pitfalls. Many people who use voice-activated assistants understand this.
When discussing online stores, human-to-machine dialog occurs through search terms. This allows language to be used for a personalized search engine. Therefore, a product search can be understood as a personalized search system triggered by linguistic input.
With this, the following question arises. How can e-commerce operators use customer-driven engagement and dialog to provide suitable recommendations? There are various systems for achieving this, which are discussed in more detail in the following sections.
Classic recommendation systems (static)
There is a clear distinction between different e-commerce recommendation systems. They are primarily distinguished by the data and methods used to determine relevant suggestions to customers.
With this, there are two classic variants: collaborative and content-based systems. In addition, recommendation systems can incorporate other elements, including demographic data and time spent shopping. We’ll look into two “classic” recommendation systems below.
Collaborative recommendation systems
When online shop customers share click and purchase behavior, a collaborative recommendation system can be used. This analyzes data from different customers and finds similarities to suggest relevant products for a consumer group.
Recommendations generated by this system can follow a headline like “customers who were interested in this product found these relevant.” This is because the system will recommend items to multiple customers with similar patterns. On a related note, algorithms that deliver product lists with this approach are known as collaborative filtering systems.
Collaborative recommendation systems are used by major retailers like Amazon, among others. It is the method of choice when little or no personalization information is available for a customer. It’s also good when the product catalog contains minimal characteristics.
Advantages of collaborative systems
In e-commerce, the advantage of collaborative product recommendation systems is they can reveal relationships between users and items that aren’t explicitly apparent. Additionally. collaborative filtering can show customers products that differ from previous preferences, but may still be of interest. This means you can surprise your customers.
Disadvantage of collaborative systems
However, there is a disadvantage. It is referred to as the “cold start problem,” and occurs primarily with new users and products. With this type of e-commerce product recommendation system, it is necessary that there is a large number of customers with similar behaviors. If there is minimal customer engagement, it can be difficult to generate recommendations.
Content-based recommendation systems
Unlike the above type, content-based recommendation systems do not work on the basis of users with similar engagement patterns. Instead, product attribute commonalities are used as a basis. In addition, individual customer engagement plays a role.
Content-based recommendation systems suggest items that are relevant to products a customer expressed interest in purchasing. To calculate recommendations of this kind, content analysis is required to determine product similarities.
When providing such recommendations, you can preface them with something like “similar products from your favorite brand.”
Advantages of content-based systems
Content-based recommendation systems have both advantages and disadvantages. One major advantage is that content-based recommendation systems can suggest items even if there are no clicks or purchases on the site. This counteracts the “cold start problem” of collaborative recommendation systems.
Disadvantages of content-based systems
A disadvantage of a content-based e-commerce product recommendation system is that it can be overly specialized. There’s no element of surprise regarding product recommendations. They are only based on the preferences of the individual customer.
If we look back at the example of “similar products from your favorite brand,” we can see another problem with content-based recommendation systems. The customer may wish to see products that have their favorite color, for example.
This makes it clear how important it is to understand preferences. In other words, a customer should be presented with a wide range of recommendation factors. It’s the best way to determine which, of the similar products, the customer actually wants.
Context-aware recommendation systems (dynamic)
Personalization goes beyond the matter of providing customers with desired content. Users increasingly expect content to be presented in the “right” context, one that’s familiar. This presents a challenge for personalization services.
To present customers with relevant recommendations in a context that’s suitable for them, dynamic information is required. This is in addition to static information (such as product similarities). Context-aware recommendation systems process this information.
Within this system, the context is another input for the recommendation system. It conveys what the customer is doing and where recommendations are displayed. The dynamic context-aware information and its interrelationships significantly improve recommendation quality.
Multiple recommendation contexts
When discussing e-commerce, multiple recommendation contexts refer to suggestions beyond products. This typically occurs in a personalized section of the website dedicated to the customer. It’s useful for keeping consumers engaged beyond their purchase(s).
It is possible to show a variety of recommendations in multiple contexts that are tailored to the customer’s preferences. This includes interactive elements and offers a mix of inspiration from similar products to content and entertainment.
If successful, this encourages customers to return to the online shop on their own, increasing consumer loyalty and website engagement. By discovering related content to their favorite brands, styles, etc, users may purchase more items.
This entertainment-driven approach is based on data already collected from the customer’s previous interactions with the website. The overall experience matches what consumers already know, creating a familiar environment for discovery.
Individual recommendation contexts
If your shop can’t host the content necessary for a multiple recommendation environment, you should ask what your customers specifically need. This will help you deliver the best individualized recommendations possible.
To illustrate how crucial it is to develop a suitable recommendation environment, let’s look at the following scenarios.
Product detail page
An online shop visitor is looking at a product (for example, a pot) on a product detail page. The customer is currently researching information and wants to buy a pot. To best lead the customer in the right direction, you can display similar products or products customers have also purchased. This can be shown below the product information in a recommendation widget.
Shopping cart layer
In this situation, a shop customer puts a product (for example, a bicycle) in the shopping cart and a pop-up appears with similar products. Here, the customer is one step away from completing the purchase.
They are about to buy a bicycle and have already added it to their shopping cart. When this happens, you should not display similar products under any circumstances. This will confuse the customer and delay the purchasing process.
To avoid them changing their mind at this stage, you should instead present complementary items like a helmet or bicycle lock. This is known as cross-selling and inspires customers to increase the value of their cart.
Compromises for individual recommendations
If only one or two recommendation methods can be presented on a product detail page, you have to select the best one. An example would be “similar products that you may also like.” It is important to take the term “similar” literally.
“Similar” here means products with the same characteristics as the product viewed are understood. This relates to a customer’s personal preferences. If done correctly, it will increase the quality of recommendations and drive sales.
For example: if a customer shows a particular interest in black items, other black items are considered to be very similar. Without this information about customer behavior, the product color would not help inform recommendations.
Hybrid recommendation systems
It may be necessary to mix or modulate recommendation systems. By combining content-based and collaborative recommendation systems, disadvantages can be minimized. This means that high-quality and relevant recommendations can be generated more quickly for online shop customers. If this occurs, this is called a hybrid recommendation system and ensures better results.
That said, truly relevant recommendations cannot be generated with a universal algorithm. They require the dynamic interconnection of a series of intelligent basic algorithms. The prerequisite for this is a modular software system that supports these basic algorithms in a compatible manner. It also requires experts to be able to configure such dynamic architectures with the right parameters.
Selecting the right recommendation system
We’ve covered a wide range of e-commerce product recommendation systems, alongside various methods and data uses. The final question remains. Which one is “right” for generating suitable recommendations?
Understanding your customer’s needs
The above question cannot be answered easily in general terms. The right recommendation system for your e-commerce platform depends on various factors. Recent developments in e-commerce reveal that previously static structures are becoming more dynamic.
In addition, the shopping environment is becoming increasingly important. With this, it goes without saying that it’s necessary to have a wide product and content selection available. The right recommendation strategy depends on the phase of the customer journey and product context. It’s best to explore a mixture of different systems for an optimal experience.
Expert knowledge as a prerequisite
To dynamically provide personalized recommendations in the right context, your website needs the right software architecture. It needs to dynamically combine a wide range of algorithms. With this, an understanding of the shopping environment context is necessary.
Configuring these architectures requires expert knowledge. This is because only trained individuals can identify the requirements of individual touchpoints for selecting the right recommendation system.
They will best know how to choose the best personalization type for the context. By using an expert, you’ll ensure individual recommendations are generated properly for customers.
Targeted combination of different recommendation systems
As you can see in this article, there are various recommendation systems. They each have their own advantages and disadvantages. The development of e-commerce shows that dynamic structures are becoming more important. Shop customers expect product recommendations in a familiar environment.
To meet such demands, different recommendation system processes can be combined with each other. It’s possible to facilitate this in a targeted manner, based on contextual information.
Since these hybrid systems are very complex, expert knowledge is crucial for success. This is because dynamic architectures need to be designed and personalized to generate relevant product recommendations.
With this, it’s important to understand customer preferences and ensure recommendations are appropriate for various stages of the journey. Following these recommendations can make a big difference in presenting optimal recommendations. All of this means more revenue from increased sales.
When shopping online, you’ll likely encounter suggestions for alternative or complementary items. This is meant to inspire customers to continue shopping and is part of an e-commerce product recommendation strategy. With this, shop owners can potentially increase revenue through bigger shopping carts.
Product recommendations can follow customers throughout their journey in an online shop. This usually includes the homepage, category and product detail pages, and shopping cart. It also extends to e-mail marketing.
In this article, we will show you where product recommendations make sense for e-commerce along with special features to consider. This is relevant for displaying recommendations at the right moments in an online shopping environment.
Ensuring relevant product recommendations for your e-commerce
In e-commerce, product recommendations are displayed through recommendation “reco” engines. As you might imagine, these deliver relevant recommendations tailored to the visitor. While customers are typically suggested products, recommendation engines can also be used for related content.
Recommendations are presented using widgets which provide the framework for relevant product or content suggestions. These can be customized to match the design and branding of your e-commerce platform.
Differentiate between new and existing customers
With the above information, you might be wondering how to effectively use an e-commerce product recommendation widget. You’ll first need to make a distinction between new and existing customers. This is important because you’ll need to tailor your recommendation engine to different audiences, based on shopping behavior.
In this context, it’s useful to know whether a customer has already visited your online shop, clicked through various categories, and completed a purchase. All of this is considered an online shopping history and only applies to existing customers.
Existing customers: online shoppers with history
If your customers have a history with your store, you can use data based on their previous habits or purchases to display suitable recommendations. You’ll want to analyze click and purchase behavior to personalize relevant product suggestions. In doing so, you’ll likely inspire more sales.
With existing customers, you can also suggest products or content based on their previous purchases. For example, if your customer recently purchased a skincare item that is usually purchased in a series, you can suggest other products to help them complete their skincare routine.
New customers: online shoppers without purchase history
While you can’t offer recommendations based on the personal interests of customers new to your shop, you still can make suggestions to inspire their purchase journey. These include using recommendation algorithms like top sellers, sale items, or new products.
Where to position product recommendations on your website?
There are many ways to position product recommendations in an online shop. You can add them to the homepage, product detail page(s), and directly in the shopping cart. It’s important to strategically place these at every step throughout a customer’s journey.
To help you keep track of the various options, we have provided an overview of suitable positions for online shop recommendations:
It should be noted that recommendations should be displayed in accordance with the best user experience for each page. To illustrate this better, we will discuss a few pages in detail below. Below we’ll show you what to look for on each page regarding optimal recommendation placement.
1. A dynamic homepage
As mentioned above, you’ll need to build different shopping environments for existing and new customers. If executed properly, this will change the look and feel of your homepage. Just like in a brick-and-mortar store where a salesperson knows the behaviors of regular customers, you can show users their preferences are understood.
For example, an online shop for pet products should know who is purchasing for cats vs dogs. If a cat owner is recommended dog food, they will find the shopping experience counterintuitive. The right products should be presented the moment a customer lands on your homepage, and can be as detailed or broad as needed.
However, as previously explained, if a new customer lands on your homepage, past purchasing data won’t be available. In this scenario, it’s advised to showcase top sellers, sale items, or new products.
2. Category pages
On product category pages, you can use personalized recommendations by analyzing online shoppers’ browsing and purchasing behavior. This approach will allow you to highlight products that are relevant to their habits and align with their interests.
The product detail page contains more specific information than a homepage. Since a customer is looking at one item, this allows for highly relevant product suggestions. With a product detail page, two types of recommendations make the most sense. These are similar and complementary items.
Create complete looks with product sets
On the product detail page, showcasing a complete product set is popular. These are recommendations that present customers with an entire look based on one product. The idea is that they can easily add complementary items with minimal effort.
For example, customers can create a stylish outfit, or purchase necessary camping gear in an instant. If you’re selling cameras and photographic equipment, you can offer a set with matching lenses, memory cards, batteries, and a carrying bag. With this, you can allow customers to save or purchase these items at once.
Similar products
An online shopper navigates to the product detail page because they find a particular item interesting. If they like the selected item but are still unsure, similar products can help them make a decision. This is where the customer can become aware of products that may better meet expectations. It helps them feel informed about their purchase, leading to a sale.
Cross-selling complimentary items
Complementary items are relevant for the product detail page. If the customer is convinced they need the selected product, it’s worth showing them matching items. With this, you can draw their attention to other products that may interest the customer. It might inspire them to continue shopping.
When doing this, you’ll want to take the customer’s preferences into account. These include sizing, brands, preferred materials, and dietary needs. The latter is particularly valuable if a customer doesn’t purchase items containing allergens or is vegetarian/vegan. Of course, with new customers, this isn’t possible.
It is also important to account for inventory. You don’t want to recommend products that aren’t in stock, as that creates a frustrating experience. The goal is to enable your customers to make additional purchases.
4. Showing alternatives on a zero results page
Sometimes users will search for items that you don’t offer in your shop. This will usually display a page showing “zero results.” To prevent customers from clicking off your site, you have the option of using a product recommendation widget on your page. You don’t want visitors to feel discouraged.
Recommendations on the zero results page can be alternatives from your product range. For example, if a user is searching for a particular brand that you don’t offer, you can recommend similar brands or styles. This will inspire your customers to explore these items and potentially discover new products.
5. Recommendations on the shopping cart page
Even though a user is confirming their shopping cart, it’s not too late to recommend other items. You can still increase sales at this stage of the process.
Add to cart recommendations
As customers click “add to cart,” you can provide quick personalized recommendations with a cart layer widget. This will pop up and show other products of interest.
Recommendations on the shopping cart page
The shopping cart page itself can display product recommendations. With this, it’s recommended that you don’t show similar products here as that can confuse the customer. Personalized complementary items make the most sense at this stage.
Additional products that complete the original product or relevant low-cost items are suggested for maximum sales potential. You can set up a checkout zone in your shopping cart that encourages customers to purchase small, cheap items. Think of how a supermarket places snacks near a checkout line.
When recommending items, you have different options for what information to collect from the shopping cart. You can either take the entire order into consideration or you can suggest items based on the last product added. The right approach will depend on your particular shop and strategy.
6. Wishlist
What better place to recommend more products than in your shoppers’ wishlist? This page is already a place where buyers keep up with their future purchasing desires. Product recommendations on this page can encourage a higher order value in the future.
7. Thank you page: more than just an order confirmation
A thank you page is a great place for product recommendations. It doesn’t have to just contain information about the order, it can also encourage future purchases. With relevant recommendations, you can lead customers back to a product detail page. This keeps them engaged in your shop for a longer time.
8. Content page: Recommendations based on topics
By now, it’s clear to see how relevance is key when discussing product recommendations for your e-commerce. With certain campaigns, you may want to execute this manually with marketing and thematic landing pages. Combining content and topic-related recommendations, you can use digital storytelling to emotionally engage online shoppers.
The goal is to create a digital story on a topic and tie it to relevant products. For example, you can do this with inspiration for skiing or surfing vacations. The combination of content and products is a popular approach to e-commerce product recommendation strategy. It moves away from the purely functional aspect of sales, creating a much more personalized experience.
Below you can see what a content page in an online shop looks like. In this example, the topic is a surf trip. In addition to information and a story about the perfect vacation, the page offers thematically appropriate product recommendations for inspiration.
9. Personalized shopping: relevant recommendations and more
If you want to offer users the best experience, you can create a personalized shopping area in your online shop. This is a section that is dynamically, intelligently, and fully customized for each customer. It offers a central location in the shop of the customer’s favorite brands, categories, and items.
This personalized area allows users to browse their own product and brand world. Online shoppers can also receive relevant content suggestions, such as blog articles, and receive shopping news in real-time.
Relevant product recommendations also play a role here. For example, recommendations can be integrated in the form of product sets. Additionally, users can easily access desired information via clickable, interactive elements.
With personalized shopping, the site learns sizing and preferences to display available and on sale items. There is also the potential for embedding interactive content for a unique e-commerce environment.
As you can see, a personalized shopping area offers a particularly high level of inspiration and goes beyond product recommendation widgets.
10. Newsletter: recommendations in real time
To keep your customers fully engaged, you’ll want to provide recommendations through email newsletters. Like everything else discussed, it’s important these are personalized to the customer. You’ll want to account for consumer preferences.
Since emails are read at various times, you want to make sure the recommendations are relevant to when the newsletter is opened. This ensures that all information (including inventory) is up to date. There are also various ways of showcasing recommendations.
Complementary items
With order confirmation emails you can suggest complementary items. This is a similar strategy to what was discussed on the thank you page.
Alternative products
If you want to remind inactive customers of products abandoned in their shopping cart, you can suggest both similar and alternative items.
Topic-related recommendations
Newsletters can focus on a specific topic and showcase thematically related items. With this, you can send topic-specific emails to ensure customers receive highly relevant recommendations.
Why recommendation visibility matters
Proper positioning is essential for product recommendations to perform optimally. As an example, it is important to not add suggestions “below the fold.” You don’t want customers to have to search for recommended items. There’s data to suggest that only 20% of content “below the fold” is seen by viewers.
This means that even if the right products are recommended, 80% of consumers would miss them if improperly placed. As you can see, this creates a drop-off in potential sales. It also means, since there was no engagement, less data is collected to inform better recommendations in the future. This insight is crucial for optimization.
If your recommendation engine is well set up, but recommendations aren’t seen then you’re missing valuable sales potential. Due to this, recommendation positioning on all pages of your website is important. This is particularly true for product descriptions where there’s a high chance of interaction.
Optimal e-commerce product recommendation placement for maximum potential
As you can see in this article, an effective e-commerce product recommendation strategy is a win-win. Your users become inspired while shopping and discover new products. As a shop owner, you can increase engagement and sales.
To fully benefit from the potential of a recommendation engine in your online shop, you should place product suggestions on the various stages mentioned. With the right data, you can anticipate the needs of your customers.
Also, make sure online shoppers actually see your recommendations and remain informed after they leave your site. It’s important to send personalized emails that contain real-time data.
This article shows the potential and power of useful product recommendations. Now it’s your turn to implement the best strategy on your site.
Optimally designed online shopping categories can increase sales. This long-term, strategic approach is often referred to as e-commerce category management.
In this article, you’ll learn more about what’s involved in achieving an effective approach. You’ll also discover how digital marketing plays a role.
We’ll go over how to implement an easy-to-follow 8-step strategy for maximizing engagement and sales. The key is to balance accessibility, unique merchandising, and customer behaviors. This can all be achieved through understanding and implementing data and analytics.
Read on to learn more, starting with the fundamentals of category management.
What is category management?
With category management, products are grouped together. The focus is placed on the needs of consumers. This structure allows for more efficient purchasing by anticipating customer demand.
The goal is to not cluster similar products together, but instead to group them by complementary items. That said, category management has been standard in physical retail for decades.
For example, you’ll find pasta alongside sauces in a supermarket. Similarly, hiking gear, clothes, shoes, and backpacks are usually in the same aisle of a sporting equipment store. This concept applies to e-commerce environments.
Cooperation between retailers and manufacturers
Optimal category management is based on functional cooperation between retailers and manufacturers. It works when both parties want to achieve a triple-win situation for satisfied customers, higher profits, and more sales. Within this context, product groups or service categories are viewed as strategic business units.
To be effective, a holistic approach that engages various departments in the company is needed. As mentioned above, this also involves input from manufacturers. Retailers control the product groups, while manufacturers provide detailed knowledge of categories. In the end, both sides are interested in finding the best possible solution for customers.
Tasks of a category manager
Typically, an effective strategy is managed by a dedicated person or team. They are usually responsible for the following tasks:
Analysis of shopping baskets
Definition, structure, and optimization of product groups (category management)
Strategic planning of featured products
Merchandising and purchasing for the respective product segment
Goals of category management
Category management is a strategic approach designed for long-term goals. The aim is to achieve higher customer satisfaction with an easy-to-navigate shopping experience. This generates more sales and improves the overall brand image.
Also, effective category management provides a competitive advantage. If done properly, consumers will come to trust a store for its expertise in certain product groups.
E-commerce category management
As you might imagine, category management not only applies to physical stores, but also to e-commerce. That said, it’s fairly new to the digital environment and there is room for development. Similar to brick-and-mortar retail, an online store can meet customer needs with structured product categories. This, along with an optimal user experience, can increase customer satisfaction and boost sales.
8 step strategy for E-commerce Category Management
Below, you’ll find an 8-step process that applies to both physical and online retail environments. This involves a systematic and structured approach. It’s encouraged to repeat the steps as much as necessary for implementing optimization and growth potential.
The basis for decision-making will come from data related to online marketing analytics. Therefore, close coordination with relevant teams and departments is essential.
Strategic coordination
Before the process begins, you should discuss strategies and goals with manufacturers for your future product groups. This will help avoid potential conflicts.
1. Understanding consumer behavior
This stage is about learning about your customers through purchasing patterns. You’ll want to pay attention to which products or services they choose. To do this, it’s helpful to analyze quantitative and qualitative data provided by market research.
2. Category importance
This step is where you’ll determine how important the selected product category is in your store’s overall portfolio.
3. Category evaluation
As soon as you have defined a product group, you’ll want to analyze its performance. Sales and various key figures on purchasing behavior will help assess where there is potential for development, particularly in comparison to competitors.
4. Category goals
To monitor the success of your product category, you’ll define specific and measurable targets. These relate to customer profiles, financial reports, market share, and performance. This is important for reaching specific audiences, achieving a certain turnover, and determining featured product categories.
5. Strategy development
At this stage, you’ll develop strategies to help achieve the previously defined goals. These are handled through marketing and procurement. Marketing involves conversion rate, average basket value, and profit. Procurement, on the other hand, focuses on more efficient processes.
6. Tactics for your category management
It is recommended that you and your team define a concrete action plan for the product range, placement, and visibility in your online store. With this, you’ll want to implement effective pricing, communication, and advertising strategies. If executed properly, these tactics will all help boost performance.
7. Implementation of your action plan
Now that you’ve defined goals, strategies, and measures, it’s time to implement your plan. For successful e-commerce category management, you’ll want to assign responsibilities and set deadlines.
8. Review
With your plan set, you’ll want to regularly review product group performance. This will help identify potential for growth and optimization. It’s important to implement improvements regularly. The aim is to design your product range as efficiently as possible.
E-commerce category management and digital marketing
There are many overlaps between e-commerce category management and digital marketing. You can use data provided by both areas to inform overall strategies. This will help determine the right campaigns to run to boost sales and performance.
Product allocation using keywords and clickstream data
As mentioned above, useful data is collected by digital marketing efforts. In addition, it’s important to pay attention to user behavior involving clickstream data and UX design.
This information helps determine which products belong to certain categories. It also is useful for identifying product range gaps so you can add relevant items to respective groups. Additionally, you’ll identify opportunities for cross-selling or upselling strategies.
Optimal website category structure
In addition to what’s already discussed, category managers can use data from digital marketing to identify optimal paths for product selection. This helps create an easy-to-navigate website for customers.
If your visitors are shopping through specific products or brands, you’ll want to make these entry points accessible. It should be simple to select paths through corresponding filter attributes in the search function of your website.
In some cases, themed landing pages, personalized product recommendations, or a brand landing page are worth pursuing. The aim is to offer visitors on your site an outstanding customer experience through an optimal website structure.
For example, category management can be used to structure “barbecue” products such as aprons, spices, charcoal, etc. This would be considered a product group. You may also want to create a themed landing page for barbecue season, which would not only feature products but also content for party inspiration.
Growth potential based on conversion rate and consumer behavior
With the help of digital marketing data, including website traffic, conversion rate, bounce rate, and average shopping basket value, there’s potential for growing sales.
For example, if you notice a category isn’t performing so well, you can improve discoverability in your e-commerce environment. With this, it’s possible to improve overall success.
As explained, you can increase customer loyalty and generate higher sales with strategically thought-out e-commerce category management. A long-term approach allows for enormous growth potential for your store. All these efforts can improve loyalty and customer engagement.
Frequently asked questions about e-commerce category management
What is e-commerce category management?
This is the management of the website layout and navigation, and SEO optimization of product listing. It also oversees product information accuracy, including images, descriptions, and pricing.
What are the goals of e-commerce category management?
The overall goal is to optimize the website for increased revenue. This includes conducting the right test for optimizing conversion rates.
What digital marketing data is useful for category management?
Category managers can analyze keywords and click performance to optimize category performance. It’s also worth looking at bounce rates.
What features help with online category management?
Features useful for category management include on-site search and product filters. The goal is to allow customers to easily find the product they want.
Have you ever been to a big department store that doesn’t have signs directing you where to go? Without signs pointing you in the right direction or a map with pinpointed locations, you could expect shopper frustration.
Directing shoppers toward their desired products in a physical store is expected. So, what about online stores?
Product categories are the backbone of every online shop.
Categorizing your products and taking the time to carefully craft your online directory can be the difference between achieving your business goals and falling behind.
In this article, you will learn how product categories improve the user experience, optimize your marketing investment, and contribute to your business goals.
Shoppers need guidance when shopping, especially if you have a big product catalog. The easier the signage is to understand, the faster customers get to their goal – the product they need.
For a first-class shopping experience, shoppers expect products to be correctly categorized and bundled. Whether customers are searching for skin care products, winter coats, kitchen utensils, or Christmas candles, intuitive product categories are a necessity for marketing.
How can you categorize products for your marketing?
A product category is created by grouping similar products that share similar features. These shared characteristics, which determine how items in your inventory are grouped together, should be considered in your marketing strategy from the start.
However, it’s important to continuously review and refine these product categories over time. What was relevant for shoppers in 2018, may not have the same success rate today. Timeliness is key to grabbing your user’s attention.
In addition to the typical “Shop by product,” visitors can also search by occasion, season, trends, body fit, and more. They’ve set up their online shop with unique categories that correspond to the current interests of their target audience. ASOS bundles its products in new contexts to continually show the buyer new possible uses and cater to their preferences.
Fackelmann – household product designers and manufacturers
In the Fackelmann online shop, shop customers can = find product categories for specific contexts, such as various “baking occasions.” This gives website visitors a quick way to find themed baking utensils perfect for the holidays without having to sort through the typical baking tools.
Gorillas – Mobile grocery delivery service
Products can also be categorized according to frequency of use. A product like mayonnaise tends to be purchased in fewer intervals. Therefore, Gorillas, has classified this product in the “pantry cupboard” category. It’s grouped next to jars of Nutella and other pantry staples, which would typically be on a completely different row of shelves in a physical store.
Through user-centered categorization of their own product range, e-commerce operators can increase their conversion rates and reduce bounce rates. A user-centered approach means that your product categorization strategy must be questioned again and again to find what works best.
What are examples of different types of product categories?
You can create as many product categories as there are features, locations, functions, etc. because a product category includes products with similar product properties and a similar benefit for your customers.
You can build product categories hierarchically or in other words, in the form of a tree structure. For example, in the “clothing” category you will typically find that there’s a distinction between women’s and men’s clothing. These categories in turn include subcategories such as “pants,” “jackets,” etc.
Before finally categorizing an article, you should be clear about which classification makes sense. A well-known way of classifying products is to divide them into the following 4 major classifications:
Please note that the definitions partially overlap
Consumer goods: These are products that are purchased regularly. An example of this would be toothpaste. The price and quality of the product hardly differ between the different manufacturers. As a result, customers rarely engage with this type of product. They usually choose a brand and stay loyal to it.
Shopping Goods: Goods in this category are purchased less frequently than consumer goods and are generally more expensive. For this reason, customers collect a lot more information and compare offers before purchasing. An example of shopping goods would be electronic devices.
Specialty and Luxury Goods: These goods are primarily sought after and purchased by a loyal customer base. Customers know exactly what they want. Often it’s not just about exceptional features and exclusivity, but also about the status that comes with it. A good example of a luxury item would be a limited edition watch.
Unsought Goods: These products are only sought after when a specific problem occurs. For example, a light bulb is usually only purchased when an old light bulb has burned out.
Looking for a product categorization tool to lower bounce rates and guide customers?AB Tasty is the complete experience optimization platform that allows you to build better experiences for your customers – fast. From A/B testing to online product category management, your optimization strategy only needs one tool.
How can product categories be analyzed, updated, and used effectively?
An analysis of product categories begins with recording and evaluating product features. The factors that influence the demand for a product positively or negatively are also identified. Not only is your own traffic necessary in the evaluation phase, but competing online shops can also serve as inspiration.
In addition to determining which product categories are assigned, an analysis also includes a more in-depth analysis of each individual product type. The data expands your own understanding of customers. How do they perceive categories and product types? How do they communicate and what is their purchasing behavior?
A comprehensive analysis also helps the shop operator to reflect on current market trends and develop new strategies for category creation.
How to create product categories for marketing successfully?
Now let’s see how you can create effective product categories for your e-commerce marketing strategy using three important steps.
Step 1: Identify the purpose of the product detail pages and product category pages
The most important pages of every online shop are the individual product detail pages and the product category pages. Both types of pages serve a specific purpose.
Product pages are not just the shop windows for the products. Because on these pages, the focus is more on conversion and less on navigation.
Before visitors get to the product page, they are confronted with the product categories. The purpose of these is to offer customers orientation and guide them smoothly through the range. The categories help the user navigate.
Step 2: Design your product categories with customers in mind
When developing product categories, the customer’s perspective should always be taken. What really motivates them to buy?What information must be integrated into the listing for which product?
To optimize conversion rates in marketing using product categories, online shop operators can turn the following:
Product categories: Summarize and describe
Products can be summarized as described according to the criteria and characteristics presented above. You can then use these groupings for your menu and define main and submenu items.
(Pro tip: Personalization also makes it even easier for customers to find the product they want)
To give your menu an extra boost, you also have the option to display the categories in a personalized order. i.e. a customer who is primarily interested in the “sneakers” category will see it at the top, while another customer will see “sneakers” further down and “jackets” first because this category is currently particularly relevant to them.
Product category pages: how to design an attractive product category page?
The product category pages should be clear and attractive.
Information displayed about the product: The displayed products on this page should show any details that help visitors differentiate the products (e.g. size, type, or other information related to the product niche).
Photos and Icons: Use clear images on product category pages. This means your customers can use visualization to get a much quicker overview of whether they are in the right area than if they had to read through long texts.
Number of products on a page: The key to a good product category page is a balanced number of products. Too few products signal to customers that there is limited variety. Conversely, too many products tend to lead to overwhelm. We recommend between 10 and 50 articles per page.
Personalized product ranking: To help customers find the right product for them, you can personalize the order of your products on your category pages: i.e. display “relevant” products at the top. (“Relevant” products are a result of the click and purchase behavior of all users.) You also have the opportunity to display the first products in a personalized way by using recommendations.
The product category page “Gartenhaus & Co.” from the provider Gartenhaus GmbH shows a structured and limited number of products.
Step 3: Use options to limit choices
Any of the following methods will reduce the number of items displayed. This makes it easier for customers to choose products and increases the conversion rate.
Additional product categorization: Each product category can be divided into subcategories to make the search even more specific. No matter which principle this is used for: the names of the respective categories must be specific and understandable.
Functional Categorization: Products are classified based on the function they are associated with. This is the most commonly used categorization.
Demographic categorization: Here the products are classified according to demographic criteria such as gender and age.
Categorization by area of application: The key question in this classification is where and how the item is used or installed (e.g. bathroom, kitchen, living room).
Specific categorization: Within a product category, you can classify the goods again according to specific characteristics (e.g. according to the size of computer monitors).
Categorization of the solution: This grouping is based on a specific problem that customers want to see solved by a product. A good example would be losing weight or building muscle.
Filtering: With filters and faceted navigation, shop visitors can narrow down their searches themselves to get to the desired items more precisely.
Search: With the onsite search function, customers enter the name of the product or a feature into the search bar to find corresponding results.
What are other benefits of product categories in marketing?
With product categories, you can track and evaluate customers’ surfing habits. Furthermore, you can analyze their purchasing behavior which enables e-commerce companies to make individually tailored product recommendations. This is useful because very few customers have any need or interest in the entire product range. Additionally, the data obtained through individual recommendations provides valuable information about the behavior of shop customers and visitors.
To get even more out of your product categories for marketing, you can also use them to provide category-specific recommendations. For example, you have the option of providing an overview of certain categories on the homepage and displaying matching articles from the respective category. Based on your customers’ clicking and purchasing behavior, you can personalize the recommendations and present products that are particularly relevant to them.
Personalized product recommendations on the Görtz homepage from a specific category (“New Bags”).
Why product category marketing is an indispensable part of e-commerce marketing
Product categorization is an essential part of conversion optimization for online shops. If the clicking and purchasing behavior of customers is better understood, the guidance of customers through the range can be optimally designed using product categories. This means you can reduce bounce rates and increase conversion rates. The insights from the analysis of product categories are therefore becoming an indispensable part of marketing in e-commerce.
It’s no secret that today’s digital marketplace is highly competitive. Consumers are exposed to an increasingly high number of messages each day. How can you make your message relevant to your consumers and break through the noise?
To capture consumers’ attention, brands need to focus their attention on crafting unique user experiences to deliver 1:1 personalization based on data.
One of the most important focal points to convert visitors into customers and build customer loyalty is 1:1 personalization. More and more customers feel less motivated to complete a transaction when they’re online shopping if their experience is impersonal. Let’s take a look at some data from Forbes:
80% of consumers are more likely to complete an online purchase with brands that offer personalized customer experiences.
72% of consumers explain that they only interact with personalized messaging.
66% of consumers share that coming across content that isn’t personalized would deter them from purchasing.
Customers want personalization. Think about when you walk into a physical store and an employee really listens to your needs, helps you find exactly what you’re looking for, or goes above and beyond your expectations to help you. That is exactly what customers want in the digital marketplace.
A unique, digital one-to-one personalization experience strategy gives companies the potential to customize messages, offers, and other experiences to each website visitor based on data collected about each user.
Digital one-to-one personalization starts with concrete data. Are you leveraging data to better serve and convert your visitors?
To help you answer “yes” to this question, we’ll take a deeper look at:
Delivering a unique (or one-to-one) experience to each online consumer is a technique known as one-to-one personalization in marketing.
By mastering the technique of 1:1 personalization, brands can deliver an exceptional level of customer service by providing personalized messages, product recommendations, offers, and specialized content at the right time based on the user’s needs and expectations.
This type of unique user experience is only made possible thanks to the availability of extensive customer data. If you don’t get to know your customers based on their interactions with your brand and user behavior, you’re missing an opportunity to meet your customers’ expectations.
One goal of personalization is to create a “wow” effect. This means you should be making the customer think, “wow, they really know me.” The more information that a company knows about a certain customer, the more personalized the user experience will be.
Without extensive, personalized data, one-to-one personalization isn’t achievable.
What data to collect to improve your customer experience with personalization?
On a wider scale, it’s important to understand the location of your customer, their demographic information (age, gender, education level), purchasing habits, and website browsing information. However, in the hypercompetitive world of personalization, this surface-level data is not enough.
Brands need to move beyond knowing who the customer is and understand how the customer behaves.
Knowing that your customer is a recent college graduate who lives in New York City and spends a lot of time making Pinterest boards will not be enough information to create a strong buyer persona to achieve a unique and pleasant user experience.
Enhancing your customer’s profile will require you to collect relevant data about how your customer interacts with your brand on all channels, what motivates them to purchase, and what makes them tick on top of knowing who they are.
More specifically, robust personalized data will help you better understand:
Location and demographics
Interests and hobbies
Shopping and purchasing habits
Device and channel frequency
Where and how they prefer to shop and purchase
Satisfaction level
Likes and dislikes
All of this information will allow you to create a sophisticated customer profile. Understanding their motivations, preferences, and expectations helps you characterize users into intricate market segmentations to give them the best possible experience imaginable.
Ideally, the customer will have a positive experience and feel unique based on the information derived from the robust data collection.
How do you find user data?
Extensive data can be found and refined by cross-indexing information stored on separate databases.
For example, you can harvest personalized data from a customer’s interactions with your business by analyzing and storing comments on social media sites, ratings on review sites, mobile app usage vs. desktop usage, customer service interactions, download requests, and more.
How to leverage one-to-one personalization with personalized data
As you can see, personalization cannot exist without data. To achieve one-to-one personalization on your digital channels, your brand must have the ability to transform the collected data into action.
After monitoring and gathering rich data on your customer’s interactions, history, and behavior on your site, it’s time to convert this personalized data into a refined customer buyer persona to serve your customers better.
By segmenting your profiles, you will be able to better understand your customer’s preferences and pain points, which will help you craft these personalized messages and display them at the right time.
How to personalize interactions with customers:
Once you have substantial personalized data collected about your visitors, you can determine the best way to interact with them. There is a fine line between being helpful by displaying personalized messages and being invasive.
The difference in these two feelings will depend on the amount of prior engagement that the customer has with you. For example, a customer who is subscribed to every newsletter has a company discount card and frequently completes transactions on your website will expect you to know their preferences fairly well, like a regular coming into a coffee shop. On the other hand, a first-time visitor will not expect you to know much about them, but they will expect to be welcomed.
The best way to understand how to serve your customers is by asking yourself how you would want to be interacted with at their level of engagement with your brand. What would make you feel welcomed and what would make you feel overwhelmed or uneasy?
What messages should you personalize?
The possibilities for personalized messages can stretch as far as your mind (or your software capabilities) will allow.
Think about personalization in a broad sense. Let’s say a company wants to put its logo onto personalized gifts for its employees. The company’s logo can be put onto t-shirts, pens, stickers, coffee mugs, phone cases, backpacks, sunglasses, golf balls, holiday baskets– the possibilities are nearly endless. The same goes for personalized messages for your own customers.
In marketing communication, some of the most common outlets for 1:1 personalization are:
To attract and retain your customer’s attention in a market filled with saturated messages, your brand should focus on personalization as much as possible and in as many channels as you can.
What platform to use for one-to-one personalization in marketing?
The journey to a seamless one-to-one personalization, or one-to-one marketing, experience for your customers starts with sophisticated and intuitive software to help transform your ideas into reality.
AB Tasty is the complete platform for experimentation and personalization equipped with the tools you need to create a richer digital experience for your customers — fast. With embedded AI and automation, this platform can help you achieve omnichannel personalization and revolutionize your brand and product experiences.
What is omnichannel personalization?
In marketing, employing one-to-one personalization across multiple channels, platforms, and touchpoints is commonly referred to as omnichannel personalization.
Customers crave personalization wherever they are – on a mobile device, desktop, social media platform, mobile app, or email. When customers receive a personalized experience, they expect this standard of communication across all channels or platforms that they are interacting with.
Achieving omnichannel personalization requires a seamless flow of customer data from one platform or channel to the next. By gathering information on user preferences, behavior, and interests from all virtual touchpoints, your customer’s profile strengthens.
By receiving this consistent level of personalization across all channels, consumers will be inclined to purchase more and to purchase again from the same brand that made them feel seen and heard.
What are the advantages of omnichannel personalization?
Higher conversion rates
Increased average order value (AOV)
Reduced cart abandonment
Improved brand value and customer loyalty
Higher customer lifetime value
Delivering messages at the right time and place
8 Examples of 1-1 Personalization strategies from retail brands
1. ASOS’s Social Connection
Online retailer ASOS prides itself on offering both new and existing customers a range of personalized discounts and deals, which vary depending on if:
It’s a new customer
It’s a returning customer that’s demonstrated a particular interest (e.g. shoes)
A regular customer (who could then be offered premium next-day delivery, for example)
But how does ASOS get this information? One method they might use is encouraging customers to log in to the site using social media platforms, which would allow ASOS to access further details such as age, gender, and location—which can then be used to tailor even more personalized messages.
Why it works: The ability to use a social platform for account creation makes the process simple for shoppers, while giving ASOS more insight into what deals or promotions would be of the most interest to them.
2. Nordstrom Remembers Your Size
Nordstrom gave its online shopping cart a simple yet effective personal touch: remembering returning customers’ clothing sizes. This may not seem like a massive approach to deliver a personal experience, but it creates a more seamless checkout for the user and brings them one step closer to the purchase. It’s a rather clever move from Nordstrom that hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Why it works: Remembering the customers’ preferred size (based on previous purchases) instantly shows the brand’s attentiveness while making checkout even more simple.
3. Clarins personalization and gamification
Before the booming holiday season,Clarins, a multinational cosmetics company, saw an 89% increase in their conversion rate and a 145% increase in the add-to-basket metric by implementing 1:1 personalization and gamification withAB Tasty.
On Single’s Day, a few weeks before Black Friday, Clarins saw a perfect opportunity to experiment and learn culture by implementing a “Wheel of Fortune” concept in certain countries. The gamification gifts were personalized according to each country’s local culture. Any visitor arriving at their website would play the digital game, spin the wheel, and receive a gift automatically in their inbox. This ease of automatic implementation was a great user experience, especially for mobile visitors.
Amazon is no stranger to personalization marketing. In fact, it could be argued they were the first major e-commerce retailer to really put personalization into action. The company has become known for its product recommendation emails and personalized homepages for logged-in customers. Using their own algorithm, A9, Amazon goes above and beyond to first understand customers’ buying habits and then deliver an experience that’s been deliberately designed for relevance.
Why it works: Customers feel valued and understood by the retailer when seeing emails and recommended “picks” that are tailored to their interests. Consistency also plays a part in Amazon’s approach, as they continue to deliver an even more granular personalized approach for customers.
5. Nike and Their Customized Approach
Nike always goes the extra mile to personalize the shopping experience, as we’ve seen with their SNKRs app that allows premium (loyalty, Nike+ shoppers) access to a large catalog of products that they can then customize. It’s the perfect way to cement customer loyalty by offering them the unique opportunity to tailor items to their exact liking.
Why it works: By giving customers a certain degree of autonomy with design, Nike is giving customers the freedom to express their individuality, even while the company continues to produce the same style of shoe around the world. Despite being a huge brand, Nike has created a great loyalty program that engages customers and stokes their excitement about buying Nike products.
6. Net-A-Porter’s Personalized Touch
Luxury online retailer Net-A-Porter has adopted the ‘recommended for you’ approach but with a unique twist to appeal to its high-end customers who want a more premium service when they shop. The company gives away freebie products to customers based on previous purchases, adding a personal touch to an otherwise standard online shopping experience. This is not unlike Amazon’s recommended emails, except Net-A-Porter customers receive a physical product — and who doesn’t like a gift!
Why it works: These gifts show the appreciation Net-A-Porter has for its customers and help to bring the luxury shopping experience online.
7. Coca-Cola’s Name Campaign
In 2011, Coca-Cola launched its Share a Coke campaign in Australia, printing thousands of names on their diet and original soft drinks. This simple yet effective campaign made sales skyrocket, supporting the notion that consumers engage with brands that address them by their first name (albeit in a rather broad sense!) Personalized bottles became all the rage, with people trying to find their own names along with those of their friends and family members. The campaign was globally recognized and started the ball rolling for other brands such as Marmite, which also saw great success with a naming campaign.
Why it works: Is it the simple notion of vanity that makes these name campaigns so popular? Consumers love to see their own names on popular products, making them almost ‘gimmicky’ with a collectible edge that makes people feel special!
8. Target’s Guest ID
The US retail giant Target decided to up its personalized campaign game by assigning each customer a guest identification number on their first interaction with the brand. Target then used the data to obtain customer details like buying behavior and even job history! Target used personalized data to understand the consumer habits of its customers and to create a view of their individual lifestyles. Target focused particularly on customers who also had a baby registry with them and even used their marketing data to make ‘pregnancy predictability scores’ for customers who were browsing particular items!
Why it works: Arguably, delivering a personalized experience for every customer visiting a physical store is a tough job for any retailer. By assigning a ‘guest ID’, Target was able to understand buying behaviors and patterns from their customers in-store and use the information to make suggestions on products they may be interested in.
Everyone wins with one-to-one personalization
The data you collect equally benefits your brand and your customers. By understanding what your customers are looking for, you save them time by providing them with informed recommendations, personalized messages, and unique experiences to solve their pain points.
Without proper data collection or genuine segmentation, it’s nearly impossible to provide users with a 1:1 personalized experience. Loyal customers want to feel like their brand really knows them and what they’re looking for. Achieve one-to-one personalized experiences by correctly analyzing and leveraging personalized data. If you’re looking to serve your customers, increase sales, and build brand loyalty at the same time, you’ve found your blueprint with personalization.
If you ask most e-commerce marketers how to optimize your website to generate more conversions, they’ll tell you to focus on your homepage or product detail pages. While that answer is technically correct, there is a potential goldmine for clicks that even the most seasoned marketers overlook: product listing pages
While these pages are often used as a catalog for your products and services, they can offer much more than an opportunity to optimize the customer experience. Since visitors browsing your product listing pages are already engaged with your online store, they just need one final push to convert.
In this article, we’ll show you everything you need to know about product listing pages, how to optimize your PLPs, and some examples of great product listing pages.
What are product listing pages?
Product listing pages (sometimes called PLPs or category landing pages) are pages on a website that display products based on a selected category; they may also be based on applied search filters. Product landing pages lead visitors to product detail pages where they can find more information on the items they’re interested in or even add said items to their cart.
One of the main drivers for optimizing your product listing pages is the opportunity they present for optimizing your user experience, as they can be tailored to shoppers with different user intent. On the one hand, we have buyers who visit a website knowing exactly what they are looking for. These potential buyers want to view the items that are most relevant to their search or intent (e.g. a user looking for a mountain bike doesn’t want to view road bikes). On the other hand, other visitors simply love browsing and use your PLPs to sift through the list of products that suit their preferences.
Key elements of a product listing page and how to design your PLPs for better conversions
Creating an effective product listing page starts with the basics. Designing your product listing pages in an optimal way, with all the relevant elements, will increase the odds of shoppers finding the products they are looking for and making a purchase. Here’s what you should make sure to include in your product listing pages:
1. PLP page name: Descriptive title
Remember that Google will only display the first 25, 50, or 64 characters of your title, so make sure your PLP title is optimized accordingly. For example, if you are selling cell phones, you might want to structure your titles according to make, model, memory size, and color so that shoppers can see the most important information upfront.
2. Description: Keyword-rich
The product description and title have a big impact on your PLP’s SEO and product discoverability. Make sure that your descriptions are thorough and contain all the relevant keywords that will help you rank higher. Remember: the more specific, the better.
3. Breadcrumbs: Proper category name
Make sure that each product is placed in the most relevant category to both orient your shoppers and help them discover similar products. Breadcrumbs can display the parent category/subcategories so that users can jump back and forth between product listing pages with ease.
4. Imagery: Thumbnail
People process visual information faster than anything else, and your product images will be the first thing a customer sees. Use high-quality photos and be consistent (for example, use the same color background for every image). If you use various backgrounds, colors, and sizes, your customers will be distracted. Want proof? Read our case study on Hanna Andersson where they have proven that keeping all images simple, clear, and harmonized will work wonders for results.
5. Price
Make sure that your pricing is competitive. Do your research and benchmark your prices against your competitors and make amendments. Highlight any other elements that make your pricing more competitive, like free shipping, or buy-one-get-one-free offers.
6. CTAs
Call to action buttons (also known as CTAs) are items that use imperative wording to nudge your users towards the action you want them to take, like “Add to cart now!” or “Save to Wishlist” if a product is unavailable. It’s important to create an effective CTA by following design best practices and carefully testing different variations of your call to action’s copy, location and colors.
Make sure that your button is visible against the background and all the other elements on the page. This not only draws the visitor’s eye to the call to action but shows them that the button is clickable. It’s important that your button looks like a button, even if you want to adopt a more minimalistic design for your website.
Next, make sure that your call to action conveys urgency. Using phrases like “Sign up now,” “Hurry” or “Don’t delay” encourages your users to not only act, but to act fast. It’s also a good idea to utilize first-person copy so that the visitor feels more connected to the CTA.
The sorting menu presents different options for organizing products using a dropdown menu, including “Price: Low to High,” “Newest,” or “Rating: High to Low.”
Sorting options have a sole purpose: narrowing down the number of products in order to increase conversion. Your sorting options should be based on your audience’s needs and expectations regarding your products. Thinking in the minds of your customers is crucial for optimization at this point in the digital customer journey.
Let’s take WatchShop as an example.
WatchShop knows that watches come in all sorts of shapes and colors, so they created various sorting options to match visitors’ requests. This includes water resistance, strap type, case color, movement type, and so on.
It’s all tailored to match customers’ expectations – and it delivers.
10 best practices for creating and optimizing product listing pages
Now that you know how to design your product listing pages, let’s get into how to optimize them for the best results:
1. Optimize headers or banners
Headers play the “title” role of each category and listing page design.
They’re the main indication of the page’s content and should be treated as the most important thing. If the header does not properly describe the page or the category, visitors will not be able to find what they are looking for.
Headers can reinforce your branding, so use the space on the top of your page to create a great-looking banner that engages and informs without adding clutter. In addition, never forget to include your keywords inside your <h1> tags. Not only will this make them more visible on the page, but they’re also a bit part of your on-page SEO efforts that will help you appear higher in search results.
In the image below, beauty specialist Ulta bets on shiny visuals to increase its headers’ visibility. It’s a good solution to avoid “all text” headers that can seem dull at first glance.
Note: headers can also be used as promotional spaces to display featured products, special offers, and discounts.
2. Experiment with multiple layouts on your product listing display
Your product listing display has a significant impact on the way your customers interact with the products. Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer when it comes to choosing between list and grid views. In fact, it all depends on what type of products you’re selling and what experience you want to provide. The most common choices are list view or grid view:
List view
List views require a little more scrolling but can display more product information than a grid. This makes it easy for shoppers to compare product attributes, like dimensions or features. Some sites let customers toggle between a list or grid view, depending on their preferences.
The list view is better suited for products that require extensive information and specifications in order to help customers compare aspects of similar products.
It’s a great fit for technical products like TVs, computers, electronics, DVDs, hardware, etc. However, this isn’t the only time to use list view for your product pages.
If we take a look at the image below, Wine.com sells luxury wines and champagnes. In this case, it’s important that visitors take their time benchmarking the brands and “grands crus” before making a purchase decision.
Notice how they capitalize on the extra horizontal space to display ratings.
Grid view
Grid views allow customers to browse and compare products next to each other. This is a good option if your site is picture-heavy and doesn’t require a lot of description outside the product titles.
Grid view is mostly used for products that rely a lot on pictures and can be compared quickly without paying much attention to the specifications. It also allows for more visual experiences.
Amazon uses grid view to display products inside its “gift ideas” category. They also use tags to rank the bestsellers and lure visitors into clicking on the products based on their popularity.
3. Add persuasion triggers
Persuasion triggers create a sense of urgency or scarcity. You most often see this on hotel booking sites or the sales section of a fashion store (“Only 1 item left at this price!” or “Selling out fast!”). These labels trigger visitors’ fear of missing out and push them to take action, so be sure to add them to your images to nudge them into making a purchase.
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4. Personalize the shopping experience
Personalization can dramatically increase conversions, boost engagement, and help shoppers discover relevant products by sorting them according to their individual preferences. Personalization has also been known to reduce bounce rates by 20-30% and increase customer loyalty.
One thing you can do to personalize the experience for your visitors is to display complementary products that they might be interested in. For example, customers shopping for a new bedspread might also be interested in buying pillowcases or sheets, so steer them in that direction.
5. Use recommendations
If someone is already browsing your product listing page, the chances are that they already have the intent of making a purchase. This is the best time to make suggestions and cross-sell or upsell your products:
Some customers suffer from decision fatigue when they are presented with too many options. Gently recommend popular products, others within the same category and with the same tags, or similar (but slightly pricier) alternatives.
Show customers recommended products that might be relevant to the one they are viewing. For example, clients who are interested in a technical product would appreciate a “People who purchased this product also purchased” section that shows the accessories that go along with it.
Present seasonal bestsellers to add specificity and relevance, which could lead to more clicks and conversions. We tend to think that other people’s actions are the correct ones, so if a product is tagged as “trending,” it gains additional legitimacy that could push a customer to make a decision.
Your navigation has to be tailored to help prospective customers find what they are looking for as easily as possible with as little friction as possible. There are a few tips and tricks you can try, including:
Put your best-selling items front and center: We’ve already touched on the fact that customers like knowing what items others are buying. The most popular options are often seen as the safest ones to buy. Throw in some social proof messages like user ratings to really drive the point home.
Site speed is a crucial factor for UX: Make sure that your site loads quickly on both desktop and mobile devices to ensure that customers have an enjoyable experience.
Ensure that your navigation bar is fixed to the top of the page and organizes your products in a logical fashion.
No matter the level of page depth, navigation always plays a crucial role in the user’s experience – and your product listing page should not be different. Because some products have complex specifications and require extensive sorting options, pay attention to your website’s performance when it comes to sorting products and helping customers find their perfect product.
In the image below, RevZilla does a great job of guiding customers through the endless journey of finding the right motorcycle helmet.
They use their left column to help customers sort and rank products according to several criteria (faceted search):
Color
Type
Shape
Category
Size
Gender
Bonus point: RevZilla provides visitors the opportunity to only display products that have a video review. This is a huge value proposition compared to their competitors.
7. What information to display on your PLPs?
There are tons of options regarding which information you can display on your product listing pages and category pages. Simply put, you need to display information that will effectively help and convince consumers to move down the funnel and make a purchase.
In order to help you choose, here’s a list of information that may be displayed on your product listing page:
Star ratings
Discounts
Color options
Stock availability
Best-sellers
Add to cart
New / Used
Short descriptions
As an example in the image below, BestBuy does a great job of providing useful information on its product listing page. Besides the pictures and the price, they also added: star ratings, discounts, and an add to cart button with a smart color hierarchy.ㅤ
8. Optimize SEO for product listing pages
SEO is a big deal for most e-commerce players. In fact, search engine traffic accounts for around 50% of all e-commerce traffic according to a 2023 study led by SmartInsights.
There are two main reasons that justify the dominance of product listing pages regarding SEO:
A. Product listing pages are keyword-rich
Because they contain the names, brands, prices, specifications, and descriptions of products, category pages tend to be keyword-rich. This means that they naturally rank for a lot of keywords in search engines.
B. Product listing pages are the most heavily linked to
Product listing pages are typically where you want your customers to start their journey (or alternatively on the product page itself), which is why SEO pros tend to focus their efforts on these pages. Besides this, all products within a category generally link back to that category, which is a strong internal link-building pattern.
Tips for optimizing SEO on your product listing pages:
Optimizing your title tags
Using unique and original product and meta descriptions
Linking to internal pages
Using image alt attributes and rich snippets
9. Should you use Quick View or add-to-cart buttons?
Quick View is an e-commerce function that allows visitors to generate a miniature version of the desired product page. In other words, it’s a mini product page that generally embeds a direct “add to cart” button.
Not all products require lengthy deliberation and consideration before making a purchase, especially for returning customers or others purchasing fast-moving goods like groceries. Creating add-to-cart buttons makes it easier to speed through the checkout process. You can also implement add-to-wishlist buttons for more complex or expensive items to maximize conversions.ㅤ
10. Use clear and concise CTAs
Call to action buttons can have a massive impact on your conversions. When Dutch watch brand Cluse noticed that their product listing pages had high bounce rates (and that clicks to the product display pages were low), they turned to AB Tasty to find a solution.
Cluse set up a simple test to see whether changing their CTA’s location and color would improve the results. The team’s hypothesis was correct, and the site saw a 2.39% increase in the click-through rate to the product display page and a 1.12% uplift in transactions during the three-week test.
Examples of effective product listing pages
ASOS
ASOS uses short but descriptive copy on their product listing pages.
The clothing retailer’s product listing pages are categorized by trends and style. They use extremely simple copy and appealing photographs to convince shoppers to make a purchase. Users can add items to their wishlist or cart directly from the product listing page and check out using the simple navigation banner.
Everlane
Everlane uses quick add-to-cart buttons to optimize their product listing pages
Everlane uses a number of features from the best practice guidebook, including adding product size options as an overlay in the image, easy navigation using the grid view and sidebar, and quick add-to-cart buttons.
Walmart
Walmart uses compelling headers and content on their product listing page.
Walmart puts bestsellers on top of their product listing pages, Walmart puts bestsellers on top of their product listing pages, along with engaging headers that feature collections by influencers like Sofia Vergara and Kim Kardashian. They also use quick add-to-cart buttons to make it easier to shop. The copy is clear and concise, and users are able to comfortably scroll through galleries of attractive images. Returning users are greeted with a warm, personalized message.
How many products per page and per row to display on your PLP?
If you opt for a grid view template, there’s no doubt that you’ll eventually come to the question, how many products per row?
As for choosing between list view and grid view, there’s no single answer that will fit everyone’s needs. In fact, the number of products displayed per row depends on 3 main factors:
Image size – If you choose to display big, high-resolution images; there’s no doubt that you will have a hard time squeezing more than 4-5 products in a row.
Number of products – The number of products listed per row also depends on your total number of products for a given category. If you only have 12 products to display, it’s a lot more coherent to opt for a 4X3 grid structure rather than 2X6. You need to fill the page visually.
Volume of information – Not all products are considered equal when it comes to their product description. Some products natively require more information than others. The more space they need, the fewer products you will display.
In the image below, Canada Goose, a high-quality outerwear provider, relies on a 2-products-per-row structure. This strategy highlights the visuals and delivers a more premium feeling to the user’s experience.
How to find what works best on your product listing pages?
A/B test your product listing pages.
There is no secret when it comes to Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) – testing is what makes it work. The recipe for success doesn’t change for your product listing pages, you just have to A/B test them.
Now the question is, how can you do that? We have great news for you: we’re A/B testing specialists.
Making a good product listing page isn’t easy. You will have to identify elements that work and elements that don’t to gradually increase your conversions and offer an overall better user experience to your customers.
Want to start optimizing your product listing pages? AB Tasty is the best-in-class experience optimization platform that empowers you to create a richer digital experience – fast. From experimentation to personalization to smart search and recommendations, our solution can help you activate and engage your audience to boost your conversions.
Conclusion: The ultimate product listing page
Product listing pages can be conversion machines. When they’re properly optimized, they’re key for delivering an exceptional customer experience, helping you rise to the top of search engine results, and increasing basket size.
Whether you’re a seasoned seller or are venturing into the world of e-commerce for the first time, it may seem overwhelming to hit all the right notes – and find the best ideas to take your product listing pages to the next level!
Creating product listing pages will look a bit different depending on your market sector. However, for maximum performance, keep these best practices in mind for your e-commerce brand.
