How to deliver personalized shopping experiences powered by tech

Keeping customers engaged and loyal to your organization is no small feat. Personalization has an enormous impact on our societies. Customers express themselves as unique individuals through their purchases, meaning brands need to find new ways to show empathy with their customers, remember their values, and make them feel connected. According to Statista, 50 to 70% of Nordic customers shop online. As a result, knowing who your customers are is partly becoming a case of using the right technology. 

This is easier said than done when customer segments, marketing channels, and the speed of trends increase. These developments make it harder than ever to get an accurate overview. Fortunately, the use of data, ML, and AI can help you gain an overview and enhance customer loyalty by providing personalized and convenient customer experiences. If you want to boost sales, customer experience, and customer loyalty, please keep reading.

Contrary to what you might think, in order to boost sales, the objective for online retail should not be to sell, but to serve. In 2019, convenience and saving time were the main reasons for around 30% of Nordic consumers’ shopping online. It is therefore essential to build fast and convenient experiences, as well as to keep track of what your customers want. In this manner, you can create a convenient, personal, and helpful customer experience which will foster loyalty to your brand.

Personalized shopping can be a bit of a buzzword, but it truly is important to consumers. Personalization can deliver 5x to 8x the ROI (return on investment) on marketing expenditure and can increase sales by 10% or more. The one-size-fits-all approach to marketing must therefore make way for differentiated strategies. Although crucial to customer loyalty, taking on a more personal approach, implementing targeted marketing campaigns, and creating tailored experiences with the brand can be a challenge. However, we at Google believe smart technologies like AI and ML make it a lot easier. One such retailer who made use of our AI and ML products to create a personal shopping experience is our client Boozt. 

Boozt is a fashion retail company which has applied machine learning at every level of the company to ensure a personalized experience for all 4 million customers across the Nordic. Jesper Jensen, Online Marketing Director at Boozt, says that if you are looking for a Christmas outfit, there are over 5000 outfits to choose from. By leveraging ML and the information from data points, Boozt can show you the outfits most in line with what you are looking for in that moment. This personalized approach, powered by Google’s Recommendations AI, also plays a role in their marketing strategy. From creating custom promotions to collaborating with partner brands in a seasonal retail period, data enables them to build loyalty. As Jensen puts it himself: “Data can deliver the right message to the right people at the right time.”

After the messages are delivered and orders have been placed, Boozt strives to deliver extraordinary customer experiences through Recommendations AI. This also helps them greatly when the orders peak. Applying ML into their warehouse helped them to optimize efficiency in pick-and-packing processes. 70% of customers who placed an order on Black Friday received their orders the next day. Combining a focus on personal customer experiences with the widespread use of data and ML-enabled Boozt to serve customers and keep them coming back. By looking at the video below, you can get a deeper understanding of how exactly Recommendations AI worked for Boozt to create excellent customer experiences.

Using machine learning to dynamically adapt to customer behavior and changes in variables such as assortment, pricing, and special offers, this boosts click-through rates and conversions while increasing both revenue driven by recommendations and total revenue per visit. After a long period of testing with Boozt, we just made Recommendations AI available to other retailers like you. If you are preparing for the holiday season and want to gift your customers a great personal experience while elevating your sales, we’ll be happy to explore with you what Recommendations AI can do for you.