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What is eCommerce Personalization?
eCommerce personalization is the tailoring of an online shopping experience based on every customer’s attributes and activity, such as their age, purchase history, geolocation data, and browsing history.
This form of personalization is usually achieved through:
eCommerce digital experience platforms (e.g., Bloomreach),
B2C CRMs (e.g., Klaviyo),
Email delivery services (e.g., MailChimp),
Website analytics solutions (e.g., Google Analytics 4), or
User behavioral tools (e.g., HotJar)
Your personalization tools depend on your tech stack, desired personalization depth, and the scale of your customer data (e.g., first-party data, zero-party data).
Benefit Cosmetics, for instance, orchestrated a personalized omnichannel launch campaign using Bloomreach and Mailgun for its new product range.
💡eCommerce personalization is not customization, though the latter plays a significant role in the former.
eCommerce customization (a.k.a. product customization) lets shoppers tailor products precisely to their preferences — favorite colors, features, and sizes — creating a uniquely personal item that matches their exact needs.
Typically, this is accomplished through product configurator software like Kickflip.
Note how shoppers can customize and visualize the product in real time. This hyper-personalized experience instills purchase confidence, driving conversions and higher average order values (AOV) as customers eagerly invest in products they've co-created.
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Try customizing this headphone here!
The Benefits of eCommerce Personalization
Personalizing the online shopping experience creates a ripples effect that stretches beyond customer engagement. When shoppers are delighted by these micro interactions, it trickles all the way down to market differentiation and revenue growth.
Boost customer engagement and satisfaction
71% of consumers expect personalized experience, and when brands cannot deliver, 76% grow frustrated.
By tailoring every shopping interaction — from ads to personalized product recommendations and brand communication — brand perception rises. This ultimately improves engagement (think: longer web sessions and higher return visits), driving customer satisfaction.
Stand out in competitive market
If you subscribe to a bunch of eCommerce newsletters, you'd realized, besides emails and SMSes, few stores have actually personalized their end-to-end shopping experiences.
This gap presents a golden opportunity to differentiate your store. And the ROI doubles when you also offer consumers to customize products to their exact specifications, creating both value and emotional connection.
"Giving them the power to create something that reflects who they are," muses Renaud.
"That’s the future. Products that aren’t just bought — they’re shaped. By the customer. Instantly. Visually. With confidence. The brands that win will be the ones that make every customer feel like the product was made for them.”
Increase sales
Customer engagement and satisfaction drive sales — they're proven revenue predictors.
Whether manually configurating or deploying AI algorithms for every interaction, personalization consistently delivers sales increases.
In the same example above, Benefit Cosmetics saw a 40% revenue increase after deploying autonomous personalization that tailored each touchpoint for distinct customer segments.
7 eCommerce Personalization Examples from Discovery to Post-Purchase
Besides emails and SMS, what other areas should you personalize to improve the user experience?
This section spotlights seven eCommerce personalization examples to drive your conversion rate at every stage, all the way from product discovery to post-purchase. Treat them as inspiration in your personalization strategy.
1. Product discovery
Traditional search bars don’t always surface the exact products shoppers are seeking.
Use an AI-powered chatbot to intelligently refine selections through personalized questions. For example, a home & living eCommerce's AI chatbot might probe the shopper's preferred style, fabric, and color — the second searching starts.
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Alternatively, let customers customize their products exactly to their specifications — creating something that's uniquely theirs.
With Kickflip, shoppers can quickly choose their favorite color, style, text, etc. All you have to do is configure the product creation process via our robust backend tool and let it do the rest.
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Kickflip customers like Puma and Suunto have generated more sales and higher profit margins after implementing our custom product software. These are results you can expect too.
Features include:
Native integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, and API for fuss-free set-up.
Risk-free pay-as-you-go model. Only pay when you make a sale.
Intuitive drag-and-drop product builder with a "just click and it will happen approach." Easily create questions, add logic rules, and update your customizer with no coding required. It's easy even for folks with limited technical expertise.
Advanced logic rules. Automatically prevent out-of-stock combinations, adjust pricing based on chosen variants in real time (i.e., dynamic pricing), avoid incompatible selections, and more
Unlimited variant options that give you access to colors, materials, and any components you can think of without getting nickel-and-dimed.
Robust backend tool with order management, inventory management, and bulk order management.
100% human support. Get help from active agents (not AI agents) to ensure your product customization process runs smoothly. Kickflip has earned an exceptional 4.3-star rating from satisfied Shopify merchants who've experienced out white-glove customer service firsthand.
Kickflip is the most capable customizer on the market. Start your free 14-day trial today.
2. Website layout
A welcome pop-up that greets first-time visitors will frustrate returning customers.
Dynamically adjust your website content based on visitor status. For example, highlight your best sellers to new visitors. Or show new arrivals to returning customers who haven't been to your eCommerce site in the last two weeks.
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Called “dynamic content,” this form of content personalization adapts in real time
Pro tip: Dive deeper into your returning customer data. Check your repeat customers' purchase activity and group them into high, mid, and low, and never returned segments.
Personalize your emails accordingly, speaking to each unique customer needs and behavioral triggers.
Suppose you're the owner of a fashion eCommerce store. High Returners, for instance, might receive emails offering virtual styling sessions, whereas Never Returners receive a winback email with a 15% discount.
3. Retargeting
Customers face constant digital distractions. Even the wittiest emails and SMS messages might go unopened because of poor timing or initial disinterest...
Recapture their interest by retargeting them across multiple channels with attractive, personalized offers that address their specific interests.
Little Farms, an Australian grocer, runs retargeted ads on Instagram and Facebook to engage subscribers who didn’t interact with its marketing emails.
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4. Cart abandonment
Shopping carts are abandoned when customers are hit with unexpected shipping costs, complicated checkout, or infeasible delivery timeframes.
That’s a lot of money left on the table.
While you can't eliminate every abandoned cart, deploying AI-driven chatbots during checkout might ease potential concerns in real-time, reclaiming sales that would otherwise be lost forever.
And it’s not just generative AI chatbots. You can also win these shoppers back through exit-intent pop-ups offering an irresistible discount.
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Tailor your offers for different points of exits (or customer segments) based on in-page and behavioral data (e.g., 20% discount for first-time customers). Conduct A/B testing to see which drives higher conversion rates.
5. Brand communication
New stores maaaay survive with mass emails, but once you scale, it's time to leverage your rich customer data to create personalized marketing ( emails, SMSes, web push notifications) for each distinct segment.
Boost your open and click-through rates (CTR) by crafting email variants that align with each customer's historical behavior, demographic profile, and preferences.
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Email personalization done well: Note how this online travel agency tailor its travel guides based on each customer segment’s favorite destination.
6. Automated order and shipping notifications
Even though online shopping offers unparalleled convenience, your customers might still face anxiety about delivery, wondering when (or if) their purchases will arrive.
Eliminate delivery anxiety by proactively communicating every step of the process. Better if your transactional communication includes when it was shipped, picked up, and its estimated arrival time.
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Soylent, an F&B store that sells meal replacement products, also promotes its loyalty program in its transactional emails. You don’t need to follow as it is. Experiment with user-generated content, recommendation categories, etc. Measure to see which drives higher click-through rates.
7. Product recommendations
Your existing customers are more likely to purchase again compared to new shoppers who visited your store for the first time.
Boost AOV and customer lifetime value (CLTV) by cross-selling and upselling through relevant recommendations delivered via email, SMS, and on-site personalization.
Better yet, enable cross-category product recommendations to further increase AOV. A home furnishing store, for example, could spotlight its line of lamps for shoppers searching for living room furniture.
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Build, Launch & Ship Your Personalized Experiences Today
Successful eCommerce store owners focus on how they make consumers feel throughout the customer journey.
Start implementing these personalized interactions across your site layout, communication, and more.
"Respect the customer," emphasizes Renaud. "Respect their time. Respect their choices. Respect their desire to create something they care about."
Delight shoppers today, whether it's by personalizing the touchpoints or implementing product customization to help customers create a uniquely personal item.
And don't wait for perfection. Build, launch, improve, and ship it.
Renaud adds, "The ones who lead the market tomorrow are the ones who start today."
Kickflip is the most capable customizer on the market. Pricing starts at $59/month (+1.95% to 0% per custom product sale).
Start your free 14-day trial today.