It’s the age of the customer. Their wish is your command. What customers are really asking for is a better curated, more personalised online shopping experience. Given these expectations, retail brands must respond to this demand not just as a point of differentiation from competitors but also to survive and thrive.
The solution then lies in technology. Technology that recreates the personalised experience of shopping at a local boutique—in an online environment. This necessitates focusing on improving eCommerce clienteling and customer loyalty, but increasingly, should also include hyper-personalised product lists.
A product list allows shoppers and brands to curate a unique-to-the-individual catalogue of products they like, want to learn more about, may be interested in, have bought in the past or may buy in the future.
These lists have become a ubiquitous part of most online shopping experiences. Customers most often see them on the front end of an online store in the form of wish lists or a shopping cart. However, they certainly aren’t the only type of product list—more on this below.
Product list functionality within an online store allows customers to personalise their own shopping experiences. Most commonly, customers use them as a middle ground to “save” products they aren’t ready to buy yet but would like easy access to for future reference.
However, the advantages of these lists aren’t limited to customers alone. When used effectively, brands can derive product and customer engagement insights, leading to better-informed decision-making about products, merchandising, and customer experience strategies.
Most online shoppers and brands are familiar with wish lists. However, to truly elevate the customer experience while also gathering crucial zero-party data for the brand, businesses can consider putting a variety of product lists to work. This could include:
Exploiting the potential of product lists can deliver deep strategic value to online retailers. Understanding your customers based on transactional data alone is a practice of the past. Behavioural data-backed product lists are the future.
In fact, 90% of customers are willing to share behavioural data for a cheaper and easier brand experience. Therefore, predictive technology must leverage these data-rich lists to better forecast trends, optimise merchandising tactics, and ultimately create a seamless, personalised and engaging retail experience for the customer.
Brands must make use of the variety of product lists at their disposal to engage customers and create better, more personalised shopping experiences. Here are six ways to do that.
1. Retain leads
Customers use product lists like wish lists as a middle ground to save products for the future. Many retailers encourage shoppers to sign up for an account to save their wish lists. Similarly, when a customer adds a product to the cart but abandons the cart, this list can be helpful to nudge the customer to come back and make their purchase.
2. Send in-stock alerts
When you’re out of stock, lists allow customers to show interest in an out-of-stock product should it come back in stock again. Once in stock, brands can send out an alert to customers who have already shown interest and are more likely to make a purchase. Tracking interest in out-of-stock products also allows brands to gather valuable insights about the product’s popularity, which can help you anticipate stock levels in the future better.
3. Recommend related products
Curating lists of related products and showing them to customers along their buying journey is a great way to encourage more sales. 56% of online shoppers are more likely to return to a website that recommends products. So, a customer purchasing jeans may also see the option to buy the shoes and top the model is pictured wearing (Styled lists.) Alternatively, they may be shown other, similar pairs of jeans in case the current product doesn’t quite match their needs.
4. Announce sales
Lists can be a great way to let potential customers know of sales on items they’re potentially interested in purchasing. Sale announcements are often very effective for re-engaging customers who’ve previously shown interest but failed to complete their purchase. In fact, leading up to significant sale periods like Black Friday, customers will often add items to their lists in anticipation of a sale. Analysing this data leading up to big sale events can help anticipate product interest and stock levels.
5. Invite gifting
Made popular by Amazon, shareable gift registries or occasion lists can be a great way to encourage shoppers to add products they would like to receive as gifts to a list on your site. Once complete, they can share the list with friends and family (or on social media). Gift givers can subsequently purchase directly from the list without searching other stores for the perfect gift.
6. Make shopping convenient
A shopping experience that makes life easier is likely to result in repeat or ongoing customers. Recommended products are one way of making shopping more convenient. Existing customers may also find it handy to have a curated list of frequently purchased or previously purchased products ( Frequently purchased lists). 75% of consumers are more likely to buy from a retailer that recognises them by name, recommends products based on past purchases, or knows their purchase history, Accenture reports.
As competition increases, businesses face even more pressure to create personally curated experiences that drive consumer engagement and differentiation in the market. 48% of consumers surveyed by Accenture said they had left a website without purchasing because they felt it was poorly curated for them.
At the end of the day, retail success isn’t just about making sales; it’s about creating great experiences for your customers. Brands that understand and prioritise this often chase clienteling and loyalty features within their retail software to try and better understand their customers—and deliver retail experiences to match.
To truly put the personal touch back into online retail, brands should also be actively investigating product list features. Omneo’s fully customisable plug-and-play product list features are a value-driving addition to your eCommerce technology stack. These lists can travel with the customer to your retail store experience and back. You can also deliver abandoned cart/browse emails based on store visits with lists.
Customers love product lists as they improve their shopping experience. For brands, product lists are great for gathering zero-party data about existing and potential customers and serve as an additional touchpoint to help encourage more sales for your business.
Now that you know what product lists are, we’ll discuss their role in commerce and eCommerce in our next article; and how you can make the most of them to enhance the overall customer journey.
Chat with us today to learn more about how Omneo’s product lists can help you deliver better, more engaging shopping experiences for your customers.
