Every business today understands the importance of competing on memorable experiences and is deploying some type of personalization in order to differentiate itself. However, as people spend more and more time online, they expect more from each digital interaction, and what passes for personalization is becoming increasingly insufficient.
NRF 2019
It was just two years ago in 2016, that headlines everywhere were talking about the demise of retail, but this year at the annual National Retail Federation 2019: Retail Big Show, which opened on Sunday, January 13th, NRF Chairman Christopher Baldwin, chairman, president and CEO of BJ’s Wholesale Club stating what we all know to be the more accurate truth, “retail never went away”, and that today the “industry is more healthy, vibrant, innovative and exciting than ever.”
Commerce changed in 2018 – and brands and consumers both came out winners.
It was a great holiday for retailers. A record holiday, in fact. Seasonal sales grew 5.1% to hit their highest level in 6 years, buoyed by 19% growth in digital purchases. As eMarketer principal analyst Andrew Lipsman presciently told CBS MoneyWatch last month: “Really, it’s the story of strength at brick-and-mortar retail and e-commerce.”
The future of B2B is consumerized and therefore personalized. At least, that’s the takeaway from industry leaders with whom I shared the stage for a keynote panel on digital transformation at the recent B2B Online conference.
As we discussed the internal challenges and external forces confronting the industry, a dominant theme emerged: Personalization is the only way to drive differentiation and growth for B2B companies who want to become the Amazon of their category … before Amazon is.
A recent RichRelevance study into online grocery uncovered 59% of UK consumers and 63% of US consumers choose to shop online because of time saving benefits. Yet, for those of us with experience in shopping online, we know this isn’t always the case.
RichRelevance has uncovered through our experience working with a number of global grocery retailers, that there is a positive correlation between saving a grocery shoppers’ time and the ultimate size of their basket. The faster a shopper can locate the items they want to buy, the more likely the order will not only be completed but that it will be of a higher value.
In the first blog post of this series, we discussed how AI promises to finally deliver true personalization – individualized experiences created dynamically and at scale. In this post, we will discuss how marketers can apply AI to every stage of the customer lifecycle – and share stories of brands who have done it successfully.
We’ve spent a lot of time this year talking about powering personalization for the new Experience Economy, and the need for companies to rethink their core value in a world where companies compete on the memorable customer experiences they provide, not the products they sell. Now, we can add a new number to the conversation: $800 billion.
Google’s Kiran Mani dropped this stat during her recent Shop.org session on How Machine Learning Can Help You Deliver Better Customer Experiences:
Leading fashion brand, GANT has seen online sales improve by 15% since putting their trust in personalization.
GANT wanted to move away from a manual, time-consuming recommendations platform to improve their overall site experience as well as enhance their navigation.