Experience Personalization (XP) News – Friday Roundup

Happy Friday, intrepid XP Adventurers!

Here are 5 articles that caught our attention last week that we rounded up for you… enjoy!

1. Tech industry aims to reassure Congress on AI (Axios)

AI is seen as one of the biggest opportunities in technology, and business in general, but the degree to which regulators embrace or oppose it could dictate the pace of innovation.

2. The Works Implements Richrelevance AI-Powered Personalised Online Search, Sees 37% Increase In E-Commerce Sales During Christmas Trading

Previously, The Works (UK) team lacked visibility into their site search performance due to a black-box solution that was being used. The Works then turned to the RichRelevance Find’s dynamic and data-driven search solution in November 2017 delivering an immediate impact on their bottom line.

3. L.L. Bean Scraps Legendary Lifetime Return Policy (NPR)

“Increasingly, a small, but growing number of customers has been interpreting our guarantee well beyond its original intent. Some view it as a lifetime product replacement program, expecting refunds for heavily worn products used over many years. Others seek refunds for products that have been purchased through third parties, such as at yard sales.”‘

This has sparked an interesting debate across the internet, everywhere from how millennials have ruined everything (!) to the practical realities of competition and balancing that with long-term loyalty.

4. 81% of retailers will use unified commerce platforms by 2020 (RetailDive)

By the end of 2020, 81% of retailers will deploy unified commerce platforms, to support commerce across the enterprise’s stores, mobile users and the web, according to a survey by Boston Retail Partners (BRP). This is seen as essential to competing in the omnichannel environment.

Omnichannel is no longer just a buzzword (thankfully) but fixing the commerce without an eye on staging personalized experiences will be short sighted.

5. The Tyranny of Convenience (NYT)

And, here’s our pick for the long read for your weekend… a thoughtfully worded article that is sure to be controversial.

Americans say they prize competition, a proliferation of choices, the little guy. Yet our taste for convenience begets more convenience, through a combination of the economics of scale and the power of habit. The easier it is to use Amazon, the more powerful Amazon becomes — and thus the easier it becomes to use Amazon. Convenience and monopoly seem to be natural bedfellows.

We discuss this from the perspective of competing with Amazon, with the new Experience Economy and speak about how the retailers and other experiential competitors are losing due to the “experience gap”.

Enjoy your weekend,

Raj

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