Personalization

Two-thirds of Americans prefer to shop in a store rather than online, details Synqera in results from an online survey administered in April. That supports prior research from Ipsos, which similarly found a majority of Americans to prefer shopping in-store. According to the Synqera survey, there are ways to bolster that in-store customer experience: 81% of respondents agreed that they are more likely to shop in a store that provides an overall customized shopping experience (such as personalized special offers and loyalty deals). Read more »

What would it take to get smartphone-toting women shoppers to share their location? A $25 in-store credit would do the job for 83%, according to results from a study of the apparel shopping behaviors and preferences of 1,000 smartphone-owning women, commissioned by Swirl and conducted by ResearchNow. But for almost half of these women, a $5 in-store credit would suffice, though a $1 credit would only entice 20%. The study also indicates that about 6 in 10 would fork over their location info in exchange for a gift with their purchase, one-quarter would do so for early access to new styles, and about 1 in 5 for personalized style recommendations. Read more »

More than 9 in 10 company marketers (primarily from the UK) believe that personalization of the web experience is critical to current and future success, detail Econsultancy and Monetate in a newly-released report [download page]. Yet almost 3 in 4 also say that while they understand the importance of online personalization, they don't yet know how to do it, although 59% say they are getting a good ROI from personalization. Top barriers to adopting or improving website personalization are IT roadblocks, legacy technology, and budget and staff resources, per the study. Read more »

49% of US consumers believe the best thing that retailers can do to improve the shopping experience is to better integrate in-store, online and mobile shopping channels, details a survey conducted by Accenture. That notion is shared by 48% of consumers in the UK, Germany, France, Sweden and Brazil, and 38% in China and Japan. The results point to a desire for an increasingly seamless cross-channel experience, where personalized experiences are provided across every engagement channel. Read more »

Facebook was once again the leading option in Q1 2013 for social logins, among online users who opted to use a social network identity to speed up registration on sites across the web, according to data released this month by Janrain. But Facebook lost ground for the second consecutive month, after dropping from its majority share in Q4. In Q1, Facebook slipped 3% points to 46% share, down from 54% in Q3 2012. Read more »

Personalized promotional and triggered emails deliver stronger open and click rates than their non-personalized counterparts, and also generate higher transaction rates and revenue per email, details Experian Marketing Services [download page] in a new study. For promotional mailings, emails with personalized subject lines had an average open rate of 19.5%, compared to 15.1% for those without personalization. Read more »

Online shoppers' awareness of retailers' personalization tactics is growing, according to a study by MyBuys and the e-tailing group. What's more, many prove receptive to personalization, finding it both valuable and a keen influence on their shopping habits. Among the several findings from the report, 53% of shopping surveyed believe that retailers who personalize their shopping experience provide a valuable service, while 4 in 10 say they buy more from retailers who send them personalized emails. Read more »

Consumers appear to be quite receptive to social logins - the ability to use an existing ID from a social network to login or register on a site - and welcome targeted products and promotions based on their social login profiles, per results from a Janrain study conducted by Blue Research. Awareness and use of social login was high among the online survey respondents, at 87% and 52%, respectively, with 65% agreeing that they're more likely to return to a website that automatically welcomes them through social login. Read more »

Just 5% of American adults believe that companies should have the right to track their activities whenever they're online, while an opposing 28% feel that companies should never be able to track their online behavior, per results from a survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Microsoft. While that implies a negative sentiment towards online tracking, a majority 60% are ok with companies tracking them, but only if individuals give their permission. Read more »

Retail e-commerce has been growing at a rapid rate, although recent research from Ipsos indicates that most Americans still prefer to shop in-store. Even so, to digital shoppers, there are various ways to make the in-store experience more satisfying. Within the "Digital Mass Market" - a group comprising 8 in 10 shoppers, characterized by their willingness to use digital sources to help them shop - 60% are demanding greater value than they were a couple of years ago, according to survey results from Cisco. Read more »