The Ecommerce Revolution Is All About You

Author:

Leena Rao

Source:

Personal recommendations have always been a part of ecommerce, but there has been little innovation since Amazon introduced retail and product personalization 10 years ago. But with the increasing mountains of data at digital retailers’ fingertips, ecommerce is about to get even more personal.

The fact is that right now there is little iteration from personalized ecommerce beyond what is taking place on Amazon. So you’ll see suggestions of what other shoppers who bought a certain item also purchased, or recommendations to similar items to what you have purchased, but there is a whole world of social data, and even more-in-depth purchase data that can be mined by retailers to help increase sales.

Kleiner Perkins partner Aileen Lee agrees with me, “In the future, the best retail sites will know you much better and show you things that are much more relevant.” Lee has helped lead investments in a number of e-commerce companies including Offermatic, One Kings Lane, Plum District, Rent the Runway, and Trendyol and held operating roles at The Gap and North Face.

“We are just at the beginning of a revolution of e-commerce, and existing retailers are going to have to get better at personalizing the experience for consumers,” Lee says.

“Personalization was really important in enabling Amazon to differentiate itself and grow in past ten years,” David Selinger, CEO and co-founder of RichRelevance. Selinger also was Amazon’s Manager, Consumer Behavior Research and helped build some of the site’s personalization features a number of years ago. “Personalization will be the differentiating factor in e-commerce and digital commerce going forward, especially for multichannel retailers and new entrants online.”

Amazon and Netflix represent the first wave of personalization...