How Your Online Store Can Become The Next Amazon – Smart E-commerce Personalization

How Your Online Store Can Become The Next Amazon - Smart E-commerce Personalization

The global e-commerce market is expected to total $4.89 trillion in 2021. That figure is estimated to grow over the next few years, showing that borderless e-commerce is becoming a profitable option for online retailers.

In case you were wondering what the growth of e-commerce looked like in other countries, here’s a look:

ecommerce-sales-by-country-2021

Source: Oberlo

And if you’re specifically looking for how much e-commerce has grown in India over the years, these numbers should say it all:

e-commerce-market-value-india-2014-2027

Source: Statista

While the growth might not look as fast-moving compared to the US and China, the e-commerce sector in India is also fast-moving. And if you haven’t been living under a rock, you would have noticed how suddenly there are far too many online stores for just about everything.

Ecommmerce guide CTA

For instance, when you look for a particular shoe on Google, you practically come across multiple online stores selling the same product – maybe at different prices. But also note here that while the big players in the industry are top listed, others in the field have the shoe we are looking for.

red shoes search

In simpler words, if you own an online store – no matter what you sell, you have more than just a handful of competition. And if the competition comes with bigger marketing budgets than yours, you’re going to lose out on almost 69% of your sales – no matter how great your deals and sales are.

Now, consider when Amazon was the only online store to look for products in different categories. Fast forward to now, you will notice how you end up looking for the same product beyond Amazon – Flipkart, Snapdeal, Myntra, and the list keeps going till you find a deal that suits your budget.

What’s the basis of your choice? The price of the product and the reviews the store has garnered over time.

If you were a store owner – especially a new one, this is a reason to worry. The big players will take away all your customers because you can’t just keep offering endless discounts just for sale.

So how do you survive in this competitive market?

By following what Amazon does to date to maintain its reputation and sales year after year.

Hacks Used By Amazon That Can Make Your Online Store The Next Big Thing

Localization Of The Store

If your online store sells globally, then the very first thing you need to do is localization. We’re not asking you to translate every aspect of your store into different languages. All we say is that identify where most of your customers are coming from and then localize the store in terms of the products available and the pricing displayed.

For instance, when I access Amazon.com from India, the first message I get is if I’d like to switch to their Indian website. After all, no one has the time to convert the pricing of the products they see in their currency. Imagine the amount of effort that would go into searching for the current currency rates and then doing the math.

amazon localisation

Displaying What’s Interesting First

Almost 80% of the time, online shoppers land on a store looking for something and then stray into other categories to discover interesting stuff. As an online store owner, this is your opportunity to bag a higher value sale, cross-sell or upsell popular products and run other campaigns that add to your revenue.

Now Amazon knows that people love shopping online, and for them, interesting is what’s not going to cost them a bomb. So they display a redirection option in the banner of their home page to a product page that lists all the exciting finds down!

what's interesting on amazon

When you click on ‘explore,’ the store redirects you to a page where all the exciting products are listed down along with their prices and how many people have shown interest in them:

interesting products amazon

Leveraging Social Proof

Continuing on the point above, even their most popular products are leveraging the power of social proof. Social proof is reviews, ratings, feedback, etc., on products that add credibility in quality and functionality. These are made by customers who have previously purchased and experienced the product.

An average online shopper completes half the sales cycle while researching the product he is looking for. And social proof plays a vital role in maneuvering his decision.

Amazon displays the ratings and the reviews its customers have dropped on each product right below the product name. This creates a rapport of them being trustworthy by helping their customers make the right purchase decision.

amazon social proof

Contextual Up-sell And Cross-sell Campaigns

If you could make a sale of $10 to a person like me interested in toys, would you or should you settle for just a $3 purchase that I plan to make? The answer is no. Successful e-commerce businesses understand the power of up-selling and cross-selling their products because an online shopper may or may not have discovered the other options available in the store.

Amazon displays up-sell options right below the product you have shown interest in, nudging with the fact that others bought the combo they are offering. They also exhibit a section showing products related to what you’re viewing and have also been popular in their category.

amazon cross sell up sell

Note here: They aren’t trying to push a set of t-shirts to me because I showed interest only in a toy. The up-sell and cross-sell campaigns here are both highly contextual.

Personalized On-site Experience

Apart from suggesting more products in the range, I have currently shown interest in. Amazon also makes use of my previous browsing data. It displays the products I have recently shown interest in and those they would like to recommend based on my interests.

Now, this does two things – I might not have purchased the product I previously had shown interest in and then totally forgot about, so this would remind me of it. It will also give me exposure to other exciting products in the same category that might add more value to me – in this case, these books.

personalized product recommendations

Highly Personalized Emails

Emails are the most effective channel for e-commerce marketing. Since you can directly reach out to your customer, you have a medium to promote products that are guaranteed to bring him back to the store, nudge him towards a purchase and boost your sales.

Amazon sends me recommended products based on my previous purchases and browsing history every week. This ensures that I, too, don’t miss out on good deals they are running, and they don’t miss out on a possible sale!

email ecommerce personalization

Now personalizing your emails to this extent might seem like a challenge to you, but companies like Wigzo empower you with machine learning tools. These tools are designed to track your store visitor’s online activity and help you create better customer profiles with data to strategize personalized campaigns.

In case you’re wondering why you need to focus on email personalization like Amazon, here’s the impact of this tactic on the open rates if you implement it right:

personalized email

Amazon also has a cart recovery campaign to remind their shoppers of the items they have left behind. This reminds them of the purchase they were planning to make and lets them know if the product is popular and might go out of stock if they take too long to make a decision.

Always Ask For Feedback

The only way you can build a loyal consumer base like Amazon is to continue to deliver a great experience to your customers. And to do so, you will need to take first-hand feedback from them regarding the purchases they have recently made, their on-site experience, etc.

For instance, after a week of the product being delivered to you, Amazon sends across an email asking for feedback on the product. The mail’s pretty much to the point – rate and review your purchase.

amazon feedback email

Running Referral Campaigns

The one tactic that most e-commerce businesses forget to tap in on is referral marketing campaigns.

Let’s face it; you’re more likely to believe a recommendation made by your best friend or family than an advertisement being run by the company. This is why referral campaigns are known to generate quality sales and boost customer loyalty.

referred customers

Amazon runs a pretty simple ‘refer and earn’ campaign for its shoppers. You recommend them to a friend, earn an amount when the person makes a purchase. Then you can redeem this amount in the next purchase you’re making. You get an added discount, and they get another customer – a win-win situation for the both of you!

amazon referral

Executing Retargeting Campaigns

As we mentioned before, an online shopper doesn’t need to purchase in the first go. He could even leave without adding the product to the wish list or his cart. But this does not mean that you let him forget about it!

Amazon runs brilliant retargeting campaigns on social media and other digital platforms that remind the shopper of the product he had shown interest in. This helps keep their deal at the top of the shopper’s mind for when he finally does decide to make the purchase.

Over To You

Apart from the above stated, Amazon has a considerably optimized checkout process as well. While initially, they might ask for some of your data, they save it to your account for future use and make the going a matter of a few minutes – if you don’t end up browsing endlessly through products.

They also retain the items you have added to your cart for a few days so that the returning visitor doesn’t need to go over various product pages to find them again.

The idea is basically to make the online shopper’s experience as personalized as possible. The higher your level of personalization, the greater the number of sales your business will generate.

Ready to boost your online store sales? Get started with Wigzo’s smart personalization for free!

Saad Mohammad

Saad Mohammad

Full-time marketer, part-time guitar player, and a football fanatic. Saad is a Digital Marketer with 6+ years of experience in the industry.

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