Personalisation is key for retail says Klarna/Visualsoft research

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Sep 3, 2021

Personalisation remains key in the battle to attract online customers, a new report confirms. According to research among 200 UK retailers, the ‘Get.Set.Grow’ report from Klarna and Visualsoft shows 90% of retailers have implemented some form of personalisation strategy.

But the report also shows many businesses are lacking the technology “to make tracking customer preferences and behaviours a truly seamless and automated process”.

Out of those retailers who have implemented a personalisation strategy, 44% are already recommending products based on a customer profile, and 36% are personalising the product search functionality on their websites. 

“This is helping to enhance the experience, not just for mainstream consumers, but also more diverse customer groups with different needs and shopping behaviours”, the report noted.

Meanwhile, data-driven dynamic content is being used by 37% of retailers to actively target and influence browsers as they shop online.  

A key part of this is the use of AI (35%) to help identify preferences and trends, while marketing automation flows (31%) turn insight into effective communications and campaigns.

The report goes on to suggest that 34% of retailers are switching on to the fact that using tech to obtain a single view of the customer “is central to delivering personal experiences seamlessly across channels”.

David Duke, digital director at Visualsoft, said: “It’s clear that technology is critical to enable any of these personalised experiences, especially collecting the correct data on your customers and using it at the crucial moment of the shopper journey".

He added: “The key thing to remember about personalisation is to be as customer focused as possible. Retailers should strive to get more value out of their investment by ensuring customer-facing options are more closely aligned to audiences, their behaviours and needs”.