Gain a Competitive Advantage with Product Customization

As retailers and brands attempt to differentiate online experiences, product customization allows these businesses to increase shopper loyalty and offer unique experiences, all while increasing conversions. Deloitte reports that 1 in 5 customers who expressed interest in personalization would be willing to pay up to a 20% premium on products and 36% of shoppers showed interest in purchasing personalized products. Following are 5 ways to gain a competitive advantage with product customization.

1. Assess ROI

Ecommerce conversion rates see a dramatic increase when product customization is offered, with some increasing over 50%. While the monetary aspects of ROI matter most, other KPI’s should be considered, including:

• Time on site
• Average order value
• Repeat customers
• Value of the data collected through customization experiences

2. Understand Customers

To gain customer loyalty, it’s vital to understand what shoppers desire and when they desire it. It is also important to understand shopper habits, interests and desires. The top four reason shoppers desire personalization:

• 50% believe personalization provides great gifts
• 41% want something unique
• 32% believe it’s fun to design something
• 28% like being able to express their personality  

There are also popular times during the year when consumers most desire personalization, as well as categories where personalization is most common, including:

• 25% holidays
• 19% clothing
• 18% furniture

3. Don’t Bury The Lead

Make it easy for shoppers to find customizable products. Create a main navigation link and category for all customizable products. Tag and reference customized products in site search and promote the features and products on the home page. Offsite promotion is also important including social sharing, SEO and PPC to capture new shoppers.

4. Improve The Customer Experience

Shoppers desire and intuitive and easy workflow to design products, visualize creations and see real time changes. A successful customer experience is created by fewer questions, fewer clicks, and more transparency.

5. Choose The Right Platform

It’s critical to perform research on product customization platforms and choose the one that best fits the organization's goals and objectives. When choosing a platform, following are some questions to consider:

• Does the software provide full end-to-end product customization capabilities?
• Is social sharing available to promote products while simultaneously offering organic engagement?
• Can the software be easily integrated with any ecommerce platform?
• What customer service options are offered?
• Is an administration console part of the software?
• Is there a rich set of features offered in the software?