Top 5 Product Recommendation Tips for Shopify Brands in 2021 [eCommerce Fastlane Podcast #133]

Zee Aganovic, CEO and Co-Founder of HiConversion, joined Shopify’s Steve Hutt on the eCommerce Fastlane Podcast, to talk about some of the most difficult problems Shopify teams are facing (but maybe don’t want to admit).

Firstly, why there are low conversion rates across the board for eCommerce sites, even during the massive boom of online shopping boosted by the pandemic. Second is limited access to personalized product discovery, which far too many Shopify merchants overlook.

Also during this episode, Zee and Steve discuss:

• Why conventional product recommendation and personalization strategies can’t hold a candle to Amazon’s machine learning algorithms.
• Is product discovery the new competitive advantage in eCommerce?
• How HiConversion Recommend just changed the Shopify App Store forever.

Before diving in (or if you simply prefer reading rather than listening), here are the top 5 takeaways from the conversation you should consider before starting your own product recommendations.

1 | Shopify brands are ignoring 90% of their potential customers

Conventional product recommendations and personalization solutions in general, work best for returning shoppers and visitors that are likely buyers. Many Shopify brands are missing around 90% of visitors whose preferences are not known and who remain non-buyers.

“The key is to quickly determine if a visitor within that 90% has any interest in buying and then immediately connecting them with a product of that interest.” – Zee Aganovic, CEO and Co-Founder, HiConversion

Rather than applying the same logic to product recommendations used for the 10%, our method is to tailor the experience to the large majority of visitors who have yet to become customers. In doing so, the approach to personalization becomes active rather than passive.

Context is everything – when product recommendations are based on customer behavior in real-time, they become significantly more effective. This inspired us to create HiConversion Recommend.

2 | Conventional product recommendation solutions are flawed

Imagine a customer visits an online store to purchase a gift for their partner, then returns to the site at a later date to buy something for themselves. Guess what will happen? They will get recommendations based on that prior shopping experience rather than their current one.

This is an inherent flaw in product recommendation solutions that work based on past behavior – in this case, unnecessary friction is added that will likely hurt potential future sales.

It’s also why Amazon is a leader in personalization. Their algorithms are session-based, meaning each visit will be catered differently based on ever-shifting visitor preferences.

Here is a great intro to Amazon Personalize service:

3 | Shopify merchants can now leverage Amazon’s product recommendation algorithms

Amazon Personalize is the machine learning service provided by Amazon Web Services that leverages over 20 years of machine learning and personalization technology innovations on Amazon.com. (HiConversion is an official AWS Partner).

The benefits of leveraging Amazon Personalize include delivering a wide array of:

• Personalization experiences
• Specific product recommendations
• Personalized product re-ranking
• Customized direct marketing

By the way, HiConversion Recommend is the first company on the Shopify App Store to fully integrate Amazon Personalize into a self-service solution. No developers needed.

4 | Dynamic shopping experiences are the future (and present)

While mobile shopping continues to rise year over year with the aid of social media, customer attention spans will continue to get shorter – we’re talking micro-seconds. This means it will only get more challenging for brands to capture sales before potentially losing visitors to a competitor or bigger marketplace.

“Amazon really knows it’s me – regardless if I’m logged in or not.” – Steve Hutt, Host of eCommerce Fastlane Podcast

The top Shopify merchants will be (and currently are) obsessed with providing an exceptional product discovery experience. Customers should not only be able to quickly find and purchase products they want, but in many cases the products will be finding them first thanks to adaptive recommendation algorithms. In turn, brands can no longer afford to take a “one size fits all” approach to their shopping experiences.

5 | You don’t have to be a machine learning expert to benefit from Amazon’s product recommendations

When visitors come to your site and can’t find the right products, they leave in seconds. This is most common for new visitors – i.e. 90% of your visitors.

We created HiConversion Recommend to help Shopify merchants connect their most relevant products with the most persuadable new visitors, motivating more customers to buy and come back.

Here’s what you get:

• Self-Learning Personalization: machine learning powered by Amazon Personalize for use by all Shopify stores. Gets smarter the more product recommendations you run.
• Automated Recommendation Templates: dozens of ready-to-go templates coded with personalization best practices – everything from Upsell and Cross-sell to Product Bundles and Category Promotion. Customize and go live in minutes. Put anywhere on your site.
• Optimized for Mobile Buyers (and Desktop): not just responsive design but dedicated mobile layouts and UX to maximize engagement and conversions for how mobile buyers actually behave.
• Live Visitor Intelligence: better understand what your customers want. Reveal new persuadable audience segments and preferences with effortless, real-time ROI and reporting – all the metrics you need, incl. Conversions, Sales Revenue, Average Order Value (AOV), and many more.
• Customer Data Platform: automatic integration of your Shopify order and product data with HiConversion’s patented web-visitor analytics.
• Concierge Onboarding: our elite Personalization experts will help you start and customize your initial product recommendations. Book a meeting from inside the app.

NOTE: HiConversion Recommend data is encrypted, private, secure, and is not shared with Amazon or other customers. This is a Shopify Plus certified app that complies with Shopify’s strict privacy, security, and performance requirements.