Analyzing Product Customization: An Increasingly Popular E-Commerce Trend

Analyzing Product Customization:  An Increasingly Popular E-Commerce Trend

Ecommerce has undeniably changed the customer shopping experience in the last few years. Gradually, more and more people are opening up to buying online while enjoying the comfort of their homes. The popularity of ecommerce business to the modern-day echelon has led to an innovation spree in the online market.

To stay and progress in the virtual market, businesses need to innovate in the products they are offering. The latest trend in the race is online product customization.

What Is Online Product Customization?

Today’s progressive technology and the advanced digital world offer customers a platform to personalize the product of their choice. Although product customization has been popular for quite some time now, online customization has just taken off to lure more customers. Here, the customer actively participates in the creation process to pick the product of their preference.

How Does It Help in Conversion?

Customization of products enhances the user experience by providing them leverage to personalize the product. It usually leads to more conversions for the ecommerce business providing this option to the customers.

Retailers who have already introduced and successfully implemented online product designer tools in their online stores are doing great on the competitive front. So, it becomes crucial for other stores to introduce the same offer with new features to survive and progress in the market. Customers tend to choose stores that offer them products and services in trend, hence, it makes sense to stay updated.

How Can You Personalize Your Store to Call-In More Customers?

Ecommerce stores are continuously hoarding data to analyze customer behavior and act on them to improve the customer experience while shopping with them. The same can be followed to study customer choices regarding personalization of products. Study your customer’s cart history and see what they are most interested in. Out of those products, shortlist the ones for which you can offer customization.

Just like setting up an online store does not guarantee conversion, offering a particular feature doesn’t attract customers automatically. The same stands true for customization of products. No matter how effectively you have digitized the technological feature, you will need to work on connecting with your customers. Promotion, product displays, configuration, and the layout are all important to lure customers to buy your products. Strategies are involved in every step you take towards the growth of your ecommerce.

Online product customization facilitates brand awareness, and it increasingly engages the customer in the process of product designing which helps the company in identifying the trends, therefore, adding another source of revenue to the online store.

Advances in digital and manufacturing technology are now enabling brands to offer customers the ability to personalize or customize items online or in-store and then quickly take delivery of them.

The benefit of customization is that it further strengthens the user experience for the customer by inviting them to become partners in the product creation process. The better the user experience, the better opportunity for conversions.

Retailers who have a digital footprint that supports customization and personalization already have a significant competitive edge. To remain competitive long term, personalization needs to be on every retailers technology roadmap. Here’s what else you need to know.

Right now, Nike is dominating product customization and personalization. The brand constantly runs experiments with digital in their flagship stores and partner retailers, with a bent toward in-store or online product customization. Nike has laid the foundation and are actively selling personalized products right now both online and off. While most brands aren’t ready for this level of manufacturing and staffing coordination, they need to see the writing scrolling by on the wall. Digital is already changing the retail experience and the products purchased in retail stores.

The good news is that because so few brands are prepared to invest in the digital space, there is a lot of opportunity right now — even in just following the leader. Brands that make an effort to coordinate their online campaigns with an offline digital component now, will find little competition. Such efforts also will enable brands to gain better customer feedback, as well and gain some actionable data that can help guide future investments as digital becomes embedded deeper into the retail experience.

When you allow the customer to personalize the product, they are turning from passive buyers to active partners. They are contributing to the product development process. The mere consciousness of helping to create the product makes a customer buy it as well. It is the psychology behind a customer that helps the business get higher conversions.

To Conclude

An online product customization channel can be lucrative and thriving if a balance is maintained between the website design and user experience. The above-mentioned factors can conclude the following reasons for the success of the trend in the online market:

User experience:

Undoubtedly, online product customization provides a better customer experience where they can get the products of their exact choice, color, and design, without even compromising the comfort of shopping at a click.

● Product innovation and development:

The customer is involved in the very process of product innovation and creation, which makes him sure about the product he is going to buy.

● Psychology:

This point cannot be ignored definitely. When the customer is conscious that he designed the product, he is more willing to buy it. Moreover, it was found that an average customer spends about 20 minutes to customize a product he or she wants to buy.

Customization eliminates the stresses and pitfalls associated with too many choices by leaving the consumer with one solution that is tailored specifically and purposefully to their needs and desires.

Just as brick & mortar restaurants like Chipotle and sweetgreen have embraced customization as part of their service strategy, ecommerce businesses have begun to adopt the trend online. One such brand that has committed to customization is YouBar, a nutrition bar company that allows customers to create their own product through an interactive online survey with questions ranging from goals and lifestyle to protein type and sweetener used. So as one can see, there clearly is no limit to the limits of customization, online or elsewhere.