Gibsons1's Blog

Week 10

This week I have been asked to explain my view on personalization in e-commerce. Personalization of web pages is based on the characteristics of an individual such as their interests. Personalization implies that the changes are based on implicit data, such as items purchased or pages viewed. I am all for personalization as I believe it helps the user to discover more items based upon their interests on previous products they have bought. This as a company can only benefit them as this method could tempt customers into purchasing more. I have a few examples shown below.

There are also some criticism of personalization like customers saying it does not work and is a waste of money. This can be down to the product type and how often a user purchases of a certain website. New users can’t expect to see all their interests appear infront of them after only purchasing one item. It can take up to at least 10 products before a good knowledge of the customer can be created. The recommended items also depends on the product as some products may not have an ideal match therefore may show irrelevant recommended items. Also if you buy your children games or products then these kind of products may be found within your recommended searches.

A website that uses personalization throughout its website is Amazon. When a user signs up to Amazon, they gives personal details such as name and email address. This information is used to create personalized greetings throughout the site such as “Hello, Simon”. It could also come in the form if email with your name titled at the top. This is known as explicit personalization because the site creates greetings using information obtained directly from the customer.

Amazon also provides customers with personalized product recommendations based on their previous purchases and the purchases of customers with similar interests. This type of personalization is implicit because the site is tracking purchase information behind the scenes, without direct customer participation. My account on Amazon shows my recommended items are for the Xbox 360 as I have bought Xbox 360 games from Amazon before.