8 Ways to Create Personalized Shopping Experiences with Shopify

Learning how to create personalized shopping experiences on your Shopify website could be one of the best ways to turbocharge your profit potential. Studies show that around 70% of customers spend more with companies that deliver tailored shopping experiences. 

What’s more, McKinsey says that in today’s world, around 71% of customers expect every interaction with a company to be personalized. Unfortunately, many ecommerce companies still struggle to deliver the unique experiences customers want. 

When you’re not interacting with customers face-to-face, giving shopping experiences that “personal touch” can be complex. Fortunately, there are various tools you can use with Shopify to crank your personalization strategy up a notch. Let’s explore some of your options.

1. Help Customers Make the Right Choice with Product Quizzes

While some customers will visit your Shopify website with a clear idea of what they want to buy, some will need a little extra help finding the right solution. If your customers were visiting your store “in-person”, they could ask a sales professional for tips on finding the ideal product. 

Unfortunately, that’s not an option for visitors on your Shopify site – but that doesn’t mean you can’t provide any guidance at all. With apps like Lantern’s Product quiz builder, or the Quizell AI form builder, you can ask customers specific questions about their product needs and goals. 

The AI solutions generate recommendations based on your customer’s answers to these questions, helping to push them towards the right solution. It’s the ideal way to give your customers a guided experience, without investing in additional staff. 

2. Use Intelligent Product Detail Page Recommendations

One of the best ways to increase conversions on your Shopify store is to suggest relevant products to customers when they’re already viewing your product pages. Using solutions like a “people also viewed” section on a product page can make a huge difference to your average order value. 

The key to success here, is making sure that the products you recommend make sense based on your customer’s behavior. While you can always just recommend relevant “associated” products, you can unlock greater value by dynamically changing your recommendations based on what customers have already viewed on your website. 

For instance, the Pura Vida website lists both products that customers have recently viewed on their store, as well as products other customers have purchased: 

There are plenty of great product recommendation apps that can help you with this process, such as the Nosto app for Shopify Plus, which also comes with rich reporting features. 

3. Let Customers Customize their Products

No matter which niche you serve with your Shopify store, it’s often difficult to set yourself apart from the competition. Countless companies now sell similar products online, meaning you need to invest heavily in marketing and branding to engage and retain customers. 

However, you can give yourself a unique edge over the competition, by offering something customers can’t get elsewhere – customization. With Print on Demand apps like Printify and Printful, companies can give consumers access to a wide range of ways to customize their products. 

You can allow buyers to choose from different colors and patterns for their products, or even allow them to add their own names and photos into the mix. For instance, on the Kaikini website, customers can build their own ideal swimming suit, by entering their size information, preferences, and choosing a certain pattern or style. 

4. Upgrade your UGC with Smart Reviews

Reviews and testimonials are an excellent source of social proof. They help to validate the value of your products, by sharing insights from real, existing customers. Including any kind of reviews on your Shopify website should help to increase conversions and boost the credibility of your brand.

However, you can also take things to the next level, by using a “smart reviews” app, that tailors the user-generated content a customer sees to their specific interests. For instance, Sephora uses this tactic to allow customers to filter through reviews to show content only from buyers who have similar physical traits or beauty challenges. 

You can use tools like Yotpo social reviews to enhance your reviews with more information about each buyer, and various filtering options. Plus, the solution even integrates with Yotpo’s SMS marketing and loyalty apps, giving you more ways to increase conversions. 

5. Leverage Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) is quickly emerging as a powerful tool for creating unique and personalized shopping experiences. 

The right AR app can allow customers to see what a makeup product will look like on their own face, test out hair colors, or even experiment with what furniture might look like in their own home.  In the past, creating an AR application of your own would have been a time-consuming and expensive process. Now, however, Shopify makes it easy for anyone to get started. 

The Shopify AR solution allows companies to build 3D representations of their products into their website, which customers can view using their smartphone camera. 

This means customers can actually see what a lamp will look like on their side table before buying it, or get a 360-degree look at a new bike. Not only does this boost your chances of conversions, but it can also reduce your risk of returns, helping customers to make more intelligent buying decisions.

6. Retarget Customers In-Session with Behavioral Triggers

Convincing customers to buy something the moment they first arrive on your Shopify website can be difficult. Studies show up to 92% of first-time visitors to a brand’s website don’t buy anything. That’s why retargeting is such a popular tool for business owners. It gives them another chance to make a sale. Unfortunately, off-site retargeting can be expensive and complex. 

Sometimes, you can get the same incredible results, by retargeting customers when they’re already on your website. You can do this by timing or triggering pop-up offers to match the behaviors of your customers. You can trigger pop-ups on your site based on shopping cart value, browsing behavior, number of pages visited, and more. 

For instance, Colourpop uses an exit-trigger pop-up to offer customers a deal when they seem like they’re ready to leave the website. The pop-up is tailored to new customers only, which reduces the number of discounts the company has to offer to earn conversions. 

You can use the same strategy on your store, and even personalize pop-ups even further, by offering customers deals on the products they’ve already viewed on your website. 

7. Personalize Automated Marketing Messages

If a shopper on your website shares their email address or phone number with you, that gives you another way to engage and convert those customers. Creating various automated campaigns for email and SMS can help keep your brand top-of-mind with your consumers, and increase conversions. 

However, even if the messages you send are delivered automatically (when a customer completes a specific action), they should include elements of personalization. Use email marketing tools like Klaviyo and Omnisend to personalize your:

• Abandoned cart messages: Use your abandoned cart messages to remind your customers of what they’ve already viewed and considered buying in your store. Ensure they can rapidly add the product back to their cart if they want to complete the purchase.
• Re-engagement messages: If a customer hasn’t purchased anything from you in a while, send a “we miss you” message highlighting the items they’ve bought in the past. This will remind them of the value they’ve received from your business already. 
• Order confirmation messages: Order confirmation messages are one of the most important transactional messages you can send. Don’t just thank customers for buying something, remind them of what they purchased with a picture and personalized note. 

8. Personalize the Returns Experience

Finally, in an ideal world, customers would never need to return anything to your Shopify store. However, the reality is that returns do happen, no matter how great your products and solutions might be. The best way to ensure a return doesn’t lose you the loyalty of your customers, is to make the experience as smooth and streamlined as possible. 

Apps like the Loop Returns & Exchanges plugin for Shopify can help you automate and enhance the returns process, with workflows and logistics features. Plus, they can help minimize the risk of refunds, by offering customers shop credit and instant exchanges. 

Plus, these apps also gather information about your customers and their returns, so you can learn more about the buyer journey, and reduce the chances of more returns in the future. 

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Personalize the Shopify Shopping Experience

Creating personalized shopping experiences for your customers is one of the best ways to give your business an edge in the ecommerce landscape. A high level of personalization helps you to deliver unique experiences to your customers, that increase the loyalty they feel towards your brand. 

What’s more, adding personalized experiences to your store isn’t as complex as it seems. The Shopify app market is brimming with tools you can use to transform the buyer journey. 

If you need help creating a personalized shopping journey for your customers, implementing the right Shopify apps, or designing a store optimized for conversions, reach out to the Storetasker team today. 

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