Study: Online Shoppers Seek Personalization

Rochester, N.Y. Online retailers are not making enough of an effort to meet the individual needs of their customers, according to a survey by market research firm Harris Interactive.

While a majority of online shoppers (76%) have received product recommendations when shopping online, over half (62%) said recommendations are rarely personalized to their tastes.

The survey also found that more than half of online shoppers (60%) are likely to shop with a retailer that follows up with specific product recommendations based on their individual interests and past purchases, rather than retailers that send generic one-size-fits-all e-mails.

Customers are also looking for personalization beyond the retailers' Web sites. According to the study, 65% of online shoppers would like to receive targeted information from the retailers including e-mail alerts when new products arrive or go on sale from brands or categories they like, alerts when unavailable items they’re looking for come back into stock and product recommendations that help them find relevant items while they are shopping.