There is not much excuse for a “personalization gap,” as Segment and other companies have called it, to still exist. Retail has been radically disrupted by Amazon, a company that has used personalized product recommendations and other forms of personalization to build its empire, and as stores fight for their survival, it should be a no-brainer to do something in this vein.
As the Segment survey noted, there is a big payoff for retailers that manage to keep pace with shoppers’ expectations for personalization. Not only will they become repeat buyers, but 49% of those surveyed said they have purchased a product they did not intend to buy after receiving a personalized recommendation from a brand.