Why chainsaws aren't books: product recommendations in eCommerce
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Transcript of Why chainsaws aren't books: product recommendations in eCommerce
@lizrice#DS15
Hello! This is a talk I gave
at Digital Shoreditch
2015. Let me share just a
few things I’ve learnt
about recommendations
and personalization
@betterrecs
Chainsaws are not books
flickr: pasukaru76
… but apparently there are
folks in ecommerce &
advertising who don’t know
that!
This is my friend Piers. He
bought a chainsaw online…
flickr: kalexanderson
The thing is, he only wanted
one chainsaw.
He wasn’t building a
chainsaw collection! He just
wanted to cut up some wood
with the chainsaw he had
bought.
Books are different. You are
quite likely to buy more than
one of them.
You might well buy several
similar books.
Dorling Kindersley
flickr: michaelpardo
Recommendation engines
often use an algorithm that
finds people who interact with
items in a similar way.
Doesn’t really matter what
the products are - it’s the
user behavior that counts.
flickr: epriyanto
Other algorithms use product
features to make
recommendations.
Or you might combine
behavior and features,
maybe other factors too like
quality or time of day.
eurobricks: scorpio
If you’re selling a chainsaw, it
makes sense to help the user
find alternatives. Once they
put it in the cart or buy the
item, they want to see
complementary items not
alternatives.
When Piers bought that
chainsaw, he got tagged with a
browser cookie as someone
interested in chainsaws. That
cookie didn’t get cleared when
he made his purchase, and
doesn’t say he’s someone who
now owns a chainsaw
stickeryou.com
lego.com
Product recommendations can lift
store revenue by as much as 30%according to Forrester
Just make sure you’re using the
right kinds of recommendation in
the right places on your store