When shopping online, you’ll likely encounter suggestions for alternative or complementary items. This is meant to inspire customers to continue shopping and is part of an e-commerce product recommendation strategy. With this, shop owners can potentially increase revenue through bigger shopping carts.
Product recommendations can follow customers throughout their journey in an online shop. This usually includes the homepage, category and product detail pages, and shopping cart. It also extends to e-mail marketing.
In this article, we will show you where product recommendations make sense for e-commerce along with special features to consider. This is relevant for displaying recommendations at the right moments in an online shopping environment.
Ensuring relevant product recommendations for your e-commerce
In e-commerce, product recommendations are displayed through recommendation “reco” engines. As you might imagine, these deliver relevant recommendations tailored to the visitor. While customers are typically suggested products, recommendation engines can also be used for related content.
Recommendations are presented using widgets which provide the framework for relevant product or content suggestions. These can be customized to match the design and branding of your e-commerce platform.
Differentiate between new and existing customers
With the above information, you might be wondering how to effectively use an e-commerce product recommendation widget. You’ll first need to make a distinction between new and existing customers. This is important because you’ll need to tailor your recommendation engine to different audiences, based on shopping behavior.
In this context, it’s useful to know whether a customer has already visited your online shop, clicked through various categories, and completed a purchase. All of this is considered an online shopping history and only applies to existing customers.
Existing customers: online shoppers with history
If your customers have a history with your store, you can use data based on their previous habits or purchases to display suitable recommendations. You’ll want to analyze click and purchase behavior to personalize relevant product suggestions. In doing so, you’ll likely inspire more sales.
New customers: online shoppers without purchase history
While you can’t offer recommendations based on the personal interests of customers new to your shop, you still can make suggestions to inspire their purchase journey. These include using recommendation algorithms like top sellers, sale items, or new products.
Where to position product recommendations on your website?
There are many ways to position product recommendations in an online shop. You can add them to the homepage, product detail page(s), and directly in the shopping cart. It’s important to strategically place these at every step throughout a customer’s journey.
To help you keep track of the various options, we have provided an overview of suitable positions for online shop recommendations:
- Homepage
- Category page(s)
- Product detail
- Zero results page
- Shopping cart
- Wishlist
- Thank you / confirmation page
- Content page
- Personal shopping area
- Newsletter
It should be noted that recommendations should be displayed in accordance with the best user experience for each page. To illustrate this better, we will discuss a few pages in detail below. Below we’ll show you what to look for on each page regarding optimal recommendation placement.
1. A dynamic homepage
As mentioned above, you’ll need to build different shopping environments for existing and new customers. If executed properly, this will change the look and feel of your homepage. Just like in a brick-and-mortar store where a salesperson knows the behaviors of regular customers, you can show users their preferences are understood.
For example, an online shop for pet products should know who is purchasing for cats vs dogs. If a cat owner is recommended dog food, they will find the shopping experience counterintuitive. The right products should be presented the moment a customer lands on your homepage, and can be as detailed or broad as needed.
However, as previously explained, if a new customer lands on your homepage, past purchasing data won’t be available. In this scenario, it’s advised to showcase top sellers, sale items, or new products.
2. Category pages
On product category pages, you can use personalized recommendations by analyzing online shoppers’ browsing and purchasing behavior. This approach will allow you to highlight products that are relevant to their habits and align with their interests.
Pro tip: Read more about product category marketing in our new guide!
3. Product detail page recommendations
The product detail page contains more specific information than a homepage. Since a customer is looking at one item, this allows for highly relevant product suggestions. With a product detail page, two types of recommendations make the most sense. These are similar and complementary items.
- Similar products
An online shopper navigates to the product detail page because they find a particular item interesting. If they like the selected item, but are still unsure, similar products can help them make a decision. This is where the customer can become aware of products that may better meet expectations. It helps them feel informed about their purchase, leading to a sale.
- Cross-selling complementary items
Complementary items are relevant for the product detail page. If the customer is convinced they need the selected product, it’s worth showing them matching items. With this, you can draw their attention to other products that may interest the customer. It might inspire them to continue shopping.
When doing this, you’ll want to take the customer’s preferences into account. These include sizing, brands, preferred materials, and dietary needs. The latter is particularly valuable if a customer doesn’t purchase items containing allergens or is vegetarian/vegan. Of course, with new customers, this isn’t possible.
It is also important to account for inventory. You don’t want to recommend products that aren’t in stock, as that creates a frustrating experience. The goal is to enable your customers to make additional purchases.
- Create complete looks with product sets
On the product detail page, showcasing a complete product set is popular. These are recommendations that present customers with an entire look based on one product. The idea is that they can easily add complementary items with minimal effort.
For example, customers can create a stylish outfit, or purchase necessary camping gear in an instant. If you’re selling cameras and photographic equipment, you can offer a set with matching lenses, memory cards, batteries, and a carrying bag. With this, you can allow customers to save or purchase these items at once.
4. Showing alternatives on a zero results page
Sometimes users will search for items that you don’t offer in your shop. This will usually display a page showing “zero results.” To prevent customers from clicking off your site, you have the option of using a product recommendation widget on your page. You don’t want visitors to feel discouraged.
Recommendations on the zero results page can be alternatives from your product range. For example, if a user is searching for a particular brand that you don’t offer, you can recommend similar brands or styles. This will inspire your customers to explore these items and potentially discover new products.
5. Recommendations on the shopping cart page
Even though a user is confirming their shopping cart, it’s not too late to recommend other items. You can still increase sales at this stage of the process.
- Add to cart recommendations
As customers click “add to cart,” you can provide quick personalized recommendations with a cart layer widget. This will pop up and show other products of interest.
- Recommendations on the shopping cart page
The shopping cart page itself can display product recommendations. With this, it’s recommended that you don’t show similar products here as that can confuse the customer. Personalized complementary items make the most sense at this stage.
Additional products that complete the original product or relevant low-cost items are suggested for maximum sales potential. You can set up a checkout zone in your shopping cart that encourages customers to purchase small, cheap items. Think of how a supermarket places snacks near a checkout line.
When recommending items, you have different options for what information to collect from the shopping cart. You can either take the entire order into consideration or you can suggest items based on the last product added. The right approach will depend on your particular shop and strategy.
6. Wishlist
What better place to recommend more products than in your shoppers’ wishlist? This page is already a place where buyers keep up with their future purchasing desires. Product recommendations on this page can encourage a higher order value in the future.
7. Thank you page: more than just an order confirmation
A thank you page is a great place for product recommendations. It doesn’t have to just contain information about the order, it can also encourage future purchases. With relevant recommendations, you can lead customers back to a product detail page. This keeps them engaged in your shop for a longer time.
8. Content page: Recommendations based on topics
By now, it’s clear to see how relevance is key when discussing product recommendations for your e-commerce. With certain campaigns, you may want to execute this manually with marketing and thematic landing pages. Combining content and topic-related recommendations, you can use digital storytelling to emotionally engage online shoppers.
The goal is to create a digital story on a topic and tie it to relevant products. For example, you can do this with inspiration for skiing or surfing vacations. The combination of content and products is a popular approach to e-commerce product recommendation strategy. It moves away from the purely functional aspect of sales, creating a much more personalized experience.
Below you can see what a content page in an online shop looks like. In this example, the topic is a surf trip. In addition to information and a story about the perfect vacation, the page offers thematically appropriate product recommendations for inspiration.
9. Personalized shopping: relevant recommendations and more
If you want to offer users the best experience, you can create a personalized shopping area in your online shop. This is a section that is dynamically, intelligently, and fully customized for each customer. It offers a central location in the shop of the customer’s favorite brands, categories, and items.
This personalized area allows users to browse their own product and brand world. Online shoppers can also receive relevant content suggestions, such as blog articles, and receive shopping news in real-time.
Relevant product recommendations also play a role here. For example, recommendations can be integrated in the form of product sets. Additionally, users can easily access desired information via clickable, interactive elements.
With personalized shopping, the site learns sizing and preferences to display available and on sale items. There is also the potential for embedding interactive content for a unique e-commerce environment.
As you can see, a personalized shopping area offers a particularly high level of inspiration and goes beyond product recommendation widgets.
10. Newsletter: recommendations in real time
To keep your customers fully engaged, you’ll want to provide recommendations through email newsletters. Like everything else discussed, it’s important these are personalized to the customer. You’ll want to account for consumer preferences.
Since emails are read at various times, you want to make sure the recommendations are relevant to when the newsletter is opened. This ensures that all information (including inventory) is up to date. There are also various ways of showcasing recommendations.
- Complementary items
With order confirmation emails you can suggest complementary items. This is a similar strategy to what was discussed on the thank you page.
- Alternative products
If you want to remind inactive customers of products abandoned in their shopping cart, you can suggest both similar and alternative items.
- Topic-related recommendations
Newsletters can focus on a specific topic and showcase thematically related items. With this, you can send topic-specific emails to ensure customers receive highly relevant recommendations.
Why recommendation visibility matters
Proper positioning is essential for product recommendations to perform optimally. As an example, it is important to not add suggestions “below the fold.” You don’t want customers to have to search for recommended items. There’s data to suggest that only 20% of content “below the fold” is seen by viewers.
This means that even if the right products are recommended, 80% of consumers would miss them if improperly placed. As you can see, this creates a drop-off in potential sales. It also means, since there was no engagement, less data is collected to inform better recommendations in the future. This insight is crucial for optimization.
If your recommendation engine is well set up, but recommendations aren’t seen then you’re missing valuable sales potential. Due to this, recommendation positioning on all pages of your website is important. This is particularly true for product descriptions where there’s a high chance of interaction.
Optimal e-commerce product recommendation placement for maximum potential
As you can see in this article, an effective e-commerce product recommendation strategy is a win-win. Your users become inspired while shopping and discover new products. As a shop owner, you can increase engagement and sales.
To fully benefit from the potential of a recommendation engine in your online shop, you should place product suggestions on the various stages mentioned. With the right data, you can anticipate the needs of your customers.
Also, make sure online shoppers actually see your recommendations and remain informed after they leave your site. It’s important to send personalized emails that contain real-time data.
This article shows the potential and power of useful product recommendations. Now it’s your turn to implement the best strategy on your site.
