Most visitors that reach your website have only a vague sense of what they want to buy. They might comb for products that catch their fancy and narrow down on products that are amusingly unrelated to what they had in mind when visiting your Shopify store. And some users might be expecting to find the products that they want categorized and streamlined, who want a quick and simple purchase experience.
In all of such instances, product recommendations on your website prove to be a powerful tool to sell better. Your visitors, a.k.a your potential buyers, will be able to explore more products based on their liking.
But merely displaying product recommendations on your website is NOT enough.
Why?
Think of how some buyers would respond well to product recommendations like “New Arrivals”. These customers are eager to try out new trends in the market and are interested in exploring your latest collections.
But some buyers would prefer recommendations based on their tastes and comforts and would not respond well to anything that doesn’t meet their interest areas.
And then there are customers who would like to see what others are buying. They hate gambling and trust in products that are already popular among other customers. They are the ones that are automatically drawn to the “hottest selling products” without a second thought.
This means that different customer segments react differently and hence the way you approach each of them with product recommendations ought to be different too.
This is where A/B testing comes in, a product recommendation app like Wiser is here to make it easy.
What is A/B Testing?
A/B testing, or split testing is a randomized experimentation process where two or more versions of variables, (in this case product recommendations on web page) are shown on different segments of customers/visitors simultaneously to understand which version can have the maximum impact on improving business metrics.
In A/B testing A refers to “control”, that is the original testing variable and B refers to the “variation” or the new version of the original variable.
Of this the variation that positively impacts your business metrics is known as the “winner”. For improved results try implementing the changes from the winning variation on your tested web page. The metrics for conversion on your store will be the sales and your winning variation will be the one that sells better.
A/B testing allows optimizers to make data backed decisions rather than depending on faulty guesswork from web optimization. Also, you will be able to use the data from A/B Testing to receive user insights like customer behaviour, engagement rate, customer satisfaction based on your new web features etc.
Ready to use A/B testing on your Shopify store? Install the WISER app today.
What is A/B Testing of Product Recommendations?
Applying A/B testing for product recommendation just means that you will be showing different types of product recommendation widgets for different visitors and customer segments. Noting how each segment of customers respond differently, you can test out different strategies in recommending products to drive more conversions and sales.
You can recommend products under “New Arrivals” for the 50% of your first time store visitors, while the rest of the first time visitors will be receiving recommendations of “Hottest Selling Products”.
By trying and testing out different product recommendation strategies you will be able to observe what works best in convincing your “uninitiated” first time visitors to buy from you.
To be able to do this though, you need a product recommendation app like WISER on your Shopify store.
A/B Test Your Recommendation Strategy With WISER
WISER comes with 10+ product recommendation types that you can easily set up on your Shopify store. You can set up personalized recommendation widgets and send relevant recommendations based on the customers activity-history of the store. You can learn more about the different types of product recommendations here.
WISER uses its AI powered recommendation engine along with item-item collaborative filtering to create very personalized and relevant product recommendations. The algorithm creates recommendations based on visitor’s purchase history, products that were viewed and not purchased, rated and reviewed products and what other customers bought along with one particular product.
You can use these product recommendation types to upsell and cross-sell across your store as well as your communication channels like email.
What is the impact of using A/B testing on product recommendations for your Shopify store?
Types of product recommendations to A/B test on your Shopify store
Inspired by Browsing Product Recommendations
Obviously what we browse for is what we want to buy and any recommendation related to a customer’s search is a welcome aid in their shopping experience. WISER’s “Inspired by Browsing” product recommendation engine uses the visitor’s behavioural data to learn their interests in products and dynamically presents product recommendations relevant to the visitors browsing session.
WISER’s AI powered engine learns a visitor’s browsing behaviour, offers they browse through, product searches they make, and adapts the product recommendations to the inclinations of the visitor. This type of dynamic and contextualized product recommendations have been proven to be effective by various eCommerce giants, and so will it be for you!
Frequently Bought Together Recommendations
Frequently bought together item recommendation is a tried and tested cross-selling feature that you can use to sell more. Fashion stores and companies like Amazon recommend products complimentary to the purchase one is making. This is especially effective at increasing the average order value by driving visitors to add more products into their cart in a single order.
With WISER you can recommend products that were often bought together by a large number of customers in the past or can recommend products that are compatible or are related to the product that is being purchased.
Why does this work? People are attracted towards following trends and testing this out with WISER will show you the extent of its potential. This strategy works well based on natural customer tendencies related to purchases and is an effective cross-selling opportunity that is backed-up by proven purchase patterns and behaviours.
Cart Page Recommendations
The product recommendations that you display on the store’s shopping cart or cart drawer are what one would call cart page recommendations. The shopping cart comes one step before the buyer actually makes the purchase, so there are higher chances of cart recommendations impacting the final value of the whole purchase. Cart recommendations are proven to actually influence people to add more products into the final decision, thus increasing the overall value of the purchase.
Cart page product recommendations can greatly influence customers while in their ready-to-buy state of mind. Even frequently bought together recommendations can be displayed in the cart drawer for better results. By A/B testing you could narrow down on the product recommendation strategy that will work well for your cart page.
WISER lets you add different cart recommendations in their settings with good customization options and integrations available at your hand.
Popup Recommendations
Not everyone is going to buy something after visiting your store. But that shouldn’t stop you. Recapture the attention of customers that left the site without making a purchase by displaying personalized product recommendations on popups. You can promote your new arrivals, most popular products and much more. Popups are another great product recommendation type as they can increase the visitor’s time spent onsite, increasing chances of them completing purchases. Popups are another essential conversion driver.
WISER lets you display personalized product recommendations on products and recall sales opportunities.
Related Product Recommendations
Once your visitor is in the store your main goal is to make them explore more of your products. Show related product recommendations on other product pages to catch their attention. This can be products from a similar collection, products under a similar brand, products that are related to the one the customer is interested in etc.
Displaying products related to what the customer is already interested in, will make them want to explore more and make a buy based on their interests. This also further lets you display the variety of products your store houses, and so these recommendations become a good way to up-sell and increase the overall purchase value.
Thank You Page Recommendations
Appreciating your customers is a very important part of any business and you should do this with sincere gratitude. And while you do this, add product recommendations in your “Thank you” page so that after a completed purchase there will be a reason for the customer to return back to the site and explore more.
Email Product Recommendations
Emails in marketing have very good open rates and are a very promising area for including product recommendations. Sending personalized email product recommendations can greatly impact your sales in a positive way.
Use dynamic and visually alluring emails with product recommendations that are based on the user’s interests and browsing patterns. You can recommend products on any emails; welcome emails, customer appreciation emails, order confirmation emails, basically most of the emails you are sending your customers can become a potential sales opportunity if you approach it strategically.
Trending Product Recommendations
A large portion of your visitors and your collective user base wants to be up to date on the latest fashion trends and newest fads in the market. Chic new products will always be popular so to appease this significant quota of fashion savvy customers you need to include a Trending Product recommendation widget in your Shopify store website.
Display your most popular products and try to include social proof to back this up. Highlight your bestsellers. Those customers that look for credible products that are trusted by others like them, they will definitely find recommendations like this incredibly helpful.
New Arrivals product suggestions
This recommendation strategy is closely related to the trending product recommendations. For a new product to become popular you need to get it enough exposure and ensure that these products are getting noticed.
For this use WISER’s new product recommendation widgets to maximize the views your newly released products receive. Some segments of customers will be always on the lookout for new products and this will be a welcome “plus” in their shopping experience.
Recently Viewed Products
Often customers explore products and get interested in something but lose track of it as they continue browsing through the store. Recently viewed products widget is a very important aspect for any eCommerce stores as this ensures that customers can always return without any hassle to the product they were interested in.
Using their browsing history to show their recently viewed item, you have a high chance for convincing buyers to bag the purchase.
Should you A/B test product recommendations on your Shopify store?
With A/B testing, you can try different strategies for product recommendations on your website pages. Try mixing and matching variations that can be focused on one strategy or even amalgamations of more than one type of product recommendation types.
In the end what matters is finding what works for you in terms of increasing conversion rates and selling better than the original variable.
WISER also gives you access to analytics so that you can optimize your site based on data about what brings more engagement. Adapt your recommendation strategies around what sells better and find which of the said recommendation types works for different customer segments.
Don’t wait any longer to get the most out of your product recommendations.
PS. If you’re new to product recommendations, you can reach out to our support and success team to help you understand how they work and get started with them on your Shopify store. You can also book a demo with us here.
