Customised web browsing, personal shoppers advices, virtual fitting, big data, AI and chatbots ..., the online sales platforms do not spare their efforts to stick, as close as possible, to the specific needs of the consumer. Alexandra Balikdjian, PhD in Consumer Psychology, specialist in consumer behavior and his environment, analyses with Le Boudoir Numérique this trend of fashion brands to personalize, more and more, the customer's shopping experience online.
By Ludmilla Intravaia
Le Boudoir Numérique : Fashion brands are increasingly developing, online, unique services targeted at consumer expectations, such as personalized boxes, advices from stylists, products customization, etc. Is this personalization a recent phenomenon?
Alexandra Balikdjian, PhD in Consumer Psychology, Professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), at the Faculty of Psychological Sciences and Education : No, this trend aimed at enriching the consumer experience is not new. It already exists in physical stores, where the privileged relationship maintained between the customer and the seller in particular, plays an important role in consumer loyalty. The customer likes to be considered as a unique being. When you shop at a store, the salesperson will recognize you, will talk to you and possibly advise you on new things that may be suitable for you. In short, she will treat you in a personalized way that will encourage your return, thereafter, to the shop. It's the same thing, online, in a more and more digital world, where it is now as easy to buy jeans in Denmark for example, as it is at the corner of the street. Faced with this offer diversification on the internet, no longer linked to proximity, but to the possibility of acquiring products, where I want, all over the world, brands offer other experiences to customers, thanks to these customized new services.
Is this need to be unique shared by all individuals?
We all want to be completely different from others, to be recognized as singular and, at the same time, we want to identify ourselves with a norm, perceived as our ideal of self. In our Western society, this ego ideal is built, in particular, through our consumption. If you're a mom, for example, remember when you went for the first time to buy baby diapers at the supermarket. Perhaps you felt pride while putting this product on the counter of the grocery checkout? And that, because you accessed, by your purchases, to a new social status, by getting closer to a target to which you aspired, that of your mother, that of your girlfriends who already had children, with whom your subjects of conversations would now be about baby brands, means of delivery, tips and tricks, and so on. Thus, our choices are guided by our individual tastes but also by our attraction towards a reference group. And while our consumption certainly meets our basic needs, such as eating, for example, it is also the vector of an important communication load, because it tells a lot about us.
Does this mean that, on the Internet, brands recognize the customer in a unique way, in an environment to which he can identify himself to a norm?
Yes, by personalizing the navigation, for example, the website recognizes me as a singular being, welcoming me, reminding me of the latest products that I consulted, by proposing others that may please me, based on my previous purchases, etc. The website establishes with me a link that will help me in my shopping practice. But besides that, actually, it's a probability algorithm that has designated me as belonging to a certain circle, let's imagine, for instance, a woman in her forties, who wears 42 and who likes such type of blouse, in such three brands. The blouse that will be proposed to her is not really a blouse for her, but rather for a particular typology of consumer. If you're a 40-year-old woman who likes this three brands, then you're supposed to like that fourth brand, even if you do not know it.
If the website only suggests me products that look like those I've already bought, will I not be limited in my ability to discover new things?
No, because the algorithm will suggest things that you like but do not know yet. If 40-year-old women who wear 42 think the mustard color suits them, I'm going to be offered mustard sweaters, even though I've never thought of wearing that color or have never dared. And maybe I'll try a mustard sweater and that will please me. This does not detract from openness to novelty and potential creativity.
Brands use artificial intelligence to seduce customers, by analyzing their characteristics and their browsing behavior or chatbots to simulate dialogues with users on websites. Can we talk about a desire to create an emotional experience for the consumer?
Yes, creating a strong emotional connection with the customer is one of the key elements promoted by brands in their business strategies. In this respect, artificial intelligence and big data offer more and more effective tools to get to know the consumer and to suggest him more and more targeted purchases, which can better enrich his customer experience. For its part, the customer does not think that an algorithm has been put in place to sell him a new pair of shoes. He rather thinks that the brand knows his tastes and therefore, pays attention to him. The brands that are successful today are those that succeed in tranforming the act of buying into a real consumer experience, based among other things on the emotion of personalization.
In such a context, does the consumer not become particularly sensitive to the immediate satisfaction of his specific needs?
It is clear that the client becomes more and more demanding, concerning the satisfaction of his expectations, of what he is looking for. He is in the immediacy. If to consume is to exist, when he has decided to exist, it is immediately, here and now. He is inclined to do research, to inquire online. The consumer has become particularly sharp on the issues of speed delivery and promotions on products, for example. He also tends to grow used to promotional offers and will find normal, today, to benefit from a reduction, even outside the sales period. In the context of globalization where there is always a more interesting offer somewhere, and in front of an increasingly alert consumer, the sales platforms try to meet the demand for immediacy by reducing the delivery time and, more globally, work hard to facilitate shopping, by smoothing out all the complications and difficulties.
How do you forsee the future of online personalization?
Personalization is the future. The development of big data helping, we will make to the customer more and more targeted suggestions. The frontier between the digital and the physical will further diminish, as customers find it quite normal to start shopping online, to continue in the store and to pay directly on a mobile app. All that for an even more personalized, simple, immediate and fluid shopping experience.
* This interview with Alexandra Balikdjian took place while doing research for the article entitled "Shopping perso 3.0", for the Belgian magazine Le Vif Weekend, dated March 21, 2019. Read it here.
Paper “Shopping perso 3.0” in belgian magazine Le Vif Weekend from 21 March 2019