Amazon is so popular that over half of consumers bypass search engines and other retailers and head straight to Amazon’s website to search for products.

One of the keys to its success is the unique customer experience Amazon offers. Central to this is the fact Amazon allows customers to find what they want in an instant with personalised recommendations and search results presented to them in one place.

In this blog post, we take a look the strategies Amazon uses to maintain its position as the world’s number one choice for online shopping. Read on so that you can emulate its approach and improve your own results.

Curating content

Amazon’s recommended products are a great example of how it curates web content around each customer’s personal interests.

And it’s effective—an estimated 35 percent of sales are said to come from Amazon’s personal recommendations proving that personalisation really does work.

Amazon Personalised Results

Data not chance

When Amazon recommends products it’s no coincidence that you like them. Its recommendations are borne out of gathering lots of data about a customer’s behaviour.

The behaviour Amazon collects data on includes what a customer has previously purchased, what they’ve put in their cart, items they’ve rated, and what similar people have viewed and purchased.

Amazon feeds this information into an algorithm to return a heavily personalised browsing experience that prompts the customer’s next move.

Amazon Customers Also Bought

Delivering useful, timely, and relevant emails

Amazon might not send the prettiest emails but they’re packed with content and sent at a time that’s relevant to the customer.

By automating its emails Amazon makes managing a personalised one-to-one dialogue a doddle. It uses behavioural targeting to automatically manage and deliver content that’s unique to each recipient.

Amazon Email

Making it harder to shop anywhere else

Amazon prides itself in giving the customer what they want as quickly as possible.

The mobile site, app, 1-click checkout, predictive search engine, and fast delivery are all designed to make it easier, faster, and more convenient to shop with Amazon rather than its competitors.   

Amazon One Click

Providing trust and flexibility

It’s not just speed that makes Amazon’s customer experience superior—it’s also the flexibility it offers.

You can both buy and return your goods with a click of a button giving the consumer confidence in a sale that’s easy to cancel or return. This encourages more people to buy on a whim with the confidence that they can change their mind later.

Amazon Return or Replace

Caring about your experience

Once you’ve made a purchase Amazon will always ask you for feedback—not only about the product but about its service.

It might be an automated email but it goes a long way to showing customers that the company cares. It also allows the company to pick up issues that it can address to improve the customer experience of Amazon in the future.

Read more: Learn the top customer experience trends to watch in 2018.

Reviews are then shown alongside the product listings to help future buyers confidently make an informed choice.

Amazon Review

Trying, testing, and sometimes failing

Like all pioneers Amazon isn’t afraid to go out on a limb. In constantly trying to enhance the customer’s experience, Amazon inevitably produces a few flops along the way.

The Fire Phone, Amazon Auctions, and WebPay are all examples of innovations that didn’t quite hit the mark. But, it’s only by experimenting that Amazon uncovered the hyper-successful Kindle, Amazon Prime, and Echo.

Amazon Locker

 

Takeaway

Each of these strategies helps Amazon to provide an outstanding customer experience that differentiates it from its competitors.

That said, these strategies aren’t beyond the reach of other businesses. With the right behavioural marketing and personalisation technology in place, eCommerce brands can emulate Amazon’s approach to customer experience—and reap the rewards in increased revenue.

Personalise your customer experience