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Let’s dive deep into the topic: What is product customization definition? Especially, what does it mean in the world of e-commerce? Product personalization in e-commerce refers to allowing customers to create their dream products by customizing existing ones. This includes choosing colors, adding photos or text, and much more.
Imagine customers crafting their ideal products – that’s the essence of online shopping personalization. How does it work? The merchant, by implementing specialized e-commerce product customization software, enables customers to personalize products online, selecting from various options like materials and colors.
But why is product customization trending? Because customers increasingly seek personalized experiences. What’s better than letting them create exactly what they’re looking for? They can modify products to suit their needs.
Mass customization varies across industries. In Food & Beverage, it might mean adding toppings or flavors. In jewelry, it could involve special engravings on metal and wood accessories. The possibilities are endless, offering customers freedom for self-expression.
And, as you can imagine, offering online product customization has numerous benefits for the merchant: from boosting sales by providing exactly what customers need, to enhancing Customer Experience, making it more engaging and innovative.
Staying on top of industry trends is crucial for gaining a competitive edge and potentially becoming a trendsetter. Speaking of trends, it’s easy to understand that today product personalization is a trend. Let’s discover why with some data:
Understanding that customization is key to outperforming competitors is one thing, effectively implementing it is another.
The range of customized marketing strategies is vast. A smart move is to observe industry leaders and analyze their approaches. Market research is invaluable in pinpointing the most suitable product customization strategy for your e-commerce business.
Now, let’s explore the most common e-commerce personalization examples and identify which products consumers are most eager to personalize in today’s market.
Customized goods are all the rage, and certain items are leading the pack. Let’s explore what are the best customizable products to sell this year and what’s catching consumers’ attention:
Custom packaging, cards, and boxes are some of the most widespread customizable products. They’re a hit in the B2B world, where companies use them to create unique gadgets and merchandising for employees and customers, using customization in marketing to boost performance.
The food and beverage industry is seeing a surge in personalized wine labels, bottles, and can labels. This trend allows brands to stand out, creating a premium and unique image for their products.
Customization is big in fashion too. From printed t-shirts to made-to-order luxury bags and shoes where customers pick materials and finishes. In the world of luxury, customization is synonymous with quality, and consumers adore products tailored to their tastes.
Imagine offering customers the chance to design a unique piece of furniture, like a sofa, table, or armchair. This approach adds a novel dimension to big-ticket items like furniture, enhancing the appeal of stylish home decor.
Custom bracelets, rings, and even sunglasses are highly popular. They make for wonderful gifts, like an engraved necklace or bracelet, offering a personal touch for special occasions.
The gift market thrives on customization. Personalized gifts like custom mugs, canvases, pens, or phone cases are more popular than ever. Personalization is now a key element in gift-giving, presenting a great opportunity for businesses in this sector.
You often hear about product customization and product configuration, but what’s the difference? What changes between “customizing” and “configuring” products?
While these terms are generally used interchangeably, there is a subtle distinction to be made when thinking about actual products, such as a Product Customizer vs. a Product Configurator:
A Visual Product Customizer allows for visual personalization of a product. This includes choosing colors, adding text, selecting designs, and incorporating photos.
A Product Configurator, on the other hand, typically goes further by enabling the selection of materials, finishings, details, and components of the product, offering a more comprehensive 360-degree customization.
The choice between these two solutions inevitably depends on the type of business. It’s the product and your specific needs that will guide you in selecting the most suitable solution for your store.
We’ve closely examined product customization in e-commerce, but what real benefits does it offer? Why is implementing e-commerce personalization essential now?
There are many benefits of personalization in e-commerce. Selling customized products for businesses is a great way to garner the attention of those who are seeking to fulfill their self-expression needs and want to personalize the products that they buy.
Let’s go over the advantages of implementing a product customizer software:
Whether you want to boost your sales directly or make your average order value more impressive, one of the top benefits of product personalization in e-commerce is increased sales. You might be wondering, how can customization aid in improving customer value, so much so that you will see increased sales that are worth the effort and resources put into offering customization?
Being able to offer customization options to your products, such as letting customers choose what color a cap is or what to engrave on their ring, can boost your sales so much that they double.
Like we previous said, studies have shown that a majority of customers are willing to pay more for a customized product, so having that option is very likely to make paying customers pay more when they check out.
Customers love to design their products. They’re looking at experiences like this one. If you can help them add what their heart desires to what they purchase, it can help them enjoy the product more. They can obtain what they’re looking for, participating in product design and creation, feeling more near the products and being closer to the products themselves.
If you’re wondering how to increase your e-commerce conversion rate, product customization is the key! Another of the product customization benefits is the potential for significantly increased conversion rates. Imagine customers playing on your website, creating their dream products in real-time, isn’t that the ultimate Shopping Experience?
Your customers can create their dream products in real-time on your website. Ok, this is a premium experience, and it helps your brand emerge from competitors making your mark and creating custom brand products, making your products unique.
Studies have already shown that: customers are willing to pay more for customizable products. The customization experience can encourage customers to spend more giving them a reason to buy your products, even if they have a higher price. They’re created by them, with all the features they desire. Why not spend more for a product like this?
You might be wondering now, are there disadvantages in offering product customization? Surely there must be some cons to balance out the pros. Here are a few disadvantages you might encounter:
In general, disadvantages of customizing products exist if the way you offer them could be better.
If you offer online product customization for businesses, you might be imposing a new kind of expectation on your own business. Customers might begin expecting more from you, or they might expect the customized products to be exactly what they imagine them to be in their minds. This may lead to their expectations being incongruent with the actual product results, which can be problematic.
Still, for considerable e-commerce, the advantages of customization outweigh the potential negatives. With all these benefits of customization in mind, you might want to consider offering product customization in e-commerce. This means that when your site sells products, customers can choose certain options that enable them to customize their purchases.
Imagine saying to your customers “You can create your own products in real-time”, isn’t that what they’re looking for?
If you have never done any product customization before, it is probably confusing to think about the product customization websites and options you might have. Worried about external technical intervention? Don’t be.
The truth is that getting started with e-commerce product customization isn’t all that hard or complicated – all you need to do is have the right e-commerce product customizer software that simply integrates with your platform and with your workflows. Whether it’s a custom product builder, 3D product configurator or another product customization app, integration is pivotal.
Choosing the right software is crucial to the success of e-commerce product customization. The market offers a variety of software options, each with its characteristics. A key aspect to consider when choosing software for your shop is the ease of integration and configuration.
Now that you know all about the benefits of product customization software, it’s time to consider how to choose the optimal one for your business.
As we said, the market is full of software and tools offering customization. Here are some factors to look at during the choice:
The more of these features your product customization software has, the more flexibility it will likely offer, and the more you can improve your store performance.
At the end of the day, you want a product customizer that can make your e-commerce see more success. Zakeke’s Visual Product Customizer is the right choice for any e-commerce business that wants to use the best and easiest customization platform on the market.
Why Zakeke?
In addition to those, Zakeke also clarifies the product customization process for you by providing you with a knowledge base. This knowledge base includes useful in-depth technical guides to solve any technical issues you might encounter. If you find a problem you can’t resolve by yourself, you can also swiftly contact customer support. Zakeke’s support and customer care team is responsive, fast, and present.
The right software for your business: on one hand, it enhances customer experiences; on the other, it helps you streamline internal workflows. What more could you want?
The best part? You can try Zakeke for FREE now for 14 days or book a quick demo to learn more with the guidance of one of our experts. What are you waiting for? Take your store to new heights in less than 10 minutes – Install Zakeke today!
The opportunity to offer custom products is not the only element of a solid personalized shopping experience in e-commerce. Personalization includes personalizing every touchpoint the customer has with your organization.
Here are 3 other general ways to personalize your customer’s experience:
Personalized promotions are a program where you provide recommendations and special offers based on the data you’ve collected about the customer’s past purchases and preferences. Ideally, these offers will not be targeted broadly but to each customer specifically. Research has shown that effective online personalization can result in boosts to your conversion rates and sales.
This kind of feature can help ensure the customer has purchased everything they need for their activity or goal. One such example is interactive quizzes. Several online brands have started offering quizzes like this so that they can then offer personalized recommendations of products that are ideal for their specific situation.
It could be based on the preferences your customers have shown by their interactions with products on your website. These are all great ways to provide a more personalized shopping experience, along with giving your customers the option to customize their own products.
In general, the best way to offer e-commerce personalization is implementing product customization. There’s nothing more tailored than allowing customers to design their own products!