Learn why your Shopify store needs to start using AI product recommendations.

When it comes to personalizing a buyer’s journey on your online store, it’s important to ensure you’re able to understand all the nuances that play into a purchase decision. Right from the products they show interest in to items that are related to their choice, their likes, purchase motivations and more, an online shopping journey tailored to an individual is a lot of work. That’s exactly why the default Shopify product recommendations are no longer enough and you need AI powered recommendations.

What are default Shopify product recommendations?

As an ecommerce platform, Shopify equips you with the must-have features of an online store. Product recommendations are a part of the same – this feature lets you add a section to your product pages that display an auto-generated list of products that make it simpler for visitors to discover new products on the store.

Shopify uses an algorithm that identifies recommended products and predicts the most relevant items based on what a visitor is interacting with. Apart from the plan a merchant is on, the following criteria is used by Shopify to display product recommendations:

• Purchase history
• Product description
• Related collections

While each of these criteria help display recommendations on an online store, they are based on the data and information you have added for each product, category and collection, making it a hit and miss incase you haven’t added enough context.

This is where you need to one-up the game with an AI shopping app like WISER to display dynamic, personalized product recommendations.

What are AI product recommendations?

As described by Orbis Research, an AI-based product recommendation engine is a data-filtering tool that makes use of various algorithms powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning to process data in real-time to recommend the most relevant items to a customer.

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Now traditionally, these recommendations are fuelled by engines built to cater to different use cases and audience segments. The oldest in the industry to be using the same being Netflix and Amazon. If statistics and reports are to be believed, these recommendation engines add an average of 33% of revenue to the two companies, making them an integral part of their growth strategies.

The good news is that online retailers no longer need to spend millions of dollars on building or developing recommendation engines any more. With solutions like Wiser for product recommendations, you can set up an AI-driven recommendation engine with a simple plug and play interface on your online store.

Difference between Shopify product recommendations and AI powered recommendations

Now that you know what each is, let’s take a look at the key differences between the two types of product recommendations.

1. Amount of data processed

The number one difference between the two is the amount of data the algorithm processes to be able to display these product recommendations. The Shopify product recommendations primarily takes three parameters into account – purchase history, related collections and product recommendations. On the other hand, Shopify apps like WISER are able to look beyond the basic descriptions of the products, to look into data variants/ points that correlate with one another as well – for example, someone being interested in cotton shirts may actually also be interested in exploring linen shirts from your collection.

2. Real-time data processing

Shopify product recommendations only look at a specific data set, which recommends items based on what a visitor is viewing at that moment. But as the visitor starts to browse through your online store, exploring different pages, collections and products, the recommendations start to see a delay in adapting to their interests. An AI-powered recommendation engine like that of WISER is able to process multiple data points in real-time, showing product recommendations in real-time, dynamically.

3. More recommendation strategies

Since Shopify product recommendations only use a set of data variants to process and understand a consumer’s interest, the widget is limited to being able to display items that are related to or similar to the item being viewed. On the other hand, an app like WISER actually comes with the ability to use different recommendation strategies like – frequently bought together, top-selling, similar products, related products, people also bought and so on – this is because of its ability to process more data in real-time, giving you the ability to implement a higher level of personalization for every consumer.

What type of product recommendations should you use?

In times when personalization is of utmost importance to an online shopper, creating tailored buying journeys and experiences is important to be able to drive higher conversion rates from every visit to the store.

Since every consumer comes from a different demographic, has different interests, preferences and purchase motivations, that may further change as they start to explore what you have to offer, you need to adapt to their needs in as dynamic a manner.

While you may use Shopify product recommendations initially as the feature comes with the platfform, it’s important you start exploring AI product recommendations once your store starts to see a considerable amount of traffic.

Not sure if your recommendations strategy is working or if it is the right time to move to AI powered recommendations?

Book a demo of WISER today.

Alternatively, if you have a recommendation widget on your store but are not seeing too many conversions from the same, install the WISER app to give AI-powered recommendations a shot – get a free trial on the Shopify app.

will show how the default one is not good enough and talk about real-time data + dynamic display of recommendations in this – alongwith Ved’s keywords

Vanhishikha Bhargava