As you noted, the path to personalization can be daunting for retailers, but as the saying goes: “Every great journey begins with a single step.” (Actually, Eric Clapton just popped up on iTunes, so right now I’m thinking “Every great guitar player had to learn a first chord.”)

Fortunately, even a basic first step toward segmentation, like “new v. returning,” can pay for itself in terms of lift. And we typically find that, once a retailer embarks upon this path and sees the rewards, they are eager to take it to the next level and the next. In fact, although personalization of the online experience is executed by some pretty sophisticated technology, at heart it is driven by retail smarts. In the long run, the retailers who get the most out of personalization technology will be the ones that best understand retailing.

Stephen