Monetate, Bazaarvoice aim to turn holiday shoppers into year-round customers

Dive Brief:

Personalization platform Monetate and consumer-generated content firm Bazaarvoice are partnering to increase personalization during this holiday season and those in the future, the two companies announced in a press release.
Monetate will use Bazaarvoice’s shopper profiles to help brands create product recommendations aimed to turn first-time holiday shoppers into loyal customers after the holidays are over, according to the release.
The companies aim to use shoppers' experiences and online behavior beyond one-time gift-buying to boost post-holiday consumer engagement strategies that improve brand loyalty.

Dive Insight:

January sales tend to tumble after the big holiday push, although last year they were relatively strong. But the effort from Monetate and Bazaarvoice aims to go beyond January to use the connections that retailers and brands make during the busy season to forge stronger loyalty throughout the year.

The pressure is on especially for online sales this year, with consumers increasingly frustrated by online shopping, according to research from e-commerce solutions company Pitney Bowes emailed to Retail Dive. A majority (61%) of global holidays shoppers last year "felt let down by their online shopping experience during the last holiday season." That figure is up from 47% in 2017, and 41% in 2016, according to the report.

In the U.S. the rate of dissatisfaction is accelerating, with 56% feeling frustrated (up from just 36% a year ago) because of post-purchase experiences. That means items arriving late, expensive shipping, tracking inaccuracies, confusing returns policies, and lost or incorrect items.

Dissatisfaction can carry on well past the holidays, according to Pitney Bowes. Most (90%) of U.S. online shoppers will react poorly to a bad post-purchase experience, including "sharing their frustrations on social media to never purchasing from the offending site again," Pitney Bowes found. "Among millennials, 30% will go public about their poor experience, complaining in an online review or social media post, potentially affecting the buying decisions of their entire social networks," according to the report.

But positive interactions can also reverberate past the holidays, too, and good data can help brands and retailers further that. Product recommendations are key and can be difficult — even for Amazon, which often recommends items that a customer has already purchased.