Advancing E-Commerce Personalization: Process Framework and Case Study

Personalization is widely used in e-commerce, and as computational power increases, personalization is now within reach for many online vendors. We describe a process framework to structure our knowledge of online personalization —both from academia and from applied attempts. This framework is expected to aid researchers and practitioners in understanding existing e-commerce personalization efforts and in developing novel personalization approaches. We argue that, from a psychological perspective, the content that is used in the personalization of e-commerce should have a heterogeneous effect that is consistent with customers’ needs. From a technological perspective, the ability to measure the outcomes of personalization attempts, and the speed and scalability of the personalization technology are essential. We detail the framework and present a case study to highlight how new methods of e-commerce personalization can be developed. We also use the framework to suggest a number of novel avenues for e-commerce personalization. KEY WORDS AND PHRASES: E-commerce, e-tail, personalization, e-selling, online marketing, digital service innovation