In the ever-evolving landscape of retail, personalization continues to play a pivotal role in customer satisfaction, brand loyalty and commercial success. Shoppers in the digital age want personalized products and recommendations and to be taken on a shopping journey that considers their preferences and buying habits. Retailers and e-commerce companies, then, are tasked with identifying new ways to provide these experiences at scale, giving buyers not only the goods they want but the sense that their purchasing pathways are tailor-made.
Emerging technologies are increasingly the means to achieve this. 3D mapping, virtual twins, AI and round-the-clock data analytics give companies the tools they need to design high-quality personalized shopping experiences.
What are personalized shopping experiences?
In retail, there are two ways of providing personalized shopping experiences. One is product-led, allowing customers to personalize products within some pre-defined parameters. In e-commerce, that means allowing for custom alterations or product specifications via tailored color schemes, sizes and add-ons from a list of options.
The other personalization process is experience-led. Choosing this route means creating personalized shopping experiences for customers by using an amalgamation of their data. In this case, shoppers aren’t themselves choosing specific parameters for personalization; their actions and interactions are being tracked so companies can create personalized journeys or recommendations for them.
While some shoppers might be wary of this, it turns out, most customers actually prefer this method of hyper-personalization. A 2020 Dassault Systèmes -CITE research study found “younger consumers are leading the push for personalization that improves products and services, quality of life and personal safety, and are more willing to pay and share their data to get it.” By mapping customer journeys, companies can provide data-driven, personalized interactions. And businesses are quickly catching on: one start-up raised $25 million in 2023 for creating a solution that leverages artificial intelligence to provide the most personalized shopping experiences out there. Keying in analytics about customers’ shopping behavior, habits and preferences works twofold: the data companies glean from this gives customers an even better experience and ensures they’re getting the items they’re after.
Leveraging technology to achieve personalization in retail
In the summer of 2024, Dassault Systèmes announced its partnership with athletic wear and shoe brand ASICS. The Japanese retailer identified the need for a technological solution to create a tool for customization. By leveraging CATIA, a computer-aided design solution, they were able to construct a machine that does exactly that. Their latest offering isn’t a sneaker or a technical top but a scanner that creates personalized inserts for their shoes. Inserts provide support to those of us lacking perfect body mechanics, adding artificial arches or necessary cushioning to make walking, running and other athletic pursuits that much more comfortable.
Where products meet personalized customer experiences
Simply making a scanner wasn’t the end goal of ASICS’ plan, though. Their effort and innovation highlight the nexus of providing both a personalized product and a hyper-personalized customer experience. At most running stores, customers are given some level of personal attention: employees can observe their gait and suggest specific shoe models that would support a runner’s own body mechanics. But those shoes are still, more or less, one size fits all.
Noticing this need led ASICS not only to develop their foot scanner but also to construct a temporary shop, the ASICS Personalization Studio, on Dassault Systèmes’ Velizy campus. There, customers receive the ultimate personalized customer experience. The scanner, which ASICS plans to roll out in its stores worldwide, will be a hallmark of personalization at scale.
The ASICS collaboration comes just a few years after Dassault Systèmes launched a “technological sensory experience” with footwear retailer Ecco. That venture similarly combined the possibility of purchasing technologically personalized footwear. Ecco’s Quant-U program uses wearable sensors, the data from which is then used to make a virtual twin of the customer’s foot and then to create a shoe. Both ventures are emblematic of how retailers can offer seamless, personalized shopping experiences and products.
Personalized in-store vs. Digital experiences
Walking into a brick-and-mortar store is one way to ensure you’re getting a personalized shopping experience. Sometimes, you need that same experience elsewhere, like when you’re furnishing a home. Even when measuring spaces and pieces of furniture, it’s often tricky to tell how a sofa or table will truly fit into a home. HomeByMe’s 3D interior design tool offers a fix for exactly this issue while also giving shoppers a unique buying experience.
With HomeByMe, retail enters the virtual world to deliver the future of personalization. Customers can upload renderings of their homes and see in a virtual setting how more than 30,000 products from major retailers would look in their space. Doing so removes the burden of guesswork or, worse, trying to offload a brand-new piece of furniture that should have fit but, in the end, didn’t quite work. The service is emblematic of the way in which both consumers and companies are embracing technology to make shopping better and more satisfactory.
How can companies create a personalized shopping experience for the future?
Over the last several years, major players in the retail industry have experimented with methods to make purchasing products more exciting. Amazon Go’s use of touch-free shopping at their convenience stores or their Amazon One palm payment system at Whole Foods stores are indicators of this. Similarly, the voice purchasing feature on Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant devices solidify a trend of new ways to shop. But those methods haven’t quite hit the mark, and their lack of focus on personalization might be part of the reason why.
To remain competitive in the future, retailers will need to explore technological integrations for the most exciting personalized shopping experience. Using AI, virtual twins and data analytics, they can create products and purchasing experiences that meet the needs of today’s shoppers. AI can be effectively used to design curated recommendations or provide tailored marketing or content messaging for consumers. Data analytics provide valuable information on shopping behavior and make predictions for future purchasing journeys. Virtual twins can easily map those potential journeys and identify methods and means to ensure the back end of a retail operation is efficiently working to be able to provide customers with the experiences and products they expect.
Solutions like ASICS’ foot scanner, which provides personalized products and personal interaction, will also have a positive impact on the retail and e-commerce industries. Taking this kind of approach signals how companies can meet users where they are, bringing experiences to buyers instead of the other way around. It’s an opportunity for significant creativity, and the tools to pull it off are abundant.
Shoshana is a Senior Communications Manager on the Corporate Publishing team here at Dassault Systèmes. With experience in journalism, marketing, and PR, her work has been published around the world and across the internet.