Overstock.com Adds Personalization Technology to Website

October 4, 2019  by Laurie Northington in Business Strategy, Industry   

The integration builds on the company’s recent announcement of a fully-dynamic email experience that leveraged its proprietary technology LiveRex and Overstock’s Asset Data Platform (OADP). The initiative aims to deliver a more engaging and relevant experience throughout every touchpoint of a customer’s journey.

“What our team has built here is truly groundbreaking,” said JP Knab, chief marketing officer for Overstock Retail. “Weeks ago, our team introduced a fully-dynamic experience on email that created a 1:1 curated customer experience. Utilizing this same technology, we have now begun to extend our personalization efforts to our retail site, providing each customer with a unique personalized experience.”

Overstock has developed technology like LiveRex and OADP, which is driven on machine learning algorithms to form a platform that enables real-time personalization. By utilizing this technology between channels like email and Overstock’s retail site, the company can create a custom narrative for each customer that guides them to the exact product they are seeking. The technology has extended to two high-traffic locations on Overstock.com and will continue to integrate across the rest of the site until as much of it is as dynamic as is possible.

“This initiative is oriented on improving the discoverability of products that are relevant to each customer’s preferences as well as helping customers navigate to content that eases their purchase decision,” said Ajit Vaidya, product manager, Website Personalization at Overstock.com. “We do this by surfacing product recommendations and building user-centric features that enable a passive, yet engaging customer journey.”

These personalization efforts sprout from Overstock’s focus on building one of the best customer experiences online. In this personalization process, Overstock is able to inform teams on what content customers are engaging with and provide direct feedback to the various marketing and content teams to ensure the most relevant and engaging images and copy are being created.

“Our focus is on our customers and their journey on Overstock.com,” said Cathy Bergstrom, Marketing Group Product Manager at Overstock Retail. “These personalization efforts allow us to be more attentive and responsive to our customers' questions and desires. As they search on Overstock, we want every touchpoint to be relevant and simply lead them to what products they are seeking.”