Tech Crunch talks to RichRelevance CEO David Selinger about the rise of personalization in online retail.
“Personalization was really important in enabling Amazon to differentiate itself and grow in past ten years,” David Selinger, CEO and co-founder of RichRelevance. Selinger also was Amazon’s Manager, Consumer Behavior Research and helped build some of the site’s personalization features a number of years ago. “Personalization will be the differentiating factor in e-commerce and digital commerce going forward, especially for multichannel retailers and new entrants online.”
“Twelve Months of Christmas” showcases what (and how) today’s shoppers expect their favorite brands and retailers to deliver throughout the year and into Holiday 2012
San Francisco, CA – Jan. 26, 2012 –– RichRelevance®, the leading provider of dynamic e-commerce personalization for the world’s largest retailers, today released a new whitepaper entitled 12 Months of Christmas. The report showcases insights and innovative best practices to help retailers put the customer at the center of their marketing strategy, no matter what the touchpoint (online, in-store, mobile, social media and email). Through the new whitepaper, retailers can ensure they have the right tools to cement year-round powerful, personalized and profitable customer engagement.
“We don’t know what shiny object will be the Next Big Thing for retail in 2012, but consumers’ need for respect and engagement with brands and products will never change,” said RichRelevance CEO David Selinger. “Personalization and relevance are evergreen and ensure the customer comes first regardless of touchpoint. We’re very excited to release this new whitepaper to catalyze innovative thinking in retail and further our commitment to enabling a better shopping experience for consumers.”
The new whitepaper from RichRelevance takes the form of a calendar, revealing more than a dozen best practices for retailers to leverage throughout the year, along with research and insights from the company’s network of world-class retailers. Topics range from mobile promotions and shopping cart abandonment and include actionable tactics for Facebook Commerce, juggling channels, and the ever-connected consumer. The whitepaper is immediately available here.
AboutRichRelevance
RichRelevance powers personalized shopping experiences for the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands, including Walmart, Sears, Target and others. Founded and led by the e-commerce expert who helped pioneer personalization at Amazon.com, RichRelevance helps retailers increase sales and customer engagement by recommending the most relevant products to consumers regardless of the channel they are shopping. RichRelevance has delivered more than $3 billion in attributable sales for its retail clients to date, and is accelerating these results with the introduction of a new form of digital advertising called Shopping Media which allows manufacturers to engage shoppers where it matters most – in the digital aisles on the largest retail sites in world. RichRelevance is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, Seattle, Boston and London. For more information, please visit www.richrelevance.com
RichRelevance’s inaugural UK Christmas Shopping Study reveals the e-commerce trends that will shape 2012
Reading, UK – Jan. 23, 2012 – The high street may have taken a hit this Christmas but online shopping was a bright spot for many British retailers, culminating in Boxing Day 2011 being named the UK’s biggest ever online shopping day. In a new study released today, RichRelevance, the leading provider of personalisation to online retailers, reported that mobile was a huge driver of e-commerce shopping in December, with more than a quarter of online shopping sprees taking place on mobile. The report also found that Apple iOS devices shoppers accounted for 79% of mobile purchases in December.
The first UK Christmas Shopping Study from RichRelevance analysed the shopping behaviour of 139 million consumers on many of the UK’s largest retail websites during the month of December 2011. Created to give retailers new insight into how the proliferation of tablet devices and smartphones is impacting the way British consumers shop and buy, key findings from the report include:
•Mobile continues strong growth: More than one in four (27%) of online shopping excursions in the UK occurred on a mobile device during the busy shopping season. In fact, from the beginning of the month (1 December 2011), the mobile share of online shopping sessions grew steadily, rising from 23% at the beginning of the month to 31% by 31 December.
•Mobile percentage of overall sales: Shoppers purchasing from their mobile devices represented just over 8% of total sales.
•Christmas Day and Boxing Day: After enjoying their holiday meal and Boxing Day leftovers, consumers settled in on the sofa to shop online: on Christmas Day, 43% of all shoppers were on a mobile device and on Boxing Day the number declined slightly to 40%.
•iPad and iPhone dominate mobile shopping: Apple mobile devices account for the bulk of all online non-desktop sales: just over 97% of the sales originated from an iPad or an iOS-enabled device in December 2011,
•Mobile shoppers spend more than desktop shoppers: During the month of December, average order value on mobile devices was £111.86, compared with £102.20 on desktops.
“M-commerce has reached a tipping point, with mobile devices accounting for more than a quarter of online shopping and nearly one in 10 pounds this Christmas. That kind of data can’t be ignored by retailers in this rocky economic climate,” said Darren Hitchcock, managing director for UK and European territories, RichRelevance. “I predict in 2012 we’ll see retailers putting more emphasis on providing a better mobile offering and ensuring consumers have a consistent and personalised experience regardless of which channel they choose to shop.”
The UK Christmas Shopping Study analyses the shopping patterns of online consumers in the UK. The study is based on more than 139 million online shopping sessions and 3.7 million orders, which took place between 1 December 2011 and 31 December 2011 on the websites of UK retailers. The analysis was conducted on select large UK retailers who have deployed the {RR} personalisation software suite.
About RichRelevance
RichRelevance powers personalised shopping experiences for the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands, including Walmart, Sears, Target, Marks & Spencer and others. Founded and led by the e-commerce expert who helped pioneer personalisation at Amazon.com, RichRelevance helps retailers increase sales and customer engagement by recommending the most relevant products to consumers regardless of the channel they are shopping. RichRelevance has delivered more than $3 billion in attributable sales for its retail clients to date, and is accelerating these results with the introduction of a new form of digital advertising called Shopping Media which allows manufacturers to engage shoppers where it matters most – in the digital aisles on the largest retail sites in world. RichRelevance is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, Seattle, Boston and London. For more information, please visit www.richrelevance.com
Marks & Spencer Provides Online Shoppers with Relevant, Meaningful Product Recommendations
Reading, UK — January 23, 2012— RichRelevance®, the leading provider of dynamic e-commerce personalisation for the world’s largest retailers, today announced it has it has integrated its personalisation and analytics technology online at MarksandSpencer.com. To create a more customer-centric user experience online, Marks & Spencer is using RichRelevance to deliver personalised product recommendations to shoppers as they browse the site. Recommendations are based on shopping patterns such as best-selling lines or items customers also viewed or bought and adjust in real-time to ensure that each customer is presented with products that are highly relevant and meaningful.
“Our customers are at the heart of every improvement we make. Through the RichRelevance integration, we can more efficiently deliver personalised product recommendations to each customer,” said David Walmsley, MultiChannel Development Director. “The RichRelevance team has domain expertise in personalisation solutions and that gave us confidence in selecting the company as our partner.”
“At a time when consumers have an increasingly broad range of options for where and how they shop, adopting a customer-centric strategy—where retail operations are considered from the customer’s perspective—is the best approach,” said David Selinger, co-founder and CEO of RichRelevance. “Marks & Spencer have recognised that personalisation is paramount to the customer experience and we’re delighted to work with them on this initiative.”
About RichRelevance
RichRelevance powers personalised shopping experiences for the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands, including Wal-Mart, Sears, Overstock.com and others. Founded and led by the e-commerce expert who helped pioneer personalisation at Amazon.com, RichRelevance helps retailers increase sales and effectively monetise site traffic by providing the most relevant products, content and offers to shoppers as they switch between web, store and mobile. RichRelevance has delivered more than £1 billion in attributable sales for its clients to date, and is accelerating these results with the introduction of a new form of personalised advertising called shopping media which allows brands to engage shoppers where it matters most – at the point of purchase on the largest retail sites in world. RichRelevance is located in San Francisco, with offices in Seattle and London. For more information, please visit www.richrelevance.co.uk.
Leaders from academia and industry will review RecLab Prize submissions and select up to ten teams to move on to compete for $1 million cash award
San Francisco, CA – Jan. 11, 2012 –– As Overstock.com and RichRelevance continue to accept entries for the RecLab Prize on Overstock.com, the companies today announced the formation of the Prize’s Peer Review Committee. Leading researchers Eugene Agichtein of Emory University, Oliver Downs of Analytical Insights, Inc., and Alexander Tuzhilin of New York University Stern School of Business will join RichRelevance Chief Scientist Darren Vengroff to review all Prize submissions and select the ten semifinalists who will advance to compete for a cash award of up to $1 million.
The RecLab Prize on Overstock.com, which encourages innovation in retail personalization, will continue to receive submissions at overstockprize.com until March 1, 2012. Current teams represent leading academic institutions around the world, including BYU, Hong Kong University and Warsaw University of Technology, among others.
“Algorithm development is one of the most complex tasks in technology today, and we’ve assembled some of the brightest minds in computer and mathematical science to help us oversee the RecLab Prize on Overstock.com,” said Darren Vengroff, Chief Scientist of RichRelevance. “As we move further along into the competition, the committee will ensure that the best teams or individuals get the recognition they deserve. We’re excited to welcome such notable visionaries into the RecLab Prize and look forward to garnering their expertise.”
The Peer Review Committee for the RecLab Prize on Overstock.com
The Peer Review committee brings deep expertise in mathematics and computer sciences and years of experience at the top of their fields. The committee will review submissions based on novelty of design and expected effectiveness at generating sales lift. It will also ensure that the semifinalists represent a unique, diverse set of approaches to the problem, rather than a large number of subtle variants of a single approach. Members include:
- Eugene Agichtein is an Assistant Professor in the Math and Computer Science department at Emory University, and is on the core faculty of the Biomedical Informatics program. Eugene founded and leads the Emory Intelligent Information Access Laboratory (IR Lab). He is a recipient of the “Best Student Paper” award at the ICDE 2003 conference, and of the “Best Paper” awards at the SIGMOD 2006 and SIGIR 2011 conferences. Eugene received a PhD in Computer Science from Columbia University, and a BS in Engineering from The Cooper Union.
- Oliver Downs is President and Chief Scientist at Analytical Insights, Inc. His extensive background in algorithm design has resulted in 21 U.S. patents pending in the fields of Bayesian prediction, statistical estimation, outlier detection, real-time GPS data processing, and 10 granted patents in the fields of Quantum Optimization Algorithms, Dynamic Time Series Prediction, Location-based Data Probes, Anomaly Detection and Scalable Spatial Search. Previously, Oliver was Chief Scientist at Atigeo where he developed a learning semantic platform for personalization and search. He holds PhD and MA degrees in Applied and Computational Mathematics from Princeton University and BA, MA and MSc degrees in Experimental & Theoretical Physics, from the University of Cambridge, UK.
- Alexander Tuzhilin is a Professor of Information Systems and an NEC Faculty Fellow at the NYU Stern School of Business. His current research interests include data mining, personalization, recommender systems and CRM. He has served on the Editorial Boards of several leading journals in his areas of expertise, and currently serves on the boards of the ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems, the INFORMS Journal on Computing (as an Area Editor) and the Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery Journal. His various academic and industrial activities have been featured in major media publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week and the Financial Times. Alexander received his BS in Mathematics from NYU, his MS in Engineering Economics from Stanford University and his PhD in Computer Science from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU.
- Darren Vengroff is responsible for all of RichRelevance’s analytical and machine learning development—from high-level strategy and analytics, to strategic implementation plans. From startups to industry leaders Amazon.com and Goldman Sachs, Darren has designed and built a variety of world-class, customer-focused, scalable applications. Prior to RichRelevance, Darren was CTO and co-founder of Pelago, Inc. (makers of Whhrl) where he oversaw Pelago’s technology and actively supported product definition, fundraising, and business development. Before Pelago, Darren was a Principal Engineer at Amazon.com and a Vice President at Goldman Sachs. Darren holds an MSc and PhD in Computer Science from Brown University, where he studied I/O-efficient algorithms with Jeff Vitter, and a B.S.E. in Computer Science with Highest Honors from Princeton University.
“The RecLab approach to personalization innovation cleverly addresses the way we commonly need to treat proprietary data industry-wide today and provides a great framework to catalyze this industry through an exciting and practical competition,” said Peer Review Committee Member, Oliver Downs. “I am extremely honored to have been selected as part of this committee and look forward to working with the teams and individual contestants, RichRelevance and Overstock.com in bringing this innovation to the market.”
About the RecLab Prize on Overstock.com
- In May of 2011, RichRelevance and Overstock.com unveiled the RecLab Prize on Overstock.com, a contest that provides a cash reward of up to $1 million to the researcher or research team who can achieve a measurable lift over existing product recommendations on Overstock.com.
- RecLab Prize contestants are granted access to a high-quality and comprehensive synthetic dataset via RichRelevance’s open-source RecLab project, which enables researchers to develop their algorithms against synthetic data and then test against real data.
- Top performing algorithms will be exposed to real data and will run live within the RichRelevance cloud environment (as real product recommendations to Overstock.com’s customers).
- The RecLab Prize rewards the highest performing individual or team based on the results delivered within a defined judging period (up to $1 million for a 10% or greater lift).
- · To ensure that all eligible teams are able to participate, RichRelevance and Overstock.com have extended the contest deadline to March 1, 2012. The contest is still actively accepting registrants and teams and individuals interested in participating should visit: overstockprize.com to register.
Additional Resources
- Additional information on the RecLab Prize on Overstock.com can be found here: overstockprize.com
- Additional information on the RecLab Project can be found here: http://code.richrelevance.com/reclab/
- You can also connect with RichRelevance on Facebook and Twitter for updates and news.
About Overstock.com
Overstock.com, Inc. is a Savings Engine offering brand-name merchandise at discount prices. The company offers its customers an opportunity to shop for bargains conveniently, while offering its suppliers an alternative inventory distribution channel. Overstock.com, headquartered in Salt Lake City, is a publicly traded company listed on the NASDAQ Global Market System and can be found online at http://www.overstock.com and http://www.o.co. Overstock.com regularly posts information about the company and other related matters on its website under the heading “Investor Relations.” Overstock.com® is a registered trademark and Savings Engine™ are trademarks of Overstock.com, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
AboutRichRelevance
RichRelevance powers personalized shopping experiences for the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands, including Walmart, Sears, Target and others. Founded and led by the e-commerce expert who helped pioneer personalization at Amazon.com, RichRelevance helps retailers increase sales and customer engagement by recommending the most relevant products to consumers regardless of the channel they are shopping. RichRelevance has delivered more than $3 billion in attributable sales for its retail clients to date, and is accelerating these results with the introduction of a new form of digital advertising called shopping media which allows manufacturers to engage shoppers where it matters most – in the digital aisles on the largest retail sites in world. RichRelevance is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, Seattle, Boston and London. For more information, please visit www.richrelevance.com
RichRelevance Chief Evangelist Jake Bailey, With the advent of shopping related media in the ad market today, it’s no surprise that many people have a hard time defining the right expectations for performance from their retail publishing partners.
Not long ago, it was unheard of for a brand or agency to be purchasing digital media on a retailer’s website. However, with the amount of cross-channel shopping that consumers are doing, and with the amount of influence that websites have on in-store purchases, it’s no longer something brand advertisers can ignore.
In fact, for many of the world’s largest CPG advertisers, it’s imperative to include retail websites in a standard up-front buy and/or digital media campaign.