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Become a Facebook FanA Recommendation Engine for Your Next eCommerce Project
October 17, 2009 by John Cottone
Filed under Freelance Advice, Web Dev and Programming
Internet giant Amazon.com popularized the product recommendation engine more than a decade ago, by creating a system that suggests items to customers based on what they, and others like them, had previously purchased or viewed. That deep level of personalization is a major factor in the company’s success today.
In 2009, Netflix awarded a $1 million USD contest prize to researchers who could significantly improve their proprietary recommendation engine. In theory, the more Netflix DVDs that customers add to their watch list, the longer that subscriber will remain with the service, since new movies will just keep coming. The prize may seem hefty, but Netflix was so impressed with the results that they granted the prize and immediately announce that there would be a sequel to the recommendation competition.
So how can a freelance web developer implement an enterprise-quality recommendation engine for your smaller e-retail clients? You may think that you’d have a tough time competing with Amazon or Netflix on functionality. However, low-priced service providers are now focused on enabling that process of discovery for small-site shoppers. These engines have low monthly costs, can be easily implemented in an afternoon, and work on the idea that you need to incorporate behavioral targeting in addition to monitoring a customer’s previous purchases.
Strands Recommender provides one of the low-cost recommendation engine options. Their engine suggests products of interest based on a specific customer’s purchases, visits, searches, wish lists, and other behavior. The system is quite flexible as well, with back-end capability to configure your recommendation display widgets. The retailer can also create rules and product filters for each widget, where results can be previewed prior to being applied to the site.
Click for more detailed information on Strands’ eCommerce solutions. They can help make your eCommerce clients successful, and strengthen your site proposals by creating additional ROI.
