Posted 26.02.2025
How often do you leave an item in your online basket without buying, only to see a reminder from that website in your inbox the next day? That follow-up email is a form of ecommerce personalisation – a vital digital marketing technique that drives customers to purchase.
Research from McKinsey suggests that businesses that embrace personalisation could enjoy around 40% more revenue than those that don’t. Yet not all healthcare ecommerce businesses build it into their marketing strategy.
It’s hard to say if this is because the impact of personalisation is underestimated or misunderstood. Or if healthcare ecommerce businesses just don’t even know what it is. Whatever the reason, it’s a massively missed opportunity so we’ve put together this guide to making the most of it for your business.
In this post, we’ll cover exactly what ecommerce personalisation is, discuss the benefits it brings and explain some of the ways you can use it in your healthcare business. Read on to find out everything you need to know to make the most of personalisation.
Ecommerce personalisation tailors your online shopping experience to your needs (the product you were looking for) and your behaviours (navigating and leaving a website).
It uses first-party data about your customers to predict their needs and deliver a shopping experience that meets them. It can draw on browsing behaviours, previous purchases, geographic location or other personal data to help achieve this aim.
Ecommerce businesses in all sectors use personalisation, not just healthcare. But it is one sector where feeling understood and having your needs pre-empted can really drive conversions.
We already covered one example of personalisation – the ‘reminder email’ you receive when you leave an item in your basket. Technically known as a ‘cart abandonment email’ this is only one (very common) form of ecommerce personalisation.
Another example is continuous shopping recommendations. With this method, your site remembers customer’s selected filters, preferences and items from their previous sessions so that when they return they can pick up exactly where they left off. This makes the path to conversion as straightforward as possible, which is a great way to increase the odds of it happening.
Product recommendations are another example of personalisation – but you don’t have to limit yourself to showing customers products they already viewed. Products with similar features or functions are also likely to be relevant, as are ‘people also viewed’ products.
These days customers don’t just want personalisation; they expect it. Most major websites, from supermarkets to Amazon and eBay, already offer a highly personalised shopping experience and customers expect it everywhere.
In fact, McKinley research showed 71% of Ecommerce customers expect customisation while 76% of people will get frustrated if they don’t get it
And there’s a reason for this. Personalisation improves customer satisfaction. It helps customers find what they need more quickly and more easily by delivering targeted content based on customer data. By showing customers products they are already interested, or are likely to be interested in, it reduces their need to scroll endlessly to find what they need.
By improving the customer experience, you also build customer loyalty. You prove that you understand them and their needs and – in turn – that your products are designed to meet them. It also builds trust in your authority and the quality of your products and generally makes customers more likely to buy from you. Research suggests that up to 80% of shoppers are more likely to buy from a company that offers a personalised shopping experience over one that doesn’t.
Personalisation is extra important in healthcare ecommerce because it is such a competitive industry.
Healthcare ecommerce can be incredibly challenging. When it comes to their health, consumers are understandably wary about taking risks – and this means they need more convincing to part with their money. Gaining enough trust to make a purchase is a tough task, and personalisation is a vital part of it.
This is a sector where trust and authority are all important. You need to establish your expertise quickly and completely. Even in a B2B context, you need to instil the belief that your products are high-quality and you’re able to offer all the support they might need.
In a sphere as consequence-laden as healthcare, this is incredibly important. And it means that if you aren’t offering personalisation, you could find potential customers picking your competitors over you.
There are many ways to offer personalisation in the healthcare industry. Finding the right options for your company will depend on your budget, your customer base and your offering.
However, there are two things all ecommerce healthcare businesses need to do:
To offer a personalised shopping experience, you need customer data to work from. This makes the first step of healthcare ecommerce personalisation collecting the relevant data. Always.
This could include data on where your website visitors are coming from, how they use your site, previous purchases and personal information. This gives you insight into the average customer journey, lets you see what customers are responding well to, and – perhaps most importantly – where they are being lost.
There are various tools, plug-ins and pieces of software you can use to collect this information. Most use artificial intelligence to harvest a wide variety of data that you can then filter down. Just make sure that you are transparent with your customers about this data collection and storage, otherwise you may breach GDPR.
Once you know how you’re collecting data, you need to decide how to use it by creating a comprehensive marketing strategy. Taking a scattered approach to personalisation leaves you unable to hone things down or keep your efforts focused on methods that work. It’s a waste of time and effort for you, and will leave your customers dissatisfied.
Putting a strategy in place will also give you something to monitor and review so you can measure its successes and identify ways to improve it. Think about the different ways you’ll apply your personalisation, such as emails, on-site product recommendations, suggested search queries, paid ads, pricing and push notifications.
When you have ticked off both these necessities, you can start to offer a combination of personalisation techniques that meet your needs, such as…
One way to personalise your customers’ experience is by showing product recommendations related to the items they’re viewing or have viewed. This can broaden out to products other customers went on to view as well.
So if a customer is viewing disposable kidney dishes, you could then show them other types of disposable bowls or reusable kidney bowls that offer better value.
If your customer hasn’t fully committed to one particular product, this gives them the opportunity to view others without having to interrupt their buyer journey by returning to search – and more importantly risk them leaving your site and finding a competitor.
It also shows them that you have all their needs covered, building authority and trust.
Going a step further than showing similar items, you can show offers that are tailored to previously viewed items etc. This works in the same way, but can encourage even more conversions by providing higher value.
Another easy way to offer personalisation is by customising what web visitors see based on their physical location. Geographic locations often correlate with certain needs and catering your messaging to meet differences will help convince
For example, a large multibuy offer might be incredibly appealing to healthcare providers based in a city, who may have a bigger demand. In comparison, providers in rural areas who see a smaller number of patients might prefer smaller-scale offers.
Earlier, we discussed the idea of sending an email to remind customers of an item they left in their cart, but this isn’t the only way you can encourage sales by following up. You can also invite them back to your site with a more generic ‘we miss you’ or ‘we haven’t seen you in a while’ message.
Even after a customer makes a purchase, a follow-up email that includes personalised product recommendations based on that purchase is much likelier to draw them back to make another than a generic marketing email.
If we’re honest, every ecommerce business needs to offer personalisation – including healthcare ones. Modern customers expect it, so not only does effective personalisation increase conversion rates, but failing to offer it at all will drive web visitors away quickly.
So, now you know all the benefits it has and the variety of ways you can implement it, it’s time to consider your own personalisation strategy.
Evolve Trader supports ecommerce businesses in the healthcare sector to deliver excellent customer experiences and manage products and orders with ease. Find out how our catalogue management and order portal solutions could work for you, book a demo today.
