Searching for the perfect match

Recognizing the need for a sophisticated solution, EET Group was on the lookout to manage this complexity and give their customers a smoother and more efficient shopping experience. The aim was to create a personalized experience more akin to the one found in the B2C realm.  

Building a strong relationship with Relewise was a top priority to ensure the level of communication needed to find a successful solution to this kind of complexity.  

Enhancing the experience for the B2B shopper through personalization 

To enhance customer engagement, EET focused on integrating a robust recommendation engine. Factors like relevancy, purchase history, and preferences are crucial for effective recommendation, mimicking the more intuitive and user-friendly experience more commonly seen on B2C web shops.  

According to EET’s figures, a vast majority of their customers browse the website before placing an order—offline. This is why a significant portion of EET's order data comes from ERP systems and XML orders. Without this offline data, gaining a holistic understanding of the behavior and preferences of EET’s customers would be impossible to achieve. 

Relewise allows for the integration of different data sources, both offline and online, which is one of the factors that enable highly relevant product recommendations. The end result is a much more seamless online experience that impacts conversions, highlighting the value that Relewise brings to the table.

As personalized as human interactions

B2B buyers are individuals who expect a seamless and personalized experience akin to the B2C experience, even when making work-related purchases. EET recognizes this and goes beyond being a distributor. They act as trusted advisors, offering expert guidance in their field.

For them, it thus becomes important that they can stand behind the automated, online recommendations, ensuring the same level of personalization and attentiveness as if interacting with a human expert. That's why incorporating personalized category and product recommendations, like the ones seen in B2C shopping, is a very fitting approach for them. 

Strategically considering placements of recommendations 

It’s important to think strategically when placing recommendations, considering which type it is and it’s placement. Strategic placement was particularly important for EET, especially for product recommendations. For example, positioning "Purchased With Product" and "Products Viewed After Viewing Product" on EET’s product details page (PDP) instead of the front page was a logical decision, given their customers’ B2B journey.  

For EET, recommending categories on the front page makes sense, as it helps create a more convenient and efficient shopping experience. With literally millions of products, it's challenging to ensure high accuracy in recommending a particular product on the front page among all the data. Recommending categories makes it easier to showcase types of products that the user may wish to expand their assortment with.  

These considerations underscore the importance of thinking strategically about your use of recommendations. Strategically positioning recommendations can make a big difference on whether they positively impact your conversion rates or not. If you’d like to read more about correctly implementation of recommendation so that you don’t kill your conversions, you can do it here.