IRCE 2011 Report: Multichannel merchandising drives up average order values

When wine accessories e-retailer The Wine Enthusiast offers personalized merchandising and marketing content to its customers, it boosts its average order value each time it presents that same content in an additional venue, vice president of marketing Glenn Edelman said today at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition 2011 in San Diego.

The Wine Enthusiast, which works with personalization technology company MyBuys to tailor content based on customers’ shopping behavior, has learned that personalized merchandising displays and promotions for its wine glasses, wine racks and other wine accessories are more effective when they run in e-mail campaigns, online display ads and other online venues, as well as on TheWineEnthusiast.com. “Every additional touch with customers increases our average order value,” Edelman said in an IRCE session on providing customers with a good cross-channel shopping experience.

He noted, for example, that a merchandising promotion without personalization produced an average order value of $120. That increased to more than $120 when the offer was personalized. But when the same content was presented in a second channel, the average order value rose to $140; a third channel increased it to $160; and a fourth sent it to more than $200.

“I need to be out on the web where my customers are with the same message,” he said.