How To Boost Basket Sizes With eCommerce Product Recommendations

October 4, 2024

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6 min read

Getting your bottom line looking as juicy as possible is something e-merchants far and wide strive for. Convincing shoppers to fill their baskets to the brim with your products is a surefire way to achieve this. A great way to induce your customers to buy more in single sittings is through Product Recommendations.

In this article, we’ll present you with some top product recommendation tips that are sure to increase your shoppers’ basket sizes and gain higher revenue.

What Is Basket Size?

Let’s start off by defining basket size. Basket size is the number of products a customer purchases in a single transaction. It’s an important metric to keep your eyes on because it can reveal a lot about the efficacy of your eCommerce business.

Why Basket Size Matters

For one, you’ll be able to gauge how well your marketing and sales efforts are working. If your customers are loading their baskets with your products, you can bet that you’ve successfully made a case for the quality and relevance of what you’re selling.

It also indicates that you’ve provided a great shopping experience. Shoppers will fill their baskets if you’ve made it easy for them to find products that are an excellent match to their individual needs.

In other words, if you’ve given them a personalized shopping experience, they’ll naturally buy more. But don’t just take our word for it. 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase from brands that offer personalized experiences.

What this all means is that you have an in-depth understanding of your customer base which is exactly where you want to be. Moreover, bigger baskets are a much more efficient way to beef up your bottom line.

A great way to coax bigger baskets is through product recommendations. After all, they are designed to lead shoppers to additional items that fit their needs. So, without further adieu, let’s get into the best product recommendation strategies to increase basket size.

How To Use Product Recommendations To Increase Basket Size

Recommend products that work as a set

An excellent strategy for driving shoppers to buy more is to recommend products that go together. This cross-selling tactic works well on product pages and cart pages.

When a shopper clicks on a product page, or even better when they add something to their basket, you know their interest is pretty high. So why not seize the moment to introduce them to products that will add value to the one they’re interested in?

Whilst Frequently Bought Together suggestions are adequate, we suggest taking it a step further. A glimpse into the fashion industry provides the perfect example of this.

Red Dress’ first suggestions are products seen worn by the model.

When a customer enters a product page, they’ll see a model wearing the item in question as well as other products. These additional products are then presented as recommendations. The visual context shoppers are able to gain enhances the recommendations. You’re not just saying that these items work well together, you’re proving it.

Regardless of your industry, this is a blueprint you can follow. Think about the products in your inventory that work as a set. Once you’ve identified them, create product images that show them in use together. Check out how Urban Natural recommends the chair seen in the image for the Audrey Extension Table in Cherry alongside other chairs in the same shade.

You could also make the path to purchasing complementary items a little smoother by offering them as a bundle.

Use data to power product recommendations on every page

No matter what business task you’re completing, data will always be your best friend.

To entice shoppers to add your product recommendations to their carts, you need to ensure they are relevant. This is when data can really come in handy.

A crucial way to use data when recommending products is by personalizing suggestions. This is especially useful for coaxing bigger baskets as 75% of shoppers are more likely to purchase personalized product recommendations. Paying attention to individual customers’ previous purchases, browsing history, and wishlist items can set you on the path to personalized recommendations.

Pura Vida recommends products based on what was previously viewed, added to cart, or purchased.

eCommerce merchants are living in an extremely fortunate time where technology is supercharging the experiences that can be brought to shoppers. The legwork required to analyze data for personalized recommendations can be drastically cut thanks to it.

AI-driven product recommendations make use of various algorithms and data to suggest relevant products to individual shoppers. These recommender systems weigh in on previous customer behavior to predict what will appeal to a particular customer in the future. This allows the most pertinent products to surface at the right time.

Collaborative filtering is another bit of technology that can enhance recommendations. Rather than basing suggestions on the individual shopper’s past behavior, collaborative filtering uses the power of the group. Product recommendations occur based on how similar users shopped previously.

These types of technology aren’t just reserved for the big players. Give apps like Wiser or Limespot a try so you can bring AI-powered, data-backed recommendations to your store.

Diversify how and what you recommend

When recommending products to shoppers, it’s a good idea to show them something new each time. You don’t want to bore your customers with the same products over and over again. Aside from that, it can also come across as inattentive and lazy.

Ultimately, this will create fatigue from your customers which will diminish your chances of getting them to add more to their cart. A great way to combat this is to get into the minds of your customers.

Think about the frame of mind your customers are in as they move through your store and use that as a basis to fuel recommendations.

For instance, on the homepage, it’s a good idea to recommend trending products and/or personalized suggestions based on previous behavior as, at this point, it’s not yet clear what they are looking for. Esports Gear places a huge focus on trending products for its homepage suggestions.

Whilst on cart pages, recommending products that add value to the items in the cart work a treat as there’s already a commitment from the shopper.

You should also consider being a bit more creative with how you make recommendations. This will help to keep recommendations feeling fresh and avoid fatigue. In addition to suggesting products based on previous behavior, you could also use quizzes as an avenue to recommend products.

A quick quiz on Sephora’s website reveals a number of product recommendations to build a skincare routine.

Quizzes are great because not only are they interactive and engaging, but they also provide real-time personalization. Both you and your customers can be sure that the products in front of them are of the utmost relevance for their current situation. Thus, the chances of these items going into the cart are hugely increased. To give carts an extra boost, recommend products that work as a set or offer bundles at the end of quizzes.

Other methods of recommending products that can bulk up baskets include location-based recommendations and pop-ups based on browsing behavior.

Utilize the search experience to recommend products

Did you know site searchers on eCommerce sites are 1.8x more likely to convert than regular shoppers?

Searchers are excellent targets for tactics to increase basket size. They’re already more committed, so it won’t be as much of a challenge to get them to up their spending. With the right tools, you can turn your site search experience into a tool for product recommendations.

Suggesting products as a searcher is typing can put you on the path to bigger baskets. eCommerce search engines now can predict what a user is searching for before they even finish typing and show instant results. It’s also possible to have the results populated as you wish. For instance, Nine West shows its bestsellers as you type.

Are you starting to see how search can be used as a recommendation tool?

A winning strategy is to have best-selling or trending products populate the instant results. Why? Because 80% of a company’s profits tend to come from 20%, making these products the most add-to-cart-friendly.

Instant results should also include visuals to give these suggestions more conviction. Another option is to show dropdown suggestions that are personalized, taking cues from previous purchases and searches. Having these suggestions vary in price may also help clinch additional purchases.

Your search results page can also be a great facilitator of product recommendations. Let’s look at Pura Vida as an example.

On its search results page, the product recommendations are based on what other customers also searched for. Remember how we said to get creative with your recommendations? This is an excellent illustration of doing exactly that.

What’s great about this is that it hits two birds with one stone. First off, this encourages shoppers to go beyond what they are searching for and potentially buy more. Secondly, it acts as a form of social proof which is a proven persuader. Thus, recommending products in this manner to these ready-to-buy shoppers has so much potential to boost baskets.

If you’re looking for powerful search experience features, look no further than Product Filter and Search by Boost. The tool is packed full of smart search capabilities such as as-you-type suggestions and instant visual results.

Leverage social proof

Social proof has an incredible influence when it comes to purchasing. A whopping 97% of consumers say online reviews impact their purchasing decisions. Moreover, stellar reviews convince shoppers to spend more. Seeing as the aim here is to shift more products into single transactions, social proof needs to be a top priority when making recommendations.

Fortunately, it’s quite simple to implement social proof on your recommendations. Ensure you’re displaying star ratings under the thumbnails of the products being suggested. The dropdown suggestions in search results will also benefit from the display of star ratings.

Another form of social proof that you can implement for product recommendations is visual UGC. These can be images pulled from social media of real customers using your products or photo reviews.

Shoppable UGC on the Red Dress homepage.

Getting a healthy stash of quality product reviews is a long-term strategy. It may take some coaxing from customers to leave reviews, and it will of course take time to build them up. If you haven’t already, it’s a good idea to invest in a reviews app that helps you incentivize leaving reviews like Loox or Yotpo.

Prioritize discounted items

When thinking about the types of products we want to recommend to customers, there is always a strong focus on what’s complementary or a tight match with a shopper. Whilst these are super important considerations, there’s something else that deserves equal attention.

Shoppers are extremely motivated by a great deal. So much so that two-thirds of them make unplanned purchases when they find a discount. Now just imagine the effect of coupling personalized recommendations with discounts. Who could resist? Besides, it’s much easier to convince a shopper to fill their cart with products that aren’t so highly-priced.

For instance, Rebag has an entire product recommendations block devoted to items that have the most money off of retail prices.

When you’re building product recommendation blocks, leave some room for relevant items that are currently on sale. You could even consider creating an entire widget for these discounted items and use language that evokes a sense of urgency. This can really sway shoppers to add these products to their carts at a lower price whilst they can.

To Wrap Up

Compelling product recommendations are an indispensable pathway to bigger baskets. If you can effectively produce recommendations that are relevant in various ways, there’s little stopping your customers from loading up their baskets with your goods.

Every touchpoint you have with your customers is an opportunity to guide them to the products they’ll love. So leave no stone unturned and give our top tips a go to get the most out of every single shopper.

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Doki Nguyen

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Content Marketing Specialist

October 15, 2024

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5 min read

How To Boost Basket Sizes With eCommerce Product Recommendations

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