With Guided Selling you provide
advice in the online shop and
thereby reduce the return rate

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Did you know that…

10%

of shop customers return fewer products when Guided Selling has been used (Source: Econsultancy)

77%

of German consumers see uncomplicated returns as a fairly important criterion when choosing a retailer? (Source: Statista | 2017)

83%

of online shoppers need assistance with shopping (Source: LivePerson)

70%

of users want advice and information on the internet (Source: excentos)

Guided Selling supports
your customers with the
right purchase decision

Guided Selling is an intuitive product advisor in the online shop, which is similar to a salesperson in a stationary shop. It picks up the needs of your online shopper and selects the appropriate product. Through a visual and interactive dialogue, your customer receives a more precise selection of suitable products, click by click, until the right one is found. Guided Selling thus reduces uncertainty and leads to the right purchase decision, which reduces returns. The online shopper gets the right product and makes the purchase. This is exactly what epoq Advise offers you.

Connect

Connect with your customers and build customer trust. Your customers visit your online shop regularly, so let them hear from you too. Send personalised emails on different occasions, such as birthday, lifecycle, transactions, etc. Learn more

Stream

Also provide entertainment and thus ensure constant customer loyalty. Customers like to browse through their own product and brand world to discover new things. Start here with a personalised shopping area and keep your customers coming back to your online shop every day. Learn more

Inspire

Inspire your customers as soon as they show a willingness to buy. They are now open to further buying impulses that complement or supplement their selected product. Relevant recommendations are particularly suitable for this. Learn more

Advise

Provide your customers with advice on product selection. Your customers have a need, but need help choosing the right item from the product range. An intuitive product advisor can help.

Search

Offer your customers orientation in their product research. This way, they can quickly and easily get to the desired product detail page and find out more about a product. If you want to personalise this customer touchpoint, check out our intelligent search. Learn more

Personalisation is the key to
a successful product selection

Guided Selling is part of our personalisation platform, powered by our AI engine. This uses artificial intelligence techniques to select the right product for your customers’ needs, helping them to make the right purchase decision. After each interaction with Guided Selling, exactly those products are displayed that correspond to the personal preferences of your shop customer at that moment. If a customer wants to buy running shoes, for example, the need is determined and suitable running shoes are selected. However, these are then displayed according to the current click and purchase behaviour. For example, one customer will be shown running shoes of the brand “Nike” that match their needs and another customer will be shown the brand “Asics”.

Guided Selling for products requiring explanation

epoq Advise

If you want to offer Guided Selling for products in need of explanation, such as suitcases, running shoes or bathtubs, in your online shop, it is important to determine the right functionality for your customer and to match this with their preferences. Visual filters help to identify needs and capture your customer’s product requirements by asking the right questions. To help customers with their filter selection, info icons can be integrated to explain the benefits of the product features. The matching products are displayed one after the other. The top selection comes first and shows the greatest possible match. The customer sees at a glance which product features meet his requirements and which differ. For the final purchase decision, the products can be compared with each other and it is possible to set filters to narrow down the products, e.g. according to price. Afterwards, your customer is taken directly from the Guided Selling to the product detail page.

Conversion in the luggage sector increased significantly

“With the support of epoq’s Guided Selling solution, we were able to significantly increase conversion in the luggage area. In conjunction with the Recommendation Engine, this has become an indispensable part of the worldshop.eu.”

Thomas Hilus | Manager Digital Marketing | Miles & More GmbH

Guided Selling for self-explanatory products

epoq Browse

If you want to offer Guided Selling for self-explanatory products, such as books, clothing or furniture, in your online shop, then it is important to offer the product selection preference-controlled, using tags. With these products, a customer recognises without visual filters what, for example, “short sleeve” means. Thus, the different products displayed on a shop page can be identified by different tags. By clicking on the preferred tags, your customers refine the list of results until they have selected the right product. For example, if a shop customer clicks on the tags “short-sleeved”, “black” and “cotton” in the category “T-shirts”, the results list changes immediately with regard to this tag selection. Which products and tags are displayed depends on the click and purchase behaviour of the respective customer. In addition, Guided Selling also offers alternatives, e.g. if all black S. Oliver T-shirts in cotton were displayed, T-shirts from Tom Tailer can be displayed that are similar to S. Oliver.

The personalisation of
Guided Selling can
take place in stages

Before you start personalising, you need to make sure that your digital product advisor is delivering the right results for your customers’ needs. Only then can you start with personalisation. In the first stages, you can already control the results. You want to push certain brands? No problem. In the second stage, you have the possibility to play out the results appropriately for certain customer segments and in the third stage, you can implement a complete 1:1 personalisation. You can define a personalisation strategy for your entire online shop or carry out customer targeting as part of campaigns. Our AI technology makes it possible.

The AI engine of our
personalisation platform
makes it possible

Before Guided Selling is used, we first generate a knowledge base for your online shop with our AI engine. To do this, our AI engine uses your product catalogue, the click and purchase behaviour of your shop customers and our and your expert knowledge. It links the data to knowledge and thus calculates the appropriate products for your shop customers and plays them out. Since Guided Selling is located on our personalisation platform, which is designed for the personalisation of the entire customer journey of your shop customers, you have the option of activating further touchpoints in your online shop and using the knowledge already generated by Guided Selling for this (modular structure) and further enriching the knowledge base for your online shop. Would you like to learn more about the AI engine? Then go to the AI technology.

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Tailoring is a must-have
for Guided Selling

Concept

Every product has a different specification and approach in the sales talk. Therefore, the appropriate concept for Guided Selling must be developed specifically for the respective product category. Because the concept should not become a filter, but an advisor.

Product data

The product catalogue is adapted to the concept. The existing product data is often not sufficient to realise Guided Selling. We therefore clean up, expand and aggregate the product catalogue, creating additional columns such as fit (loose, tight and wide) or look (used, destroyed and monotone).

Development

The individual consultation concept is transferred into a customised code, which only needs to be integrated into your online shop to support your customers in their product selection.

This is how the integration
of Guided Selling works

01

Generation of a knowledge base

To generate the knowledge base, we need your product catalogue in XML or CSV format and the click and purchase behaviour of your shop customers. The latter is recorded via a tracking code in your online shop.

02

Setup in the test system

We discuss your visual ideas together and send you the div element as a placeholder for the Guided Selling frontend. You integrate this into your test system. Now the Guided Selling is fine-tuned and the required configuration is done.

03

Activation in the live system

After the setup in the test system and the successful function test, Guided Selling is activated in your live system and is available to your shop customers as an intuitive product advisor. If necessary, we will carry out a fine adjustment in live operation.

04

Introduction to our backend

We introduce you to our backend, the Control Desk, and train you in the various analysis and configuration options as well as the use of features. This will enable you to monitor and control Guided Selling.

05

Display of matching products

Your shop customers are shown suitable products and are taken to the corresponding product detail page. In this way, you provide advice on product selection and reduce the return rate, which has a positive effect on your conversion rate and your turnover.

epoq Control Desk

Monitoring and controlling of Guided Selling

The epoq Control Desk allows you to monitor and control various KPIs of your digital product advisor.

  • Key figures

    In the tab “Key figures” you can view various KPIs of your digital product advisor: Click performance, conversion rate, conversion funnel, response times and session duration.

More info on the control desk

When the use of Guided Selling
is worthwhile for you

Basic functionality

You already run an online shop or similar and have ticked off all the basic functionalities and now want to actively support your customers in selecting products.

Returns

You have an unusually high number of returns in a product category.

Product range

You have a deep product assortment in a certain category.

Want to help your online shoppers make the right choice?

Our Guided Selling avoids unnecessary returns.

Request offer now

Check out the latest blog articles
on Guided Selling

Blog Post

Online Consulting Software: How Does Digital Purchasing Advise Work?

Every online shopper wants to quickly and efficiently find a product that matches their expectations as closely as possible. Ideally in your online shop. To make this possible, you can offer your potential customers digital purchasing advice. In this article, you will leran which forms of online consulting software are available in e-commerce and which advantages they bring for you and your customers.

Sarah Birk: 21. Feb 2022

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Blog Post

Online Product Advisor: Support Your Customers in Choosing Products

With an online product advisor, you support your customers in selecting the right article for their needs. In this way, you reduce high return and purchase cancellation rates and increase your turnover in the online shop. Because with the online product advisor, you bring expert advice from the stationary to the digital trade. But what is the best way to implement the perfect online product advisor in your online shop? That’s what this article is about.

Daniela Ilincic: 23. Jan 2017 | Updated on 16. November 2020

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All articles