Personalized Web Merchandising

Examples of merchandising techniques that rely on self-described data rather than profiling technology include personal shopping lists, e-mail notification and gift registration.

Self-personalization, however, makes two assumptions: One, that consumers know what they want, and two, that they tell the truth. A principle of direct marketing is that consumers don’t know they want a product until you tell them, and a fact of the Web is that people lie. According to Betsy Zikakis of Engage Technologies, Web statistics show that “62 percent of people don’t tell the truth. And even when they do, often intentions are very different than actions.”