To stand out from the crowd this holiday season (and beyond), online retailers need to do more than offer a good discount.

“Younger e-shoppers have different expectations for their shopping experiences than other demographics, but personalization is something all online buyers appreciate,” Rob Keve, CEO and cofounder of Flow Commerce, a cross-border technology company that works with e-commerce brands, told Retail Brew.

• 63% of consumers are more likely to do holiday shopping with brands that customize the experience to their needs, according to an October Optimizely survey.

Online personalization has often focused on shopping recommendations (and we mostly have Amazon to thank). But companies are now taking things a step further, owing to new tech like AI and better customer info.

• Levi’s, for example, will introduce computer vision and visual search to its website to better curate products for its shoppers.

“Data has fundamentally changed the rules of the game for retail, disrupting a sales industry that previously relied upon incomplete information and educated guesses to move SKUs,” explained Nikhil Mitter, group creative director at innovation consultancy R/GA. “Building on the recent transformation in digital, retailers are now looking to data to help inform everything from back-of-house operations to frontline service moments.”

Take it easy

What consumers are ultimately looking for is something convenient and easy. Even things like multiple delivery options—which may not seem like a personalization play to e-comm retailers—actually feel that way to consumers, Flow’s Keve noted.

“Reinventing the e-commerce wheel isn’t necessary nor is it wise to try, especially for smaller retailers without the internal resources to do so,” he said.

In luck: It can just as often come down to getting the right offer on the right product at the right time, added Michael Simoncic, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal Consumer Retail Group.

• “It is about knowing the customer’s preference and then tailoring the response,” he said. “It should be a seamless, frictionless experience...Personalization efforts that require significant time and investment from customers don’t work.”

Click here to read more about why personalization is key to the online shopping experience.—JS

They don’t call it a shopping bonanza for nothing.

Alibaba’s 11.11 shopping festival raked in a record 540.3 billion yuan ($84.54 billion) in gross merchandise volume (GMV) this year, up from last year’s haul of 498.2 billion yuan.

By the numbers: 290,000 brands joined the 11-day sales event this year, an increase from some 250,000 in 2020—and another new record.

• More than 1.3 million new products were sold by 29,000+ international brands; about 2,800 were first-time participants.
• 45% of shoppers were born after 1990, while there was a 25% YoY spike in consumers born after 2000.

But...GMV growth was only 8.5% YoY, the slowest since Alibaba kicked off the event in 2009.

“They’ve already tapped out this holiday to its extreme. This is already a big number so it’s hard to show growth,” Tech Buzz China’s Rui Ma told the BBC.

Watch it: Alibaba was more focused on a different kind of sustainability this year.

“Going green has already become a major trend among consumers in China, and the platform can play a major role in promoting the green consumption trend,” An Xin, Tmall’s head of consumer marketing, said during a media panel last month.

• The Alibaba-owned platform had a dedicated eco-friendly section that featured 500,000 energy-efficient and low-impact products.

+1: China’s JD.com also put up big $$$: Transaction volume on its platform hit $54.6 billion during the 11.11 sales period, the e-comm giant said.—KM

Ah, online shopping—the great, frictionless experience that has evolved to allow consumers to tap a button or two and summon new stuff to their home in a matter of days (or...even hours).

What’s not so great? All those returns.

• Roughly 30% of all products ordered online are sent back, compared to 8.9% of items bought in brick-and-mortar stores, according to Invesp, a brand consulting agency.

“When someone is looking at a product, a certain percentage of people will always bracket: They’ll buy three, four, five sizes of the same item in the same color because they know that they want to get the one that’s going to fit them,” explained Richard Berwick, cofounder of virtual try-on tech company, Drapr. (The startup was recently acquired by Gap.)

Enter: Virtual fitting rooms. The tech needs to be widely available and useful for e-comm to become the dominant channel, Berwick noted. Online sales total less than a fifth of US retail sales right now, per eMarketer.

“If we can add confidence to that user...to the point where they are going to buy one size, we just reduced a significant number of returns,” he said.

• 76% of US shoppers said virtual try-on services improved their purchase confidence, per a September 2020 Vertebrae survey.

Click here to read more about all things virtual fitting rooms—where the tech is...and where it is going—in our new guide with Emerging Tech Brew.—KM

Today’s top retail reads.

Spill it: A deep-dive into all things oat milk—and how it became a cash cow. Hint: Oatly plays a key role. (Quartz)

Drive by: Teamsters, one of the largest unions in the country, wants to talk to more and more Amazon workers. (Forbes)

New frontiers? Why retailers are looking to open up stores in Boston. (Glossy)

Three of the stories below are real...and one is most definitely not. Can you spot the fake?

1. Beyond Meat has created an entire plant-based turkey for Thanksgiving.
2. Arby’s is selling not one, but two french-fry-flavored vodkas: curly and crinkle-cut.
3. Heinz made ketchup from tomatoes grown in soil we’d expect to find on Mars.
4. DJ Khaled’s new delivery-only chicken-wing restaurant can drop off orders via jet skis.

Keep reading for the answer.

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• Inspire Brands rolls out its own ghost kitchen
• Crocs and ThredUp pair up on a resale program
• Why cannabis consumers are more willing to try new brands