Big data is hot: from uploading photos to personal recommendations

The best known example of applied big data based on online customer data is a recommender system: Customers who bought product X, also bought product Y. Customers who looked at product X, were also interested in product Y. These recommendations should not be based on business rules only, nor should they be the same for every customer. When you have access to your customer’s shopping history, you can offer the best solution for each customer individually.

One of the biggest Belgian online platforms offers a range of over 150.000 products. The platform welcomes an average of 26.000 users per day. Xplore Group enriched the platform’s recommender system with other data sets. This opened the door to a lot of new opportunities. Adding extra data to the mix allows for suggesting items that are in stock, that need to be sold first or that offer the best margin, but that still match with the customer’s preference or taste. At the same time, handling big data helps improve customer segmentation and the distribution of personalized content.

And there’s more. One step further down the big data track, a company might even allow its customers to upload images to a website, in order to get more information about their preference or taste. Xplore Group offers solutions that automatically identify the picture’s content and match it with the customer’s preference and the range of products that are available in stock. Integrated with an intelligent chatbot, this results in a superb personal shop assistant, guiding each customer personally to his or her desired outfit, meal or any other product that is on offer.