Online Store Product Customization Features

Having the ability to sell personalized goods is an added benefit for any ecommerce business. Thousands of ecommerce sites are providing their customers with some type of product customization and there is still time for you to follow suit. There is too much retail competition both online and off and whatever you can do to make your business stand out is worth trying. Set your business apart from the rest by offering personalized goods and personalization options that no other business has.

There are a number of reasons why product customization is great for your business. Customers are becoming tired of ordinary products and are on the lookout for something unique and personal to buy for themselves or for others. They also enjoy having the ability to customize a product to their liking. Selling personalized goods not only adds value for your customers, it also establishes your business as one that is innovative, thus trumping your competition. It is a small feature that can be easily implemented, but the payoff is enormous.
Personalized goods come in many forms and you don’t have to stick to selling engraved pens, printed t-shirts or embroidered hats. If you do offer those products, it’s a good idea to target big groups of people such as sororities or fraternities to market to. Another good way to sell these types of items is to start exclusive lines for special occasions such as baby showers and weddings. There are however other ways to add product customization to your e-commerce website. For example, you can give your customers the option to mix and match colors enabling them to create their own color combination. You can also give them the opportunity to build or design their own custom kit or gift basket by choosing which products they want to include from your store and then which kind of packaging to use. There are a number of other ways to offer product customization, just put your thinking cap on and let the creative ideas flow.
There are certain things you need to include in your e-commerce site to let your customers know about the product customization feature that you are offering them. Here are just a few:
- Include one or more preview pictures of the personalized goods on the product page. Customers have no idea what the finished product looks like until they receive it so it’s important to show them a couple of examples.
- Make sure the customer knows that the product can be personalized. Write it in the headline, description and product preview.
- Add detailed instructions for either adding text or uploading photos on the product page. You have to ensure the customer has no difficulties using this feature.
- Display in-depth information of all personalized goods in the shopping cart so the customer is able to review it before checking out and change anything if necessary.
- Make sure to add a return policy both on the product page as well as in the checkout so that the customer knows exactly what to expect if they are unsatisfied with their product. A personalized item is not useful anymore if returned, because it cannot be sold to someone else. Therefore it’s important that no matter what kind of return policy you have, it must be clearly expressed to your customers.
To be able to start selling personalized goods, you must first look for an ecommerce solution with the following capabilities:
- Enable customers to type a personalized message from their web browser
- Allow customers to upload photos or other files from their web browser
- Uploaded files are visible from your store admin
- Set total number of files that are allowed to be uploaded
- Set the different file types that are allowed to be uploaded
- Select whether or not to have extra fees for product customization and how much
Having the ability to sell a personalized item is clearly without a doubt great for an ecommerce business. Most importantly, you have to have the right tools to both make it effortless for customers to place a personalized order and for you to handle the order processing. What you need is an ecommerce solution that is capable of product customization.

Source: Google.com