Prescription glasses and contacts are a necessity that many shoppers purchased online for the first time during the pandemic. “[That time period] gave us the opportunity to show and educate more people about all the benefits of purchasing eyewear online,” says Ben Blanki, director of product labs at GlassesUSA.com.

But a big piece of helping shoppers feel comfortable buying glasses online is helping them sort through GlassesUSA.com’s massive catalog of thousands of styles from 60 designer brands and its own private-label eyewear, Blanki says. When a shopper landed on its site, the retailer wanted shoppers to be able to easily find products as well as see relevant product recommendations.

GlassesUSA.com figured that if it could provide recommendations better tailored to shoppers when they came to the site, it could improve both add-to-cart rates and overall revenue, Blanki says. But it had to find a vendor that could help it do that.

The eyewear retailer started working with ecommerce technology vendor Dynamic Yield in November 2017 and began with first adding on-site recommendations—which launched on its site around May 2018—that recommends products based on what other shoppers have interacted with. But since then, GlassesUSA.com was ready to move beyond basic product recommendations and use the vendor’s more advanced platform to drive more personalized recommendations. GlassesUSA.com wanted its recommendation engine to learn over time to recommend the most relevant products based on site trends and learn about the shopper’s browsing history and on-site activity.

“We were looking for a tool to run fast A/B tests, while also gaining the [information] to create personal recommendations for a large variety of our customers,” Blanki says.

To get immediate access to the rest of this article, sign up for a free Strategy Membership using the Join for Free button below. If you’re already a member, please sign in.