If the holy grail of marketing is reaching an audience of one, as some have said, a new partnership is bringing that vision closer to reality. Checkout technology company Bolt has teamed up with AI software provider Palantir Technologies to launch Checkout 2.0, a platform they hope will revolutionize the online checkout experience.
The system is designed to replace traditional static checkout forms with personalized pages that dynamically respond to the behavior and preferences of individual customers.
“We take behavioral data, browser data, shopper data, transactional data, to understand who you are as a shopper,” Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow told Inc. magazine. “Are you a discount-oriented shopper or a high spender? Are you a high-frequency shopper, or are you a one-time bulk shopper? Do you like financing options? Do you like just paying with your Amex?”
A Democratized Solution
Mega-retailers like Target and Amazon have already implemented similar processes. But Bolt and Palantir aim to bring this tool to online retailers of all sizes.
“While the tech is new enough to be exciting in its own right, the big news here is the scalability created by the Bolt/Palantir partnership,” said Don Apgar, Director of the Merchant Payments Practice at Javelin Strategy & Research. “Once the domain of category leaders like Target and Amazon—who had the data needed to deliver customized checkout experiences—Checkout 2.0 follows the path of most tech as it scales, democratizing it for a much broader user base.
“Using this tech to personalize the checkout experience has the potential to deliver a very strong ROI,” he said. “Small improvements in checkout conversions and reductions in cart abandonment can deliver big margin gains for retailers.”
Learning from Advertising
Web media technology has delivered personalized ads based on customers’ search and browsing data for years. It only makes sense that retailers would now use that same data to personalize the overall shopping experience.
Bolt is known for its all-in-one payments platform that simplifies online transactions. That makes them well positioned to capitalize on this technology.
“Every online merchant is wading into this pond and applying AI tools to deliver some level of customization throughout the shopping journey,” said Apgar. “But the game changer here is the amount of data that Bolt has accumulated across their merchant base. Specialty retailers can leverage this platform to deliver a customized checkout experience for customers who may be shopping on their site for the first time. Even though the customer is not in the merchant’s data set, they are likely in Bolt’s.”
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