Studies regularly claim that consumers want to enjoy a more bespoke retail experience when buying products via safe shopping online, but the latest survey from Dept is one of the few to actually scrutinise exactly what personalisation services people are looking to embrace in an e-commerce context.

By far the most positive response was earned by suggested product listings, which are automatically generated based on the kinds of items that customers have either purchased in the past or at least searched for on the site in question.

Offers made based on prior e-commerce activities are also fairly popular, with 48 per cent saying that this is something they value.

Pop-ups which make personalised recommendations are fairly well thought of, but only 36 per cent of people said that they have seen these during their online shopping sprees.

Just over a third said that they were fans of being given location-based deals which let them know if a store that is close to where they live has a particular offer which may interest them.

While this may make it sound like personalisation is the way forward for e-commerce, unfortunately there is still a degree of disgruntlement when it comes to bespoke shopping solutions which are overtly geared towards driving sales. Consumers claim that it can feel like their privacy is being impinged upon if offers and ads that are generated based on their data are too common and forthcoming.

Part of the problem is that some personalisation features can be a disruption to the normal process of shopping online, getting in the way of the consumer as they try to make it to the checkout rather than actually helping the retailer to engage with them effectively and ideally encourage customers to make additional purchases.