Curation in eCommerce

Curation is a hot topic lately, with numerous brands using celebrities to hand pick their favorite items from a collection. One of the biggest was the actress Jessica Alba and the extraordinary $1 billion valuation placed on her natural baby products ‘Honest Company’, a large part due to her own reviews of the items.

With so many products often available on each site, curation has become a valuable tool to showcase what a celebrity or an expert would pick as the best of the bunch.

Curation is not however out of reach for smaller companies who can’t afford a Kardashian.

Take an eCommerce site that sells nutrition products as an example. How about heading down to a gym and reaching out to a trainer for advice? Someone who wants to lose weight would be ideal as an example profile and you could feature a curated list of the best products to achieve that goal.

Likewise, for someone looking to gain muscle, a profile and their favourites would be ideal for a collection. This adds personalization as a customer can empathize with a particular profile and what items they suggest.

Even general staff picks could feature in a curated list, from books to t-shirts depending on what you are selling. This is an area that is increasing in importance and focuses on the next wave of eCommerce, built around a new model of discovery and entertainment.