WHY-TO-BUY-HERE STRATEGY #2: PERSONALIZATION.

Both on the Web and in the physical world, most retail interactions are fairly impersonal. Merchants who actually get to know their customers-- and who provide services based on that knowledge--usually stand out from the crowd and generate intense customer loaylty. On the Web in particular, it's becoming clear that personalization is often a more powerful strategy than it is for brick-and-mortar stores.

For consumers, the simplest form of personalization is usually an Express Order feature that "remembers" the customer's name, address, and credit card information. A few sites go further by tracking customer purchase histories and using that data to make buying suggestions. The SmarterKids.com educational store (www.smarterkids.com) adds yet another layer of personalization: The store provides an online skills testing feature that helps identify a child's learning style and needs, and then creates a customized "My Kids Store" that showcases the most appropriate software, books, games, and videos for that child.

For SmarterKids.com, personalization seems to have provided an important competitive edge in a product category that's notoriously price-sensitive. Over the past year, SmarterKids.com has increasingly shifted its marketing efforts toward parents who use the site's skills assessment feature (as opposed to transient buyers who are attracted by special offers) and has seen a solid rise in average order size and profitability. More recently, the store was redesigned to make assessment and other personalization features more prominent; as a result, the signup rate and visits to the "My Kids Store" area have more than doubled.

SmarterKids.com, 15 Crawford St., Needham, Mass. 02494; 781/292-3085.

For business customers, "personal" attention usually implies that a live sales rep will get involved in any transaction more complicated than a single-copy, credit-card purchase. ASAP Software's E-Way Web store (www.asap.com) is a notable exception: The store deals chiefly in volume licenses, and the store is set up specifically to accommodate the purchasing processes of corporate accounts (many of which have multiple offices and several layers of approval authority). The ASAP store lets corporate customers set up highly personalized order templates that display approved products and volume license prices, with customization down to the department and individual employee level. In addition, the store provides customized reports that purchasing managers can use to keep track of spending and license deployment.

One side-benefit of ASAP's personalization approach, incidentally, is that it produces some fairly hefty cost savings for customers, both by helping them manage volume licenses more carefully and by reducing labor-intensive purchasing procedures (ASAP says it typically cuts purchasing costs by 50%). To the extent that corporate customers are sincere about reducing total cost of ownership, ASAP can argue credibly that it delivers lower prices than competitors who advertise deep discounts without value-added services.

ASAP Software, 850 Asbury Dr., Buffalo Grove, Ill. 60089; 847/465-3700.