What they looked at before they bought something else
The products a customer considered and rejected are some of the most useful data you own, and almost nobody stores them against a person.
A customer views four products and buys the third. Most stores record one fact: they bought the third. The other three were a decision, and the decision is where the merchandising signal lives.
What the rejected set tells you
- Which products get considered but rarely close - a pricing, imagery or description problem rather than a traffic problem.
- Which products act as gateways, viewed early by people who go on to buy something else entirely.
- Which pairs get compared against each other, which is a merchandising signal you cannot get from sales data alone.
- What to show a returning visitor, since the thing they looked at twice and did not buy is the obvious opener.
The comparison pattern
When two products are repeatedly viewed in the same session and only one ever sells, you are looking at a comparison the loser keeps losing. Sometimes that is correct and the loser should go. Sometimes the loser is the higher-margin item and the comparison is being decided by a single photograph.
This only works when views are attached to a person rather than a session. Otherwise the same customer comparing over three visits looks like three unrelated people each viewing one product.
What to do next
Find the product with the highest view-to-purchase ratio in your catalogue - the one everybody looks at and nobody buys. Then look at what those viewers bought instead. That answer is usually specific and usually actionable.
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