Recommendation engines (or recommender systems) is very important feature for online stores. It helps users to get the products that better meet their needs. On the other hands it increases revenue of the merchant (or service provider) by up to 25% according some estimates. So recommendation engine is a good example of win-win IT solution – good for both consumers and businesses.

In the video below Brian Scassellati from Yale University explains the magic behind recommendation engines. After you view it you may better understand why Pandora offers you this song or Amazon recommends you some books.

As you’ll find out there are two fundamental ways to make recommendations:

• Content-based, based on similarities between the pieces of the content
• Collaborative, based on the preferences of other users

That’s enough for the intro, so enjoy the video!

In the future we plan to review product recommendation engines available for Magento eCommerce, so stay tuned, scroll to the footer to sign-up to our newsletter and follow us on social media.