Have you ever wondered how many times you had any interaction with AI-powered applications in your daily life?
Well, the answer may be shocking!!! The present-day tech-savvy life offers a million ways to link us to programs using AI, even without our consent.
To illustrate, a report by BCG (Boston Consulting Group) revealed that retailers who have deployed AI-based solution to roll out a personalized customer experience strategy are gaining additional sales rate of 6-10%, which is around 3-times greater than other retailers.
The widespread availability of broader internet connectivity and ultra-modern gadgets had revolutionized our lifestyles. Everything will reach our doorstep within a matter of a few clicks.
Consumerism had gripped the world population into its broader spectrum, and the leader in this realm is undoubtedly the e-Commerce business. It has become an integral part of shaping our preferences in the latest shopping trends.
Why should you implement AI in eCommerce?
This is a million-dollar question for any entrepreneur, and the best answer to this question is hiding in the following figures and statistics. Gartner, the research and advisory company, declares that by 2020, customers in the eCommerce sectors will manage 85% of their relationship with the enterprise without interacting with a human.
Tractica’s survey states that AI in eCommerce is booming at such a pace that the revenue is expected to reach $36.8 Billion worldwide by 2025. Some other market studies show that AI could be found in eCommerce as 61% of businesses used AI tools in 2017 and are still counting.
In fact, a Ubisend study in 2019 found that 1 in every 5 customers is willing to purchase products that involve a chatbot service, while 40% of the online shoppers are looking for great offers and shopping deals through them. Don’t you think that all these figures and market research are still not good enough to implement AI in the eCommerce field? So this leads us to yet another important query.
How is Artificial Intelligence transforming our online shopping experience?
Before we go into an in-depth analysis of the significance of AI in eCommerce, first let’s check out in brief what Artificial Intelligence is and how vital is the use of AI in our day to day life.
“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race”-these words of Stephan Hawking sums up the real significance of AI. It could be explained in simple terms as the science and engineering process of creating efficient machines, simulating what a human being can think, speak, and do in the real world.
Having said that, it’s vital to understand that AI is just not a replica of humans. It’s designed to continuously pursue patterns, assimilate from experience, and sort out the most suitable responses in various complex situations, just like us.
From self-driving automobiles to drones, everything around us is using intelligent automation. Implementing AI can help the business achieve better paid digital campaign results, developing innovative business strategies. In the case of potential economic slowdowns, recessions, or other unforeseen external market conditions, AI can help every business to innovate, scale, and increase efficiencies to stay competitive.
How does AI make a difference in the eCommerce world?
With its competitive and effective use in online shopping, AI is transforming the eCommerce industry in many ways. This is especially so by predicting shopping patterns based on the products that consumers buy and collecting and analyzing data on how and when they purchase them.
AI helps eCommerce firms to cater to their consumers comprehensively. Also, it eases the labor of business owners with regard to automation. In a nutshell, AI technology helps to satisfy the users’ informational needs and assist them in providing the most appropriate or relevant recommendations. We are living in a profit-driven society where marketing and sales are happening every day, irrespective of the time and hour. This means that the business has to be operational for the customers 24/7. Thus, this is when AI proves its mettal.
It can easily fulfill these goals by letting the companies gather information from a wide variety of sources from the internet in real-time. Ultimately this mechanism helps generate more leads and to provide excellent user engagement. As a result the eCommerce business around the globe is joining hands with artificial intelligence.
AI uses in ecommerce & retail-A quick look
- Purchasing recommendations
- Voice-enabled shopping assistants
- Custom/Personalized e-commerce shopping experiences
- Image and video recognition
- Payment methods using Facial recognition
- Anti-counterfeiting tool
- Profile building of potential customers
AI implementation in your eCommerce business – How? And Where?
Voice Assistants
In the era of Alexa and Siri, purchasing your preferred product is just a voice command away! You need to give the command – Alexa buys this for me. And wait for Alexa to shop for you at the best price. Voice assistants are the latest trends allowing customers to interact with the web services platforms using their voice command with ease.
The best thing about this technology is that it could be easily integrated into gadgets like smartphones or smart speakers specifically designed for voice communication. So why delay? If you want your business to rule the competitive market, don’t hesitate to jump on the trend of ‘Voice’ optimization.
Customer-Centric Visual Search and Product Description
Today Artificial Intelligence is widely used in automated content creation. ECommerce platforms can utilize AI to optimize product descriptions. Sometimes when the customers shop online, they may be lead to pages with product results that are not only irrelevant but foreign too. This is so annoying that we tend to leave the page at times. AI could be the game-changer in such circumstances. To tackle these types of problems, AI tends to use NLP to contextualize and refine the search results. Also, AI uses visual search capabilities, which help to match the product. This indeed makes it possible for the consumers to shop for the right things they are searching for.
ChatBots
Offering 24×7 virtual assistance has become the key factor in the popularity and acceptance of eCommerce sites, thanks to Chatbots’ presence. These unique programs offer consumers all the possible solutions for their shopping needs. Its use is not just limited to guidance as these days the Chatboats becomes your helping hands in selecting the best possible product for your need.
The most sophisticated part of this technology is that, as a customer, you can literally communicate with these bots. As AI takes in charge, chatbots are turning itself to a magnificent tool dealing with customer interaction. Most of the eCommerce platforms and business firms have already integrated chatbots in their sites, along with social media applications, to give a unique shopping experience to their customers. Chatbots reduce the need for extra manpower for additional customer service support. They are very handy for online stores to get potential new customers.
Also it could be used to perform automated tasks that can’t be performed manually. They can automatically give feedback on FAQs to save precious online time, which makes it the darling of the eCommerce sites.
Personalization
Personalization is the ability to collect and use mass consumer data to customize your content and web interface. This striking feature opens up the business prospects in the coming years to the next level. AI helps eCommerce companies to eliminate the challenges faced while trying to personalize their customer experience.
Once you embed AI into your business, it opens the door to your customer’s likes and preferences, which will help you come out with precise recommendations that equal the customer’s choice. Not just this, AI, along with the search engines, helps to maintain a track of the consumers’ buying patterns and purchase history. It identifies users’ preferences to offer them custom suggestions.
AI converts the customer experience in the eCommerce store much personal and warm. Hence, you can exoect a significant hike in sales for the online store merchandise. As per a report by Econsultancy, about 74% of marketers have stated that targeted personalization increased their customer engagement rates. The implementation of AI has allowed the eCommerce businesses to increase their engagement rate and conversion, meanwhile producing decrease time for transaction.
Filtering Fake Reviews
Fake reviews are a daunding headache affecting the credibility of online retailers and e-commerce brands. These days’ reviews have become the key factor in people’s shopping decisions, directly influencing online sales.
It is very evident that most of the customers depend heavily on the reviews provided. But people tend to encounter fake reviews as the competition for market leadership is crossing all ethical limits. Therefore, to confront such challenges, the eCommerce brands are now using AI to eradicate fake reviews and help customers find authentic comments.
The conversion rate goes much higher when a product review is given. It is to be noted that the star rating, number of reviews, the nature and credibility of the review will surely occupy priority in customers’ concerns. AI helps in developing a system using a language processing method to detect unusual patterns of text, style and formatting. AI can easily filter out fake reviews that are written ineptly.
Pricing Optimization
Artificial Intelligence can be a game changer in your pricing optimization. It can help you to determine suitable prices that satisfy customers along with keeping your profit margins. Sometimes to overcome the economic slowdowns the eCommerce platforms go firing all cylinders out by creating seasonal sales. In such competitive times AI can be your savior.
It eases your crew’s work loads to set optimal prices for a massive number of products through its mammoth analytical and computational skills. It helps you to maintain competitive pricing to attract maximum customers.
Closing Remarks
Artificial Intelligence has certainly paved the way for eCommerce businesses to maximize their pottential and profits. The best AI developers can make drastic changes in the way eCommerce companies deal with their customers, getting rapid access to the information and harnessing the customer data to scale up sales.