Whenever we hear “artificial intelligence (AI),” the first thing that strikes our mind is a crazy plot device that is usually featured in science fiction movies, series, and novels. However, when talking about the eCommerce industry, AI revolves around algorithms and learning technologies that furnish the foundation for automation.
AI is exceptionally advantageous and helpful for today’s online retailers to produce an exceptional customer care and user experience in eCommerce and make savvy business decisions using customer information. In this blog, we shall discuss some practical yet powerful ways how eCommerce businesses can use Artificial Intelligence in online shopping.
Significance of AI in the eCommerce industry
Let’s have a look at how important AI is in the E-Commerce industry.
AI is infiltrating itself into all facets of our daily routine. From the evolving number of self-checkout cash registers to security checks at the airport,we can find AI almost everywhere. A survey published by Gartner stated that, in the past four years, the number of companies facilitating AI has increased by 270%. Still, there are bunch of deceptions about all things related to AI. For instance, many people believe that AI is a comparatively new branch of study when it’s approximately 70 years old.
A business must have an eCommerce platform in order to compete with other retail companies. If your eCommerce business isn’t able to market online, you won’t be able to maximize your revenue. Moreover, eCommerce businesses have seen an upward surge post the pandemic. Technological revolution and transformation use has led us into an epoch where we are engrossed in social media, gadgets, and the internet as we’ve never been before. For all such reasons, numerous successful businesses have chosen to embrace the online market and are seeking prospects to enhance sales in this way.
With many brick-and-mortar businesses wanting to enter the eCommerce domain, AI is becoming a noteworthy part of the business globe. We’re witnessing firsthand that executing AI in your eCommerce website can promote your sales and improve your efficiency and productivity in processes. It’s also boosting engagement and interaction with digital touchpoints.
Top 5 ways how AI can benefit your eCommerce business
A survey by HubSpot stated that 64% of clients don’t even know they use AI technologies in their business. This indicates that you can indirectly deploy AI for your eCommerce website without even knowing it. Let’s look at the top five benefits of deploying AI in your eCommerce business:
- Voice commerce and virtual assistants
E-Commerce Virtual Assistants (VAs) are chatbots that make use of language processing and machine learning technologies to comprehend client queries and present the needed assistance accordingly. This is not new to us anymore. We’re all very well-versed with Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa, and Apple’s Siri. eCommerce businesses prioritize using virtual assistants because they’re active 24/7 and can manage queries effortlessly.
Virtual assistants can perform multiple tasks, from product research to documenting to managing inventory. For consumers, VAs convey easy and rapid access to data and assistance. Incredibly, this enhances a business’s scalability, too.
Voice technology is not new, either. Enterprises have been using it since the 1960s. Still, voice commerce has made a phenomenal transition. It’s a technology that lets users purchase or search with their voices. Voice commerce is favored by many for its pace and convenience because users don’t necessarily have to type anything in the search box.
- Smart search
Finding the actual preferred item is the major concern here. Many consumers use the search box to find products on an eCommerce website. It is obvious that these buyers are most likely to make a purchase when compared to those who are only doing “window shopping.”
- Personalization
The eCommerce industry customizes the shopping experience according to an individual customer’s pain points, requirements, priorities, and tastes. For instance, they can show recently viewed products, run an automated customized email campaign, or make a customized product list (known as the Wishlist).
We can also decrypt it as the approach of personalizing the online shopping experience by dynamically or actively showing range to customers, whether it be campaigns, brands, or products. This depends on their click-through, browsing behavior, purchase history, etc.
ECommerce stores have hundreds and thousands of products and, likewise, many, many customers regularly. Personalization was a component of the eCommerce industry before the implementation of AI. Nevertheless, computers can now crunch big bites of data that allow optimization and real-time analytics.
With personalized product recommendations, eCommerce stores can profit from customers’ proclivity to impulse buy. Software or an algorithm can quickly examine the data on the spot and fetch trends in buyer behavior. You can also cross-sell or upsell products by suggesting different products to the customers at the checkout, depending on their preferred brands and categories.
- Automation
Online stores are now easily accessible on multiple channels with 24/7 support. This usually needs some form of automation. By automating customer assistance, merchants can save time, energy, and operating capital. AI can be of great help when it comes to automation for eCommerce business owners.
With automation, an eCommerce business can supervise and oversee all redundant tasks and streamline the front and back-end workflow. With AI, eCommerce businesses can automate everything, from featuring new products on multiple channels to synchronizing sales, determining high-risk transactions, offering deals to loyal customers, etc.
- Remarketing to potential prospects
Remarketing is more like a reminder of an eCommerce business brand and its items to the target audience. A retargeting strategy basically means that a user might have either purchased a product with ou earlier, or that they might have visited your website, added a few products to the cart, and then left without purchasing.
With the help of AI computer vision, an eCommerce business can identify the behavioral pattern of every consumer depending on the sales generated and the most viewed or purchased items. This information can be used later to draw them back to your eCommerce website. Push notifications are the most influential retargeting strategy here. These notifications are transient and clear, so there’s a very little risk of customers getting bothered. An eCommerce business can also use customized push notifications that deliver one-on-one communication.
Businesses use AI in their remarketing campaigns as a cost-effective and beneficial approach. Remarketing places your business at the forefront of the customer’s preferences. So, next time they surf the internet for shopping, your brand’s name will be one of the first to pop into their head.
