In the year 2021, we have seen an increase in the progress of the eCommerce industry over the last two years. This improvement, however, was primarily due to the pandemic. When we think of eCommerce, we think of artificial intelligence. This is due to the fact that Artificial Intelligence is taking over the world, including eCommerce.
AI is comprised of three major components: machine learning, natural language processing, and data processing. These elements help eCommerce businesses improve their results.
Machines are learning how to assist us and perform manual tasks as a result of AI. The best part is that the machines are performing their tasks flawlessly, allowing us to focus more on the strategic level of business. This allows business owners to focus on other important aspects of their businesses rather than performing repetitive tasks.
Today, AI can be found everywhere, particularly in the eCommerce industry. This is what we will be discussing in this post today. Stay with us to learn about the use of AI in eCommerce and other pertinent information.
Let’s get started.
Statistics About Artificial Intelligence In eCommerce
Let’s start with a look at how eCommerce and AI are related.
Artificial intelligence is widely used in eCommerce today.
By 2020 and beyond, it is predicted that Artificial Intelligence will handle 80 percent or more of customer interactions.
Top eCommerce brands are now utilizing AI for detecting fake reviews, product recommendations, chatbots, handling big data, and a variety of other purposes.
Let’s look at some interesting AI data from a recent report:
- Assume that one out of every five customers prefers to purchase goods from a chatbot and that these customers are likely to spend $446.78.
- In fact, 40% of customers only learn about deals and offers through chatbots.
- Furthermore, Google paid $567.74 to acquire DeepMind, an Artificial Intelligence company.
A Few eCommerce Marketplaces Using Artificial Intelligence In eCommerce
Let us now look at the names of the top eCommerce marketplaces that are doing well with AI in eCommerce.
Amazon
Amazon uses AI to manage its competitive advantage in customer experience and support service, as well as ML to drive product recommendations. Amazon also uses AI to manage business logistics. AI reroutes, modifies delivery arrival times, and makes other changes for efficiency and accuracy. NLP, an emerging deep learning technique, strengthens Amazon’s digital assistant, Alexa.
Amazon is filing a number of ML and AI-related patents.
According to a survey, Amazon’s recommendation engines account for approximately 35% of total sales.
Alibaba
Tmall Genie and Ali Assistant are two AI assistants that come to mind when we think of Alibaba. Alibaba is always looking for ways to improve its competitive edge by utilizing Artificial Intelligence. Its customer service chatbot is extremely powerful, processing 95 percent of customer inquiries, both spoken and written. Furthermore, according to Alibaba, AI algorithms assist in driving internal as well as customer service activities, taking along search recommendations and smart products.
According to Alibaba, smart logistics has resulted in a 10% reduction in vehicle use and a 30% reduction in travel distances. This demonstrates that their investment was profitable for them.
eBay
eBay, one of the most well-known eCommerce marketplaces, sees Artificial Intelligence as a fantastic way to keep a competitive edge and customer interest. The eBay Shopbot uses NLP to help its users easily find the products in which they are interested. Furthermore, customers find it simple to communicate with the bot via voice, text, or images taken with their phones.
Today, ML is recognized as an essential component of eBay’s business strategy.
Common Roadblocks to eCommerce AI Implementation
Various eCommerce leaders are considering how AI and data can help them stand out.
Many retailers intend to invest in AI and other technologies by the end of 2021. However, a few of them are successfully implementing AI initiatives. However, the majority of them get stuck at the beginning.
Retailers with personalization strategies see a 6-20% increase in sales, at a rate that is 2-3 times faster than other retailers.
Obviously, there are some common impediments to getting started with eCommerce AI. Let us learn more about them below:
Vision Impairment
The most common reason why businesses haven’t tried out their AI projects is a lack of a clear strategy. In the case of AI, a clear vision is required to understand how it is used to drive eCommerce and its execution.
Companies must have access to their data and understand where their data is unique. Once you’ve mastered this, you can use AI to understand relationships between data sets, predict the next action, and/or automate processes. A roadmap is essential for both long-term and short-term implementations.
A scarcity of knowledge
To begin with, various brands lack the necessary skills. AI projects necessitate the collaboration of ML, data, and technology experts. Companies that lack the necessary expertise on the specific project struggle to maximize on data projects. As a result, expertise is in high demand.
Bad Information
AI’s output is just as important as its input. If you don’t have enough or the right kind of data, AI’s value is limited. Many brands are committed to collecting and storing data, but they lack the resources and understanding to separate the good from the bad. The most critical AI data is hidden in flat or unstructured files.
By 2027, the global AI market is expected to reach $267 billion.
Prioritizing AI over Technologies
Typically, brands are unsure of how to prioritize and rank AI in relation to other technologies. Typically, the CIO and CTO demand that budgets be aligned and pooled in order to complete successful projects involving data collection, storage, access, and processing.
Unknown Use-Cases
In the future, the most common barrier to AI adoption will be a lack of confidence in finding relevant use cases. Today’s eCommerce owners must understand what is difficult and what is simple in AI.
By 2021, it is expected that AI will power approximately 15% of all customer service interactions globally.
How Can Such AI Expertise Gaps Be Bridged?
We will now be able to resolve such issues after learning about the common roadblocks to launching AI.
We need to take an idealistic approach, as well as identify specific use cases that are well-supported by data.
Aside from that, we must select open-source AI algorithms or brands offering SaaS products to achieve quick success on small projects.
Furthermore, we should learn what AI achievements entail, as well as the steps required to achieve them.
Top AI Advantages in the eCommerce World
Today, AI is a trend that brings with it a plethora of opportunities that are too numerous to cover in a single post. So, let’s just focus on the most cutting-edge and potent solutions that AI has to offer.
AI now gives brands the ability to sense, predict, and automate. The opportunities for leveraging AI in eCommerce are numerous.
Companies that successfully implement AI use it to improve their eCommerce engine and caliber to generate revenue through marketing and sales.
The number of AI-powered voice assistants is expected to reach 8 billion by 2023.
Let’s look at some of the common approaches that businesses are using to improve eCommerce functions, features, and performance using data and AI.
The following are the economic benefits of eCommerce AI:
Provide customer service
With the help of AI advancement and machine learning, eCommerce stores can now provide their customers with 24*7 support, quickly collect valuable data, track customer behavior, and achieve flawless brand continuity.
Enhance the overall user experience
You can eliminate the need for remarketing and targeting ad exposure by utilizing AI. With AI, you will be able to target quality and direct more relevant advertising to the right customer at the right time in this new marketing era. Such advancements will not only make things easier but will also improve the overall customer experience.
Assist in forecasting inventory requirements
AI technology enables eCommerce store owners to obtain critical information about the factors driving demand as well as predictive analysis for which future demands are expected. Based on machine learning performance, the longer you use AI, the smarter it will become for your online business. This is because it learns more about your business, visitors, and customers. AI advancements also assist store owners in accurately predicting both future and real-time inventory needs for their business.
Approximately 44 percent of organizations have claimed cost savings as a result of AI implementation.
Simply by clicking an image, you can find products
When you find something online and want to buy it but don’t know what it’s called, how do you find it? Fortunately, AI is available for almost every requirement. AI has the ability to interpret, classify, and comprehend images. It makes it easier to find something if you don’t know what it’s called.
Furthermore, by locating matching items, AI is enabling online shoppers to discover complimentary products, whether they are related to color, size, fabric, shape, or even brand. The visual capabilities of such software are truly astounding.
First, by extracting visual cues from the uploaded images, the software can assist the customer in locating the items they seek.
With AI, you can shop for anything, at any time and from any location, even by clicking images of items you see in real life.
Create a search that is centered on the customer
Customers frequently abandon eCommerce stores because the resulting product displayed is deemed irrelevant. As a result, to address this issue, some eCommerce stores employ Natural Language Processing to contextualize and, ultimately, improve search results for online shoppers.
Furthermore, some brands are enabling their businesses to create a customer-centric experience entirely through advanced image and video recognition.
Approximately 62 percent of customers want to submit data to AI to improve their interactions with businesses.
Furthermore, by labeling features of a video or image, the Artificial Intelligence software tags organize and visually search content automatically.
Furthermore, AI technology provides a competitive advantage to online businesses and is accessible to businesses and developers of all sizes and budgets.
Prospective customers should be retargeted
According to a survey, the sales team does not follow up on approximately 33% of marketing leads. This means that pre-qualified potential buyers who are interested in your product or service will fall through the cracks.
Various businesses will be overburdened with unmanageable customer data in the future. Such information is either used sparingly or ignored entirely. This is a goldmine that can be exploited to shorten the sales cycle.
But, how can we use AI to improve customer shopping experiences?
Nowadays, some businesses use facial recognition to entice customers to spend time in their physical stores. This means that if a customer spends a significant amount of time next to a specific product, this information will be saved for later use on his next visit.
As AI advances, we will be able to display special offers on customer screens based on the amount of time they spent in-store.
Businesses are constantly changing the face of sales by responding directly to the customer. So, if businesses are reading their customers’ minds, it’s simply due to the use of collected data in conjunction with AI.
Determine your target audience
AI, a new and very useful technology, provides eCommerce businesses with timely intelligence that is required to overcome business challenges such as lead generation.
Several predictive marketing companies provide AI solutions for sales, marketing, and CRM systems. By capturing data, such marketing companies have enabled many to successfully generate new leads.
Create a more efficient sales process
Thankfully, the days of picking up the Yellow Pages and cold-calling potential clients are long gone.
We now have a variety of media, ranging from television advertisements to social media. So, if you want to develop a strong sales message that can reach customers at the right time and on the right platform, you should integrate AI with your CRM.
More than half of online businesses reported an increase in productivity after implementing AI.
Various AI systems, such as Alexa, facilitate Natural Language Learning and voice input. This enables a CRM system to respond to customer inquiries, resolve problems, and identify new opportunities for the sales team. Even some AI-driven CRM systems are capable of multitasking in order to manage all of these functions and more.
Create personalization across multiple devices
Personalization is not a new concept in eCommerce. New levels of personalization have begun to permeate the world of eCommerce as AI and ML technologies advance.
Personalization refers to the capability of using mass-consumer and individual data to modify web interfaces and content for the user. It’s not like traditional marketing, where one-on-one conversations with customers were permitted.
Personalization can boost conversions, engagement, and reduce time to transaction.
The collected data is used to provide a consistent customer experience across all channels. So, while a user is browsing your shopping website, you can send him push notifications with a discount code.
AI-powered personalization for eCommerce necessitates a multi-channel strategy. New AI engines, such as Boomtrain, sit atop various customer touchpoints, assisting businesses in analyzing how customers interact online.
In four years, the number of businesses adopting AI increased by 270 percent (as of 2019).
The AI engine constantly monitors all channels and devices to develop a universal customer view, whether it’s a mobile app, email campaign, or website. This unified customer view enables eCommerce retailers to provide a consistent customer experience across all platforms.
Utilize virtual assistants
We’ve all heard of cloud-based AI software agents like GoogleNow, Siri, and Alexa. They’ve introduced the concept of conversing with a laptop, phone, or even a home appliance.
The advancements of virtual assistants are based on natural language processing (NLP) and the machine’s ability to interpret what people say in text or words.
As a result, virtual assistants are now influencing the way customers buy and providing a creative opportunity for eCommerce retailers to reap the benefits.
Improve customer recommendations
With AI, brands can more efficiently and intelligently scan petabytes of data to anticipate customer behavior and provide helpful and related recommendations to individual customers.
Online retailers are looking for the most effective ways to collect customer data in the following formats:
- Social networking sites
- Product evaluations
- Language as a natural phenomenon
- Analytics for the web
- Transcripts from call centers
- History of purchases
The level of intelligence, on the other hand, is critical in providing a personalized shopping experience for the customer. AI is used by businesses to enable customers to place orders via messaging or voice commands.
Nine out of ten, if not more, leading businesses are constantly investing in AI.
In our mobile-first world, eCommerce has altered the way customers shop. Today, eCommerce businesses are bringing the offline shopping experience to the online environment by making it easy for customers to find the items they are looking for.
Businesses are now focusing on hyper-personalization, which can be provided by learning customer behavior and making predictions using massive amounts of data gathered from user activities on tablets, desktops, and smartphones.
eCommerce retailers assist customers in finding the best solution using the recommendation process extensively.
AI is already being used to provide users with personalized recommendations based on their choices.
Create an ‘assortment intelligence’ tool
Customers are now forcing retailers to change their pricing strategies. To retain customers, multichannel retailers should be flexible when it comes to price structuring.
Retailers are experimenting with assortment intelligence, a tool that provides unparalleled 24*7 visibility and valuable insights into competitors’ product assortments.
Businesses are permitted to monitor their competitors’ product mix, which can be divided by brand and product, as well as the percentage of overlap. This intelligent tool then gives businesses the ability to quickly and accurately adjust their product mix and pricing.
Approximately one out of every four sales teams uses AI in their daily work.
The smart software puts retailers in a strong position to make specific planning and assortment decisions, as well as track the impact of those actions on their businesses.
Make a distinction between privacy and personalization
Today, brands are actively attempting to raise the bar on security, transparency, and honesty. However, in order to achieve this, businesses must not abandon user personalization, which is critical to any successful eCommerce venture.
As a result, various brands look to artificial intelligence for a solution to this problem. Users are more comfortable sharing their information in exchange for a promise to return goods they don’t want or are dissatisfied with.
The AI enables retailers to provide an exceptional experience to users even when they are not physically browsing the eCommerce store. As a result, in order to have such an experience, users willingly share their personal information. AI bridges the gap between user personalization and privacy in this way.
Utilize wearable technology to increase sales
Mobile plays an important role in eCommerce sales; however, this is not a new fact. According to Shopify, mobile surpassed other channels as the best source of eCommerce traffic in 2016. As products such as the Fitbit, Apple Watch, and other types of wearable technology enter the eCommerce market, eCommerce retailers face a slew of new challenges. Do you know how wearable technology is used in eCommerce platforms? Wearables, on the other hand, have an impressive capacity for data collection that is far superior to that of eCommerce platforms today.
Some wearable technologies can see the products you look at, learn about your preferences, and instantly recommend personalized products.
AI has the potential to transform every aspect of business and could contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030.
So, if you begin collecting physical data, such as important statistics and measurements, you will discover that the level of recommendation is truly incredible.
In the future, AI integration will be critical because retailers will have a better experience with customer data. As a result, retailers want to build new relationships with the best AI technology in order to connect with their progressive global customer base.
Handle phony reviews
An experienced online retailer is well aware of the agony of receiving fake reviews.
Every day, consumers are bombarded with advertisements, which can be overwhelming and lead to delayed decision-making. In this case, word of mouth is meaningless.
According to one study, approximately 90% of those who check online reviews claim that positive or good online reviews influenced their purchasing decisions.
Voice assistants are used by 62% of users to search for items through voice commerce.
Furthermore, approximately 86 percent said that negative online reviews influenced their purchasing decisions. We can use AI to deal with such problems.
Creating fake reviews, also known as astroturfing, is widely practiced on a variety of websites and services, including Amazon. It is a practice of fabricating false reviews that customers mistake for genuine testimonials.
Customer reviews have become the foundation of trust in the world of online shopping. When users are unable to physically inspect the products they wish to purchase, the reviews and ratings of other users who have purchased and used them come in handy.
Some eCommerce retailers use AI to combat astroturfing by emphasizing verified reviews.
Artificial Assistants
Chatbots and artificial agents are computer programs that are designed to initiate online conversations with human users.
Artificial agents are used to interacting with customers on eCommerce stores, inform customer service agents on how to handle inquiries, and even allow sales.
Bots, while not entirely self-sufficient, are fantastic tools that aid in simple transactions and provide basic decisions.
By 2025, the wearable AI market will be worth $180 billion.
Pricing that changes on the fly
Dynamic pricing is a pricing strategy in which retailers change the price of their products based on demand and supply. With prices fluctuating, the data we can access will unlock new potential.
We can now combine customer data, sales transactions, and competitive pricing data to predict what to discount and when to discount, as well as dynamically calculate the minimum amount of discount required to ensure a transaction.
Dynamic pricing algorithms are emerging in AI, and eCommerce leaders may be skeptical of the models that inform pricing.
Modeling Predictive Behavior
eCommerce technology cannot drive sales on its own. To support the engine, you will need a successful marketing and sales strategy. And successful marketing and sales are found to be strong in customer understanding.
Today, we use our experience working with customers, market analysis, past purchase behavior, and personas to better understand how our customers will behave in the future.
Our ability to predict our customers’ next moves is made possible by AI’s predictive power.
Final Thoughts
However, the term “artificial” may connote something dehumanizing or negative, but Artificial Intelligence allows businesses to provide a more personalized experience to their customers.
With AI, eCommerce retailers can analyze millions of interactions per day and eventually target offers to a single customer, which is an experience that every marketer wishes to provide.
Today, sales teams are bolstered with data that we have never seen before. They can even personalize the sales cycle by utilizing AI-powered apps that assist sellers in attracting the right prospects with the right message at the right time.
AI technology is expected to have a significant and positive impact on the eCommerce industry in the coming years. It will change and improve the way customers find products online.
So, what are you holding out for? Simply begin with AI initiatives in eCommerce to ensure the success of your online business.