A BrightEdge survey in February 2018 clearly outlines the advantages of the use of AI in eCommerce. The survey covering 500 marketers showed that 31.4% believed it gives a better understanding of the customer, 27.4% believed it improved productivity, 14.7% stated it led to an improvement in content and 8.1% stated that AI-led to increased returns.
Narrative Science 2018 survey shows that 61% of businesses implemented AI and its use is in predictive analysis, natural language processing, and machine learning. Over 2 billion people are expected to shop online in the next two years and each expects the best service. AI helps. Given its obvious benefits, it is no surprise that AI in eCommerce is growing at an exponential rate.
Interaction
Many online shoppers have one leg poised over the ledge but a few questions linger and they want immediate clarification. The answer is clever implementation of robotic chatbots by custom eCommerce development company. Input a message and you receive an answer. It is easy to implement this AI widget at a low cost by opting for some standard off the shelf solutions. It is possible to even include a voice interactive bot. This bot does help a buyer take the next decisive step to put items in a shopping cart.
Shopping Cart Abandonment
At first sight, the offer seems attractive enough to tempt a potential shopper to put an item in his shopping cart only to abandon the cart because the site then adds extras like packing, shipping, and taxes or the payment mode is not acceptable or that the shopper must create an account and then log in. The shopper abandons the cart. AI steps in detects such instances of potential abandonment and takes timely action to get in touch with the shopper to know the pain point. An email is virtually useless since the decision to abandon has been made and the shopper may have bought from elsewhere. The right thing to do is to step in immediately, possibly get a human agent to contact the buyer and try to resolve the issue. This module is not all that difficult to implement in the eCommerce site through the right eCommerce development solutions from a specialist eCommerce site developer.
Shopper Behaviors on Sites
Many shoppers have the habit of browsing the eCommerce site and viewing various products in a particular category or across various categories.
AI in eCommerce keeps track of their preferences and the smart site then recommends similar products. If the shopper buys one thing he receives a recommendation of a tempting bundled offer. Incorporating AI in custom eCommerce solutions certainly helps to upsell and cross-sell. If he does buy a product it goes into the data and then the site keeps on sending relevant offers thereby maintaining a connection. This is about customer behavior on a site.
There are other ways in which AI targets shoppers. Take the case of a shopper who searches for certain products and then heads off to other sites or to social media pages. These sites carry ads and the ad server delivers ads relating to products that the shopper was interested in, a reminder to him. Multiply these instances a million times and you will see just how difficult or impossible it is to track each individual customer but AI does it beautifully without human intervention.
If you are launching an eCommerce site then you should get your custom eCommerce development company to incorporate these features plus machine learning so your site becomes smarter as it gets older.
Searches and Recommendations
Shoppers and people, in general, know just how frustrating it is to search online. You expect one thing and the results show something else.
On the other hand, AI infusion can help eCommerce site owners incorporate the right keywords, meta-descriptions, and tags that would help search engines pick the site. AI here works in the background, helping marketers derive data that would help them tailor sites to be more search-engine friendly, be found and funnel shoppers to their sites. SEO and marketing professionals need not guess keywords since AI recommends keywords and also assists with content.
Backend Warehouse Automation
If Amazon is a huge success, it is in no small measure due to its software and warehouse management. The speed of dispatch is incredible and AI is responsible. When you opt for eCommerce development solutions then insist on backend warehouse automation with AI.
AI can help to manage data and use robots to retrieve products in minutes. You will appreciate this when you sell thousands of products across hundreds of categories. Even otherwise, for small scale operations, AI provides vital and valuable assistance in warehouse management as well as enhancements. For instance, link it to the front end and you do not need to update the product page if a product goes out of stock. AI can automatically generate messages like “…only 3 remaining now…” or “..sold out..let us know and we will inform you as soon as it is available..”
AI integration also helps you to replenish stocks in time by raising an alert when quantity dips below a flagged level. How fast have products moved? AI can give you an answer and you can analyze patterns to predict future sales patterns. So, you see, AI inclusion with the help of a custom eCommerce development company is useful in more ways than one.
Reviews and Testimonials
Reviews and testimonials are priceless for eCommerce operators. Some buyers rely a lot on reviews by shoppers to take a buy decision. However, given today’s competition and that a disgruntled shopper may leave fake and negative reviews you have to trust AI in eCommerce to keep a watch on such reviews and weed them out. Conversely, it can also detect genuine complaints and alert you so that you can take quick and prompt steps towards resolution.
Multi-Currency, Multi-lingual Operations
Restrict yourself to just one country and one currency and you restrict the scope of your growth. Go global with an AI-powered eCommerce site that automatically displays prices in the currency of the country from where a buyer is browsing the site. Recent sites like banggood offer this facility and are benefiting. They have shoppers from India and from Spain as well as Russia and the US. Better still, offer the multi-lingual facility to draw in even more shoppers. Not everyone is familiar with English!
Voice
AI underlies voice assistants like Siri and Alexa. Offer this facility of voice commands on your eCommerce site and buyers are more likely to prefer your site over others.
AI with machine learning may seem like a steep investment. Consider, however, the tangible and intangible benefits it brings to eCommerce by way of automation, better intelligence, cost reduction, and better customer satisfaction as well as retention. Let Smart Sight innovation, top AI-powered eCommerce development solutions provider, come up with an AI-powered eCommerce site for you and watch your business zoom ahead.
