Buyers who make online purchases often appreciate Amazon and eBay as they have made the overall shopping experience convenient. Other firms have realized the same, and now, everyone is quick in adopting new technologies for offering assistance to users while shopping. The eCommerce assistance app is another step in the same direction.
The cutting edge algorithms in the app use big data and offer tailored product recommendations. Besides shopping, people prefer using personal shopping assistants while booking tickets for movies/concerts, as well as for making hotel reservations. Most of the shopping assistants are free for the users. Firms that offer app assistants can make revenue either from in-app advertisements or get a commission (kickbacks) from brands, stores for references.
Best Possible Prices
Several locally made products remain unavailable on Amazon and eBay. Customers end up browsing multiple shopping portals for hours to find such items. Everyone may not afford such a luxury of time.
Shopping assistant apps have access to big data and multiple other resources. They can help buyers to find such products and compare prices. It helps in keeping the users informed of the latest products launched by their favorite brand, price range, and availability on a real-time basis. Users not just save time, but also get the best deal possible. Plus, such solutions help shopaholics in controlling impulse buying.
Product prices on various shopping portals change on an almost daily basis. Plus, there are exclusive sales as well as seasonal discounts to be tracked. Gathering such data and sharing it with customers can be a time-consuming task for human assistants. Such stats can be extracted in seconds by assistant apps with just a set of algorithms.
Shopping assistant apps provide information as well as notifications for price hikes, drops to users. So, orders can be placed at the right time to get discounts.
The internet is full of expired discount coupons, and users often spend hours in finding the relevant, valid codes. The shopping assistance software selects the most relevant ones to go with the chosen product and shopping site. Thus, it saves the time users spend on searching codes.
Big Data Helps In Offering Highly Personalized Results Without Human Interference
Assistant applications work on Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Big Data. Technologies like image recognition as well as natural language processing, also play a crucial role in the app’s search function.
Big Data is a massive volume of unstructured and structured data acquired from various sources. The information is captured from multiple sources like search engines, browsing history, mobile device details, emails, etc. The captured details are analyzed and stored for future reference.
Such a high amount of information helps the app understand the user’s sense of style, preferred brand, color combinations, and so on.
There is no need for the consumer to indulging in the time-consuming and frustrating process of entering keywords as well as ticking boxes to reach the desired products. Highly personalized results offered by the shopper assistance app prove to be a pleasant surprise to the buyers.
The Artificial Intelligence and machine learning algorithms powered apps browse through hundreds of websites to find the selected item. User’s personal preferences and current shopping trends are given equal importance. If the user has shown interest in specific brands, the app will give priority to products and offers from the concerned brands. Thus, the accuracy of results remains high.
The app can be programmed to scan user reviews as well to ensure only the best and the most trusted products appear in the list of recommendations. As the mobile app assistant has access to various product safety commissions databases around the world, it can display safety alerts next to the product details.
Further, the application can also be programmed to track the shopper’s shipments and offer notifications about the delivery status. There is no need for the application user to enter shipment related information in the app. It automatically scans the user’s emails for tracking numbers and other shipping details.
The application has access to the customer’s location; it can also pinpoint the brick and mortar stores in the nearby areas that sell the selected products. The feature helps buyers to find relevant physical stores to buy the items that are unavailable online.
Even Brick And Mortar Stores Have Adopted Shopping Assistant Applications
In February 2018, Walmart surprised everyone by launching a shopping assistant to guide buyers while they visit the retail chain’s stores.
When customers visit the store, the Walmart app automatically turns into an assistant. It provides the list of available products, customer reviews, discount offers, relevant tax details, and in-store navigation to reach the product location at the store.
The virtual assistant has access to the firm’s Big Data. Plus, even customers willingly share the same with firms so that they can get the best suitable discount codes via text, emails, and app notifications.
The application features aim at making shopping trips more fruitful and enhance the overall in-store buying experience. Even Macy’s launched a similar mobile tool in collaboration with IBM’s Watson.
Brick and mortar stores cannot afford to hire and deploy sales assistants as they did during the last decade. Several retail chains and even Apple stores have reduced the number of assistants. Thus, such smartphone assistant applications help in keeping the customers informed and engaged while at the store. They can find the specified product with details about available color and size options within seconds and proceed to the concerned area for buying the same at the store.
The case study proves how brick and mortar retail chains are getting the best out of customer’s habit of using smartphones.
There is a lot of space for new and advanced e-commerce assistance applications. The revenue opportunities are ample and unexplored.
Do you need a custom eCommerce development company that has experience in Big Data Application Development? You should discuss your eCommerce assistant app requirement with engineers at Smart Sight Innovations. The eCommerce development solutions provider has developed android and iOS apps for several e-commerce players.
