Frankly speaking, if you're going to offer a fantastic eCommerce user experience, you can't leave your online store cold and bland. From influencing customer choices and browsing habits to increasing customer engagement and sales, AI is imperative for e-commerce innovations today. In fact, it is AI that humanizes your eCommerce business and allows you to connect with the audience effectively.
Let's discuss the rest in the next section…
Personalized shopping experience
Every time a visitor is on your website, data is generated across multiple touchpoints. So when AI analytics is integrated into your website, the tool can analyze every bit of that data to personalize offerings to each individual's needs and preferences. At the same time, AI-powered systems also use unstructured data from the information found in ratings, reviews, and descriptions for proper curation of the product on the website.
Therefore, with the effective utilization of both behavioral data and metadata, AI takes personalization to another level where it seems that the system can almost read the minds of the users. Personalized search results, offers, and product recommendations can not only help you meet customer expectations, but can also increase business revenue by 15%. Therefore, if you want to improve the appeal of your online store, it is imperative to leverage AI-backed personalization to improve the shopping experience of visitors.
Customer service with chatbots
Do you know that chatbots can reduce business operating costs by 30% by answering 80% of user questions? It is clear from these statistics that AI-powered chatbots play a critical role in improving customer retention, engagement, and loyalty.
Programmed to address user queries without manual interference, chatbots can offer customer support, nurture leads, collect feedback, and recommend relevant products to customers. If you're wondering how to use chatbot the right way for your business, take note of how brands are leveraging this AI application. Sephora, the leading cosmetics brand, has a chatbot on Kik that asks specific questions to help visitors search for products they are interested in. On the other hand, eBay has expanded to offer ShopBot, a virtual shopping assistant that allows each customer to find specific products. products on its platform.
And if you want to integrate a chatbot into your eCommerce website, you sure can do it. However, in that case, you may need to hire an eCommerce website development expert for technical assistance.
Visual search and image recognition.
Do you remember the phrase 'a picture is worth a thousand words'? Millennials seem to have resonated with it, as 62% of them now prefer visual search on Amazon, Pinterest and other channels to text-based searches. In fact, the scenario is quite pleasant for the e-commerce domain as a Gartner report suggests that visual search can increase the revenue of this sector by 30% in 2021.
Once again, AI-based image recognition technology has opened the e-commerce door to visual search, helping customers find relevant products in less time. For example, Amazon has launched a new shopping feature called StyleSnap in its app to quickly discover products. And as users upload images to the search engine, the image recognition model finds similar products available on Amazon and provides them with all of that. So, are you ready to leverage visual commerce for your business?
Inventory planning and sales forecasting.
Wondering how AI serves store managers or owners? We give you the answer. Just as AI improves the shopping experience and personalizes the customer journey, it also streamlines your action processes in many ways. With AI-powered software, you can identify the most purchased and least popular items on your eCommerce platform during a particular time period.
Apart from that, you can collect data about previous purchases and update the sales department about the same. Additionally, using the AI mechanism can help predict how upcoming events or festivals may affect sales. Therefore, being aware of the rise and fall in demand will help you draw important conclusions and make strategic decisions. Overall, implementing AI in eCommerce can help you manage inventories, optimize warehousing and logistics, and thus eliminate unwanted costs.
If you want an eCommerce store with capabilities like inventory management and tax and shipping integration, you can contact a website design company with enough experience in creating feature-rich online stores.
Do you have any other questions about creating eCommerce websites? Read the Ecommerce FAQ – Answered and then decide your next course of action.
Monitoring key performance metrics
Building an online store is just a modest start, as regular monitoring of key performance indicators is what can help you find consistent e-commerce success. Previously, gathering and evaluating KPI data with traditional tracking tools was a real struggle. However, today, with the advent of AI mechanisms, administrators or sellers can analyze the performance of their e-commerce websites for important metrics such as website traffic, number of transactions, rate of cart abandonment, customer lifetime value and conversion rate, among others.
Based on these metrics, you can decide if you are on the right path to achieving your business goals. Depending on the requirements, you can optimize the website structure, adjust the marketing strategy and take other important measures to maximize the return on your investment.
For now, do you need some tips to reduce the cart abandonment rate on your website? For actionable insights, read this blog Say “NO” to Shopping Cart Abandonment with 10 Pro Tips.
Voice-enabled product searches
After boosting the home automation market, AI-backed voice search technology is now seeping into the e-commerce domain and is about to transform its face in the future. Yes, this trend is still in its infancy, but look at how big retail brands are paving the way by using voice search functionality for customer interaction. For example, Johnnie Walker, the Scotch whiskey brand, has partnered with Google Home to launch its voice search feature that asks customers about their preferences and even recommends the most suitable product for them.
Domino's, on the other hand, has started its own voice assistant on Facebook Messenger to receive voice commands from customers. It may take a long time before this technology gains wide acceptance, but you can plan something similar to give your eCommerce brand a competitive advantage later. No need to get nervous now. Just think about it when you think it's convenient.
Final thought: AI is no longer a flashy option for your online store, but has become essential to e-commerce innovation overall. As we discuss and highlight here, harnessing the power of AI can simplify your retail business operations, ensure optimal utilization of resources, and deliver a personalized shopping experience to your valued customers. We hope your store will grow and stay ahead of the competition using this cutting-edge technology. All the best!
