Online shopping is a giant trend that is loved and followed by millions of people all over the globe. We all are habituated to use our digital devices for ordering even basic items. It has given a new face to the business world where they get a better interface to link and communicate with their customers globally.
The e-commerce sector has been ruling in the market since a longer span, but it has gained a massive take-off after the Big Rona situation. People are locked in their houses, and the only possible way to get the needed essentials is through online delivery services. But have you ever wondered how such immense growth of the e-business is taking place? It is due to the adoption of advanced human intelligent technology, worldwide known as Artificial Intelligence.
While opening any online shopping application like Amazon, have you ever noticed that the product that you searched before came again in front of you to catch your attention. It gives a reminder to you about the previous activities. All these are possible due to AI. In the e-commerce industry, artificial intelligence is sharing a big hand to make the online business more effective and accurate. It works as a 24/7/365 support system for e-business to handle and remain present for their customers.
AI in e-commerce manages everything, starting from handling repetitive tasks to helping the managers make better decisions based on real-time analysis. Due to such wider usability, the global AI market will hit $267 Billion by 2027.
To make the glimpses of artificial intelligence more bright in the e-commerce industry, so the business owner gets a better idea about using it to take their firm to a better level, I am presenting this article. It will showcase all the ways in which AI is affecting the e-business sector.
It will be an enthusiastic journey to learn about it for an excelling e-commerce future.
Let’s get started.
Revolutionary Impact Of AI On E-commerce
Intensifying your sales by getting more leads by boosting the customer experience is possible by shifting your strategic development efforts towards AI. This technology has the capabilities to open more and better doors for the e-commerce sector.
The below points shows the revolutionary impact of artificial intelligence on e-commerce that has added many new functionalities in this online business world. Let us look into it.
1. Shaked Our Hand With Virtual Assistant Called ‘Bots’
The e-business gains a 24×7 assisting tag for their customers using virtual assistance only. At the time of requirement, the chatbots are available to provide the answers to their queries that lead to the improvement of their personalized experience. This is the major and unavoidable aspect of retaining clients for a longer span.
Unlike waiting to get a response from the customer support section, chatbots are the faster and convenient mode of channel for the consumers to get an answer. AI is taking center stage to make shopping more conversational. The statistical data for the same is as shown in the figure below-
Involving bots will be a smart step to grow your e-business store. The assistant will make the visitors’ tour even more meaningful, and time-effective to straight away look for the required item. By having a quick conversation with the user, the chatbots can also provide them better offers that suit their taste. Also, they can connect with the virtual assistant if they find any order-related issues. The NLP algorithms of the chatbots are developed in such a way that handles all their concerns and gives them suitable responses. It saves the company from getting negative feedback and a 1-star experience certificate from their customers. Adding a little chat window can save you and your employees’ considerable amount of time, money, and efforts to shape a better customer-centric strategy.
A popular example of an e-commerce store using a chatbot for enhancing beauty is Sephora. As women are always pretty more concerned about their beauty products, giving more insights into it will gain their maximum attention towards your company. As shown in the figure below, providing the key details about their requirements will give exact results to improve their shopping experience.
Even without human involvement, the buyers can get a satisfactory and customized experience using the bots that accomplish all the skills that the customer representatives have to give the best to their clients.
2. Made Shopping Hands-free
Are you still texting Google to find the cheapest rate of the product you are looking for? If yes, it is high time to wake up yourself. Voice search is the leading aspect that grabs the attention of the public. Saying “OK, Google” and getting the response to your question is the hands-free trend that the e-commerce industry is using to a great extent.
Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana are here to make the customers’ experience more flexible and personalized. Many e-business firms are using the voice search option as a potent source and element of digital marketing strategies to develop an attractive online identity.
Online store infrastructure is already giving customers the advantage to shop at their own pace. Adding a voice assistant to it even frees up their hand that previously needed to type for the required item. Now, the only requirement is the pleasing ‘voice’ of the visitors to become a satisfied buyer.
Amazon, the bigwig of the e-business sector, has already expanded its wings in developing this voice-controlled model. By hearing your sound, Alexa will place the order, and within the specified time, the product will reach your doorstep. Simply saying Alexa and the name of the product you want within a couple of seconds will showcase the best list of items. After finalizing the product, it will ask for your confirmation. Making the buying practice more secure, it added a four-digit pin identification in it. Along with this, Alexa also provides a deal of the day and exclusive offers to the customers based on their previous searches and buying history.
Voice search made it possible for the customers to place orders even when their hands are not accessible to type. It develops an engaging platform where they find themselves ordering to someone who hears their voice and gives responses in a human-like manner. This hits up the voice shopping trend to about $40 billion by 2022, giving an immense opportunity to the player of the e-commerce industry to become a game-changer by adopting this trend.
3. Personalized Shopping Experience
Personalization is the potent aspect that snatches online shoppers’ attention. This concept is not at all new in the e-business world, but with AI technology, the level of customer behavior determination has increased to a considerable level. Many AI solutions are available today, but among all of them, the top-ranked engine is the Boomtrain. It provides complete details linked to the customers. It shows the interaction level of the clients via different platforms. Whether it is a website, mobile application, or simply an email, this solution continuously keeps an eye on it to analyze buyers’ views. This truly supports the report that says that AI will power 95% of customer interaction by 2025 year.
This real-time data tremendously helps the shopper to get the right thing without wasting much time. Wondering how? Let us take an example where a shopper is looking for an Apple smartwatch. After searching for varieties of watches, they found that the prices were higher and dropped to buy them. AI-engine gathers this data, and the next time the customer again uses the platform, it notifies them above flash sale in smartwatches to grab their attention. The customer directly clicks on it and successfully makes a purchase. The advantages of such a personalized campaign are as shown in the figure below-
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Giving such a seamless purchasing experience to the shopper sets their mind to come back to the same platform in the future. It starts building a good image of your store in their mind that even enhances the chances of bringing more customers on a long term basis.
4. Makes Inventory Management Smarter
Giving the right item to the right individual at the specified time is all possible when your inventory is managed well. Effective management is the prime requirement for your business, whether thinking for your customers or in-house management of the payroll for your workers. Identifying and using the best payroll and salary management solution is the key takeaway for running your business without pausing.
AI-powered tools save your time and manual efforts for handling your inventory. Think if you still follow the traditional management tactic and use the long registers to keep the records, will you be able to cope with the faster and ever-growing demand of the audience. The answer will be a grievous no.
AI successfully handles the inventory in real-time and avails the necessary stocks, avoiding the cases of only filling up space that ideally does not require. It also saves your pocket that was previously spent on such unnecessary practices. Artificial intelligence also gives you an idea about the futuristic demand graph and helps in managing the stock accordingly. It tracks the changing trend, considers seasonal demands, studies supply channels, analyzes production orders, and gives better recommendations to remain prepared for the coming updates.
Also, AI possesses the competence to determine the safety levels for the workers working in the warehouse to avoid any accidental cases. It is the most extensive loss a company has to suffer. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a safe workplace, and it is possible to do so using AI.
AI is completely changing inventory management by automating many tasks using the robotic system. They are the one that makes the warehouse smarter, remaining ready to work round the clock. Such automated robots quickly set up the whole godown placing the right product in suitable space within a couple of minutes. It reduces the great time that is required for setting the inventory to remain prepared for orders. E-commerce is leading the game for using robotics, as shown in the figure below-
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All these combinedly help to frame better decisions based on predictive analysis and with a better management structure to stand out on the demand of the market and to become a reputable e-commerce company.
5. Added Visual Search Functionality
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Many times even after typing the exact product item, we find difficulties in searching for the perfect match. Scrolling up and up consumes a lot of time of the customers, and eventually, what they do is simply click the exit tag. This loses their interest in your shop and results in closing the door of the potent client for your online store. If such cases occur regularly, will you be able to tolerate and move forward with them? Surely not. It will bend the growth graph sharply downwards.
AI erases your worries by giving visual search features to your e-commerce store. What do the buyers need to do to use it? Simply turn on the camera and click the picture of the required product, and within few seconds, the results will come in front of them as shown in the figure below-
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Visual search 100% matches their requirement and takes their experience to another level. Users can also upload the image to find the relevant item. Companies like Amazon, Myntra, Pinterest, and many more on the list are taking this snap functionality seriously to enhance their sales by engaging more and more customers with it. Computer vision and deep learning are the backend heroes that perfectly link the requirement with the results by comparing the color, fabric, and pattern.
This customer understanding algorithm of AI makes it worth getting a significant place in the e-business sector.
6. Reviews- True Or False
Feeling surprised with this title? Let me clarify its meaning. As artificial intelligence is spread throughout the whole world, similar to that, fake views are also reaching each corner of the world. The expansion of such reviews is more harmful and influences online stores. Generation of such data may take place by the rivals to decrease the sales of your store. In the internet world, customers are paying more attention to such reviews that affect their decision, and the statistical data for it is as shown in the figure below-
What to do to secure your firm from such counterfeit activities? The answer is through AI.
Artificial intelligence determines such astroturfing activities. It is basically the practice of creating false reviews and sharing them on multiple channels that affect the company’s image. Consumes consider it to be a reasonable and authenticated view of the firm. Online stores do not have any physical base to get the essence of the right things; customers’ reviews become the cornerstone for their strong reputation.
Amazon, a leading e-commerce firm, also came in this colossal cyclone of fake reviews. To give an intense fight against such activities, Amazon uses artificial intelligence to filter out such reviews to get its platform’s actual and correct rating. This helps the customers to consider the authenticated comments and accordingly help in making a decision to consider the store or not.
Continuously keeping an eye on the review pattern and finding the wrong views will build a positive and trustworthy image that will gain appreciation from the customers. AI also ensures that the verified reviews of the potent customers reach maximum audiences that help them in better framing their thoughts. Building such an identity is the prime requirement to run a business on the internet successfully.
7. Tackles Complex Problems
All of the points mentioned above thoroughly tells us about how AI is continuously making efforts to enhance the customer experience. Do you feel some lacking element in it, especially taking into account the Indian scenario? Is it puzzling your mind? Let me help you. It is the late delivery cases. As a customer, what we consider is the company does not realize the importance of promises they made in the form of timely delivering the product.
But this is not the genuine case in every situation. India, being following huge different formats to write their address is the most tricky task for the company to look into. It becomes very challenging to match the address with the geolocation. This increases the cases of late delivery, returning orders, and rerouting.
Flipkart, a leading Indian e-business firm, came across a similar problem. Senior Flipkart data scientist named Rabindra Babu explained that even in the same house, the pattern for mentioning address differs. Each follows a separate format. Just as writing Marathahalli or Maratha Halli, two ways are possible.
They developed a system using AI, ML, and deep learning to get a clarified address format to solve this complex issue. This approach brings intelligence into the address that indeed played a pivotal role in improving the accuracy of timely deliveries keeping in view the security concern to avoid any fraudulent activities.
Final Thoughts
Artificial Intelligence + e-commerce= Booming Tomorrow. This is the sole mantra that every e-business owner must consider and should include in their workability. AI answers all the riddles of the e-commerce industry and makes it more worthwhile and smarter.
AI has the capability to scrutinize millions of users’ data daily and ultimately sets the target as per individual customer’s preferences. This impossible dream is fulfilled by adopting artificial intelligence. Providing such deeper insights makes the customer experience better and personalized by getting all the required information and necessary helper at the right time and in the proper format. Do you find yourself far away from grabbing this opportunity? What are you waiting for? Come and implement such technology to add the fifth star to your e-business store.
About the Author
Sweta is an experienced content strategist at FactoHR, having a keen interest in communication and the latest trends that are useful to entrepreneurs. Her passion for learning aids the team members in representing new ideas that later help businesses achieve their mission and vision.
