With the efficient support of data conversion services, enterprises are becoming digital savvy and embracing digital transformation. Due to digitization, e-commerce and online distribution are growing fast. The world has shifted dramatically in the present digital age. We now live in a world where you have always-on consumers who operate in an on-demand mode always. They consume what they want, when they want, in whatever format from any location. This always-on connected society presents a unique opportunity for e-commerce to harness the power of mobile, social and big data to add context to shopping.
The rise of disruptive technology like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is transforming the e-commerce industry. It has enhanced shopping experience for consumers and improved efficiency. AI is constantly being developed, and brands and retailers are getting better at leveraging consumer and behavioral data. This helps businesses conduct one-to-one marketing and innovate systems in fulfilment centres and logistics warehousing, thereby reducing delivery lead time for local and international shipments. The e-commerce industry is expected to achieve a grossing $700 billion by the year 2022. The use of artificial intelligence or machine learning in e-commerce is paving the way for online portals that are safe, and profitable. Here are some reasons to use AI for E-commerce.
- Helps understand what your customer wants: Majority of the customers abandon online shopping because the results that are being showcased to them do not match their requirements. But AI helps to automatically organize and tag the search results with hi-end features and thereby narrows down the choices to meet the customer’s need. Magento e-commerce development service providers have started leveraging the power of AI for customer centric search on the ecommerce websites that they build.
- Customers prefer personalization: Every customer likes a little customization according to their wants and AI can provide deeper levels of personalization and it can put multiple consumer touch points under consideration to help e-commerce businesses find out how consumers tend to interact online. According to a report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), retailers that have implemented personalization strategies in their e-commerce web shops see sales gains of 6-10 percent which is a rate two to three times faster than other retailers.
- Inventory planning: Inventory management is an essential element in e-commerce business and being out of stock is a nightmare for online business because it can lead to losing customers. Similarly, over stocking is also not a good option because it can lead to capital loss. AI helps e-commerce with inventory planning. AI helps to regulate the frequency and velocity of orders on a real-time basis and ensure that you never run out of stock.
- Retarget your potential customers: It can be difficult for businesses to manage all the potential customers. But with AI you can use face recognition to capture the dwell time of each customer and track their products of their interest. AI anticipates special offers on customer’s computer screens based on their in-store dwell time. By reading customers’ minds, retargeting a wide range of potential customers becomes easier.
- Product recommendation: AI is greatly helpful for e-commerce website design also because it helps with product recommendation, payment fraud detection, customer support and moderating product images. Today with large-volume data, data complexity and work complexity are very high and efficient decision making with unstructured data becomes difficult. In such situations, AI helps in apt recommendation of certain products based on attributes like customer preference, feedback, and latest trends.
- Chat bots for customer support: Chatbots are specific computer programs that can stimulate conversation with human users over the Internet and these are ideal for improving customer service. Social media channels like FB are widely using messenger functionality to confirm orders or to provide instantaneous online support. Chatbots can be also used in shopping carts or multiple shopping carts which help in retrieving vital data to provide accurate answers to customers’ questions. There are many ways to reach customers such as contact forms, phone calls, and email, but Chatbots can be considered a great alternative to reach a wider audience in less time.
- Leverage AI Image search: Image-sharing sites like Pinterest are in vogue, and various online retailers have invested in AI image search. By embedding artificial intelligence into digital images marketing, companies build a data science model that gets relevant product offerings to consumers across the social web. By 2020, 85 percent of interaction between retailers and customers will be supported by AI.
- Virtual assistants for shoppers: Today, almost everyone uses virtual agents like Siri, Google Now and Alexa that have successfully introduced talking to your phones or laptops or home appliances to get things done.
- Dealing with fake reviews: Fake reviews are a major concern for all businesses. Reviews are the foundation of trust in the world of online shopping. Both positive and negative reviews affect the purchase decision of the customers. So fake reviews need to be identified and with AI system you can easily verify reviews and boost positive reviews.
From the above points we can understand that AI helps e-commerce businesses improve efficiency and provide better customer experience. For many retailers, successfully leveraging AI may require partnering with data conversion company.
