AI technology is profiting every industry, including e-commerce. Do you know what wonders can AI do when coupled with e-commerce? Let’s find out! This blog talks about the benefits of artificial intelligence in the e-commerce business (for maximum sales and ROI).
As more people have started online shopping, there’s no denying that the e-commerce industry is growing at an unprecedented pace. In 2021 (as of yet), there are 2.14 billion global digital buyers. In fact, experts say that 95% of purchases will be made online by 2040. That’s a lot of potential customers. And this number has been rising rapidly over the years and will continue to do so.
These stats push many businesses to invest in e-commerce website development. Consequently, they look for a reputable e-commerce web development company that can help them build successful e-commerce websites that drive sales and lots of revenue.
But in today’s competition-driven world, developing a regular e-commerce site will not help you win an edge over your rivals. You need to back your online stores with the most robust technology present today i.e., artificial intelligence (AI).
In fact, Gartner’s study revealed that in 2020, more than 80% of customer interaction in the e-commerce industry was handled by AI. When it comes to driving growth in the e-commerce industry, AI seems to be playing a crucial role. That said, the future of e-commerce is certainly bright with AI.
AI is beyond high-tech experiences, such as chatbots and voice assistants. Let’s explore what AI holds for e-commerce businesses and hot merchants that can benefit from AI. But first, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of AI transforming businesses.
How Is AI Transforming E-Commerce Businesses?
AI in the e-commerce industry is leveraged by online store owners for offering chatbot services, analyzing customer comments, providing personalized services to online buyers, etc. The use of AI in online shopping is actually transforming e-commerce businesses by predicting shopping patterns based on the products that shoppers buy and when they buy them.
For instance, if shoppers frequently buy a particular brand of clothes every month, the merchants can send them a personalized offer related to the same brand’s products. In fact, e-commerce AI tools or AI-enabled digital assistants, such as the Google Duplex, are growing capabilities like creating grocery lists (from the shopper’s natural voice) and even placing online shopping orders for them.
Cool, no?
10 Advantages of Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Your E-Commerce Store
Optimized Search
Search plays a vital role in the e-commerce business. Therefore, it needs to be smart enough. That said, integrating AI into the search capability of your e-commerce site can help your store learn how each user searches with their preferences, interest, and needs. AI can predict and understand what your buyers want instantly by recognizing the users’ attributes and intelligent searches.
Smart Product Search
Another most important feature on any e-commerce platform (related to search) is product searching. It helps customers to find products matching their interests through keywords. And, of course, AI plays an integral role here as well. Product search uses a combination of natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision to enhance search by keywords and images.
Voice Assistants
Alexa and Siri have really made things easier. Whatever you want is just one voice away. Thanks to AI. Studies show that by 2024, consumers will interact with voice assistants on over 8.4 billion devices, overtaking the world’s population. Therefore, seeing this ever-growing demand for voice assistants, e-commerce store owners are integrating AI into their e-commerce sites.
Personalized Recommendation
The best thing about artificial intelligence is it gives personalized recommendations to users. Remember how Netflix tells you the related shows/movies based on your previous watches? AI uses smart algorithms. That said, when you integrate AI in your e-commerce store, you can give your potential buyers a personalized product recommendation based on their past purchases, searches, and browsing history.
Predictive Marketing
If you want to have a better idea of what your customers will buy next and when you need to adopt predictive marketing. It uses machine learning (a subset of AI) that predicts consumer behavior and lets you know about it. With predictive marketing, your e-commerce website will be optimized to show what your customers want to see, how they see it, and even suggest prices for the products you sell/offer.
Accelerated Automation
There’s no denying that e-commerce is a flourishing business. As your online store starts growing, the number of repetitive tasks increases with it. With AI, automation takes over and seamlessly performs these regular tasks and simplifies frontend/backend workflows. When you integrate AI in your e-commerce site, everything from uploading new products, applying discounts to scheduling sales, you can automate anything.
Data Analytics and Lead Generation
Data plays a vital role in making or breaking an e-commerce business. And if you don’t want your e-commerce business to fall due to data, adopt artificial intelligence for data analytics and lead generation. The main reason behind making the processes AI-driven is to extract relevant data. It is useful in generating leads, understanding the needs of customers, and even predicting consumer behavior.
Dynamic Pricing
Many e-commerce platforms, such as Amazon, use dynamic pricing tools for product sales. Backed with big data and machine learning algorithms, dynamic pricing adjusts product prices in real-time based on certain factors, including inventory and supply and demand estimations. Plus, this model can help you predict future prices too. Dynamic pricing is one of the beneficial things to leverage if you want your e-commerce store to prosper.
Fraud Detection and Prevention
Many big and even small companies are already using ML technology to identify fraudulent credit card transactions and detect subtle patterns and variations that can easily escape human notice. E-commerce involves more risks than any other business; thus, you need AI technology for fraud risk management. Not only it prevents and controls risks in real-time, but it also ensures secure online payments.
Better Customer Service
Research says that chatbots will save over $8 billion (annually) by 2022. Using artificial intelligence to communicate with your customers can also help you save lots of money for your e-commerce store. ML technology lessens human effort and embraces automated, smart, and solution-oriented replies to customers. Deploy it right away, satisfy your customers, and reap the maximum benefits.
Winding Up
That’s all! We hope this article helped you understand how AI is transforming e-commerce businesses and the advantages it holds for your online store. So now that you have understood how beneficial (and important) artificial intelligence is for your e-commerce business, it’s time to implement all the learnings, back your online store with AI, and take your e-commerce business to a whole new level.
