e-Commerce brands are using artificial intelligence to capture their customer’s behavior, to offer personalized services, targeted ads and ultimately boost sales. AI gleans the best insights from data.
Artificial Intelligence is a ground-breaking technology that has taken the world by storm. From banking and finance to healthcare and education, there isn’t a single industry positively impacted by AI.
According to Narrative Science, 61% of businesses alone used AI in some form or another in 2017. Artificial intelligence has enabled them to improve workforce productivity, automate repetitive tasks, and compete with peers efficiently.
For more than 20% of CIOs, AI is one of the top five investment priorities in 2020. According to a Statista survey, the global revenue generated from AI last year was $482 billion. The figure is set to surpass $3061 billion by 2024.
When it comes to e-Commerce, AI has enhanced the entire buy-and-sell experience for both online merchants and consumers. Hyper-personalization is on the rise thanks to algorithm-powered retargeting strategies.
Companies of all scale and size are implementing artificial intelligence for recommending products, detecting fake reviews, customer service and sales forecasting among many other applications.
No wonder, a 2018 U.S. Census Bureau report states that the online revenues, specifically, have shown impressive growth by eating into an additional 1.5% of the annual retail sales for the past several years. This feat completely goes to AI.
And with over 80% of online customer interactions to be handled by AI by 2020, we know for sure that artificial intelligence is here to stay, and it will continue to make great strides in the e-Commerce industry.
Since, at the end of the day, every e-Commerce company wants to boost sales and drive more profits. Let’s see the 4 different ways in which you can leverage artificial intelligence in e-Commerce.
- By creating relevant content
Content is one of the key deciding factors in a successful sales funnel. The AI algorithms take into account: customer preferences, purchase history, contextual information, and third-party data before presenting them with relevant product recommendations.
However, that is not it. AI helps online merchants to develop better-performing content to reach the right audience with enticing and relevant content. That ‘content’ could be in the form of retargeted ads or blogs that would interest consumers.
AI raises the probability of conversions by eliminating the guesswork and increasing the accuracy of online marketing campaigns.
Click here to read more about “Automated AI experiments – A Key to Success in e-Commerce“.
- By ensuring virtual assistance
Do you know the sales team does not follow at least 33% of marketing leads? The reason being the data-in-hand is too overwhelming. The pre-qualified buyers interested in a product or service are left behind simply because there’s no way to navigate through data.
That’s where artificial intelligence helps the sales cycle by:
- Offering tailored solutions to consumer pain-points
- Creating a strong sales message that reaches the target buyers at the right platform, on a timely basis
Many AI systems enable voice input and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). This facilitates CRM systems to solve customer queries and identify new opportunities for sales teams. To understand this better, let us discuss The North Face, a US-based e-Commerce retailer of Activewear and outdoor sports gear.
In 2016, they deployed IBM’s Watson platform to help consumers find the right clothing by asking questions such as:
- “When and where will wear your running gear?”
- “Where will use your insulated jacket?”
Using real-time information and additional research on the weather conditions of the places where the buyers plan to wear the gear to find the perfect matches, North Face managed to generate encouraging results within two-months of the testing period.
AI helped them achieve a 60% click-through rate, with 75% of customers willing to come back to the retailer for trying the virtual assistance platform. This was possible because the buyers had real-time help to pick out relevant clothing.
Click here to know more about “The Future of SMB e-Commerce by Using AI“.
- By optimizing search intent
Consumers hate it when an e-Commerce store shows them completely irrelevant product results. AI comes in handy to tackle the problem as the technology implements NLP to contextualize and improve search results for online shoppers.
Deep learning, predictive analysis, and statistical programming of massive data sets are possible with AI algorithms. Many retailers implement these techniques to capture consumer behavior.
AI enables e-Commerce companies to have visual search capabilities, i.e., finding and matching products. For example: if a consumer takes a photo of his friend’s new shoes and uploads it on the website, the technology can find similar items.
Hotstar, an India-based online streaming platform, is developing algorithms to derive useful intelligence from the daily data they collect. Their algorithm predicts the most-watched shows and recommends relevant TV shows and movies to users.
Click here to know about “The 3 Ways to Use Artificial Intelligence in e-Commerce Marketing“.
- By automating warehouse management
Predictive sales help in organizing and managing warehouse inventories. An essential part of the e-Commerce industry, warehousing operations play a crucial role in deciding the trends of sales for an online merchant.
In simple words, it is vital to ensure the company is well-stocked, especially with products in high demand.
Recently, the Beijing-based e-Commerce giant JD.com employed artificial intelligence to boost multiple warehouse processes such as parcel sorting, packaging and categorizing. That helped them improve the speed and efficiency of the sorting mechanisms and ensure faster deliveries.
Click here to know about “What is AI driven AI in e-Commerce“.
Summing up
While artificial intelligence has shaped the e-Commerce industry in many ways, its scalability is only expected to increase. This increase will enable higher accuracy in personalized offers and recommendations, identification of better prospects, boosting sales and bridging the gap between personalization and cost.
There’s no denying that AI is on its way to becoming a dominating technology trend in customer service and beyond. Therefore, don’t stay behind and leverage AI’s full potential with Datoin.
Get in touch with our team of experts to implement AI technologies in your business and stay ahead of the curve.