6 Powerful Ways to Use AI in Ecommerce

Using AI makes the world advanced and connected. With its pros and cons of AI is present in every area of our lives, whether we're reading social media, getting driving directions or movie recommendations. What about the world of online shopping? Of course, it is no exception.

To compete in online business, retail companies use machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, and facial recognition. These technologies promote a better understanding of online shoppers, generate new leads, and provide an unparalleled customer experience.

It's amazing to see how the use of artificial intelligence has helped ecommerce to set a new example for businesses around the globe. Machine learning ecommerce is boosting marketing standards with its ability to improve performance over a period of time. 

Ecommerce businesses are foreseeing immense potential of artificial intelligence to increase their income in ways that they never could before. That is why such companies as Facebook, IBM, and Yahoo have already publicly expressed their focus on developing AI as a new source of business and are investing heavily in artificial intelligence initiatives. 

So if you are pondering how to use AI to benefit your ecommerce business, here is the answer.

Boost sales efficiency

AI, in the form of a virtual assistant, ​​can process large volumes of simultaneous requests - nonstop in real-time. It can answer all questions as soon as possible, provide the best offers for particular customers, sort any issue a consumer may have, fix, and even discover new prospects.

The use of artificial intelligence allows collecting data about customers for retargeting. Particularly, AI can help to decrease cart abandonment rate - when customers cancel their orders at the checkout process or even earlier. Implementing digital retargeting strategies powered by AI can enhance customer re-engagement by showing personalized ads that remind them of their abandoned carts and encourage them to complete the purchase.

According to Statista, in 2019, the online cart abandonment rate worldwide comprised 69.57%. 

With the technological support that comes from using AI, you can automate follow-up emails for any abandoned cart. This can, consequently, provide you with data as to why your leads had decided to give up when they were so close to converting. The information you attain can help you remove those reasons that made customers leave their carts and thus boost your sales.

Personalize customers’ experience

Those who shop online demand highly personalized experience which adds value to their lives. AI is working to transform the journey of shoppers.

For example, an ecommerce business can deliver a seamless customer experience across all platforms thanks to an AI engine. Whether it is a mobile application, a website, or an eCommerce email campaign, artificial intelligence sits on top. It is continuously monitoring all devices and channels to create a universal customer view.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies drive AI shopping personalization experience by performing the analysis of data sets and then identifying different patterns of consumer behavior. As a result, new deep levels of customization are penetrating the fast-growing ecommerce world, unlocking consumer's intent. 

Ecommerce is now focused on building experiences for the individual, and not the mass market. Many ecommerce businesses are already becoming more sophisticated with their AI shopping strategies in capturing attention, and one of them is 'conversational commerce'. This means buying through chat interfaces that speak to people in natural language. Many businesses use chatbots for this purpose. So, the use of artificial intelligence through the application of ‘chatbots’ is a way to drive the conversation in this next era of ecommerce.

Employ chatbots

Chatbots are one of the most cost-effective AI uses. This service largely decreases the response time while saving money on hiring customer service reps. Usually, when consumers are browsing online, they may be logged into social platforms. Having this in mind, it is possible to use a messenger functionality to confirm orders or to provide instant online support. Integrating a chatbot system into a shopping cart is also a great idea - just think what a refreshing experience it will be.

Many ecommerce businesses state that chatbots provide a timely and valuable customer support solution. Surely, there are some alternatives, such as contact forms or emails. Bur online chat remains the fastest and, in many cases, the most convenient means for shoppers.

Read your customers’ minds

You must have experienced how ecommerce websites are continually showing the products similar to those you just checked. Well, it is also one of the uses of artificial intelligence in ecommerce. AI and machine learning algorithms can predict the behavior of the shopper from their search history, likes, frequently bought products. AI websites “learn” to recommend the products that the user is really interested in. Thus, the customer doesn’t have to spend long hours looking for the product and feels as if businesses are reading their minds.

The search engines and other social media platforms, in their turn, display images and ads of the product related to the one the customer likes. At the same time, machine learning tracks the purchasing patterns of the customers and generates proper insights out of this data. This helps in the understanding of an individual buyer or the whole population as well. Understanding the customer buying pattern can make ecommerce business to introduce changes wherever needed and predict the next buy of the customer.

Speed up work behind the scenes

Backend operations of ecommerce businesses are also seeing some serious benefits from AI technology. With machine learning being integrated widely across the sector, many warehouses today manage their inventory and delivery operations through AI. 

Warehouse operations are becoming very sophisticated using AI. Robotics of companies like Amazon and Ocado are at the forefront. For example, Amazon has 40 fulfillment centers in Europe with a distribution network relying on a warehouse robot workforce of 100,000 autonomous vehicles. These self-drive bots navigate using QR codes printed on the ground. Thus, humans don’t have to lift a huge weight, and the delivery speed gets increased by several times.

Searches beyond words

Artificial intelligence has made it possible to create innovative visual search capabilities. Buyers can search based on images by simply pointing their phone cameras towards any commodity. 

One of the most prominent examples of online visual search is a Chrome extension by Pinterest, which allows people to eliminate the need for a keyword. For instance, at a random shot in a restaurant, someone spots the exact teapot they were looking for. With the photo, consumers can find all those things they don't have the words to describe. 

Users can also zoom in on a particular object in a Pin's image and discover visually similar objects, colors, patterns, and more. Pinterest uses deep learning to find out powerful image features by utilizing a richly annotated dataset of billions of its images.

AliExpress also uses visual search to serve its global ecommerce users better and defeat the language barrier. Customers do not need to describe the target object using terms relating to color, style, brand, etc. 

Ecommerce websites and their mobile apps leverage visual searches on their platforms. An investment in visual search-enabled platforms can help emerging brands identify their target audiences based on tastes, and convert them into shoppers. Established ecommerce retailers can benefit from visual search as well, assisting customers in locating products from a massive catalog quickly.

Note at the end

The face of sales is changing, with businesses reacting directly to the customer.

AI is the tool to make it happen, allowing ecommerce businesses to analyze millions of interactions every day, and eventually, target offers down to an individual customer – an experience every business dreams to provide.

With AI-enabled digital platforms ecommerce businesses are witnessing an exponential hike in their sales. Artificial intelligence data research in the field of ecommerce is  leveraging the sales of ecommerce too. AI powers ecommerce websites in providing the best user experience. 
For anyone who runs an online store, staying informed, and implementing changes quickly is the way to stay on the leading edge. If you are ready to  embrace the change, Zfort Group, a reliable Artificial Intelligence Development Company is always ready to help.