Artificial intelligence is becoming a more and more essential part of daily life. You're likely already encountering AI at airport self-checkout registers; more will undoubtedly appear over time. With Microsoft and Google investing heavily in new AI initiatives, AI could experience exponential growth over the coming two years.
Your online relevant search will reveal hundreds of articles discussing artificial Intelligence (AI). One recent business insider study suggests that up to 85% of customer interactions could be handled without needing someone physical by 2020; moreover, eCommerce businesses use some form of AI technology in some form or another to enhance customer service, better understand customers, generate leads more efficiently, etc.
How Artificial Intelligence Can Be Used in E-commerce?
1. Construct Customer-Focused Product Search
Amir Konigsberg is the CEO of Twiggle, an eCommerce engine designed to work like humans. Consumers often abandon eCommerce experiences because product results seem irrelevant or obsolete - Twiggle uses natural language processing (NLP) techniques to optimize search bar results by narrowing, contextualizing, and improving their relevance for online shoppers.
Clarifai is a US startup tech company working to enhance e-commerce search boxes. It has focused on visual search bar elements in its early efforts - essentially, an "artificial intelligence with eyes." According to their website, Clarifai provides "artificial intelligence with vision."
This B2B company allows developers to develop more innovative applications, which is the world you do. Businesses can then deliver an immersive customer experience using image and video recognition with AI software using machine learning that automatically tags, organizes, and searches content visually by labeling its features.
Custom training allows you to build customized language models to teach AI about any concept, such range of products, logos, aesthetics, or Pokemon! Once created, these new models can be combined with pre-built ones (e.g., Pokemon Trainer)-Media Asset Search experience by keyword or similarity. AI offers companies and developers of all sizes an edge. Recently updated Pinterest Chrome extension allows users to select an object in any online photo and ask the search engine to identify similar products with image recognition software.
With new eCommerce services sites offering visual search query features, shoppers are no longer buying on impulse. Artificial intelligence helps consumers discover products that complement their own, whether by size, color, shape, material, or brand - and this software has outstanding visual capabilities.
Software designed to assist consumers in finding their ideal product is available through images uploaded. No longer do consumers need to shop to locate something they like - an AI solution allows consumers to find similar items through online stores when there's something worth viewing in an image or picture.
2. Targeting Potential Clients is a Great Way to Reach Them
Conversica reported that 33% of marketing leads generated are never followed up on, meaning pre-qualified business buyers who may be interested in your products or services will slip through the cracks and remain unaware.
Businesses possess unmanageable amounts of customer data they need to utilize effectively, leaving a goldmine of insights untapped that could improve the sales cycle and customer experiences. Take retail, for instance; shoplifters have already been captured using facial recognition on CCTV cameras while facial recognition technology measures customer dwell time inside stores - some businesses even employ facial recognition technology specifically as part of an AI shopping experience enhancement system!
Suppose a customer spends significant time near an item, such as clothing. In that case, this indicates omnichannel retail is improving its ability to target existing customers more effectively and is responding directly to individual customer demands, changing sales dynamics. AI technology helps these businesses interpret customer data for optimal success and read their minds as customers interact with products or services offered through multiple channels.
3. Find Exceptional Prospects to Target
AI technology now available provides e-commerce companies with timely intelligence that allows them to overcome B2B business hurdles like lead generation.
Mintigo is a predictive digital marketing firm providing artificial intelligence-powered solutions to digital marketing, CRM, and sales systems. Getty images used Mintigo software to drive new business using data analysis techniques to identify which websites contain images belonging to Getty competitors.
Getty's sales team can use this data to quickly identify prospects with high-quality prospects and gain a competitive advantage when winning new clients. They receive practical sales intelligence across millions of customer records - something AI and machine learning would enable.
4. Improve the Effectiveness of the Sales Process
We no longer employ old-school sales tactics such as cold-calling customers with Yellow Pages product listings to secure sales.
Customers' lives are now heavily shaped by media sources ranging from television commercials and social media ads to Snapchat becoming an influential online sales and digital marketing platform in just 12 months, opening up numerous avenues of potential new sales opportunities for companies. Integrating AI in CRM allows companies to develop messages that reach consumers on each product discovery platform at precisely the appropriate moment.
Siri and Alexa are examples of AI systems that use natural language input, with natural language processing supporting natural language input from customers and issues resolution for sales merchandising teams. AI-powered CRM systems such as Salesforce or Dynamics can handle these functions and more - The North face's success with Watson allows it to help its shoppers find precisely the jacket that matches them!
Voice input technology enables them to ask customers direct questions like "Where and how will you wear this jacket?." IBM software then analyzes thousands of demand products based on real-time customer feedback and research explicitly conducted around your location; for example, the weather. AI has already begun affecting online commerce, and the sales checkout process quickly adapts to the newly available information. AI promises to revolutionize how companies engage customers, giving faster access to data while entirely using employees.
5. Personalize Your Experience Across All Devices
You're likely familiar with Amazon already; with rapid advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence, its use has revolutionized e-commerce to an unprecedented depth of personalization. AI-powered personalization employs a multichannel strategy. Boomtrain and other AI engines sit atop customer touchpoints to analyze customers' online interactions.
AI engine continuously tracks customer interactions across channels and devices such as websites, mobile applications, email marketing campaigns, or any other medium to establish an overall view of each customer, allowing eCommerce retailers to deliver a consistent customer experience across B2B ecommerce platforms. Push messaging your customers can save both parties both time and effort in making purchases directly on mobile phones, saving both parties considerable effort in doing so.
6. Chatbots Can Be Used to Add a Touch of Personalization
Technology's rapid advancement has dramatically altered consumer expectations. Now, commerce emphasizes custom experiences tailored to each individual rather than mass marketing, creating multiple touchpoints and influences leading to purchases. As AI becomes more advanced, many eCommerce retailers have devised an unconventional method of drawing customer satisfaction in using "conversational business." This involves merging written, spoken, and visual capabilities in eCommerce to attract attention to themselves as the marketplace rapidly changes around them. Retailers need help meeting this shift.
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Establishing and deploying AI chatbots as part of their marketing strategies is necessary if companies want to remain successful in today's rapidly evolving business climate. Artificial Intelligence plays an integral role in leading conversations during this new era of conversational commerce.
A Chatbot: What is It?
Chatbots, by definition, are computer programs created to replicate human conversations over the Internet. In essence, chatbots serve an invaluable function in operating an online business: specifically when it comes to marketing and operations tasks.
Chatbots streamline ordering while offering cost-effective customer support via social media channels like Facebook. As consumers browse online, many are already signed in, providing the opportunity for instantaneous order confirmation or providing online assistance through messenger features such as Messenger.
Integrate a chatbot into your shopping cart for easy use across any store that uses that search platform, and you will gain more customers if it supports multiple carts. Shopping cart integration helps specific systems gain information such as product quantities, shipping terms, and details of particular products.
Chatbots offer online retailers an effective solution for customer service, though other alternatives like emails, contact forms, and phone calls are available as options to live chat. Live chat remains the fastest and often most accessible method for customers to receive answers to their inquiries quickly and effortlessly.
7. Empower Your Store Employees
Retailers experimenting with chatbots also created similar B2B customer experiences on-site; for instance, Lowe's is one store offering home improvements; At the end of 2014, they unveiled the LoweBot - the world's first self-driving robot!
Lowe is now freeing their store staff up to engage customers more directly. Lowe can thank its tall assistant for welcoming shoppers at the entrance and helping them navigate. Furthermore, this tall assistant assists with employee inventory management to allow more staff time with customers.
8. Virtual Assistants Are a Great Way to Save Time
AI-powered software agents like Siri, Google Now, and Alexa offer online assistance by simplifying life with voice-commanding phones, computers, and appliances. Recently, many virtual assistants have seen helpful updates that use natural language processing (NLP), allowing computers to understand what people are saying.
What Does It Mean to E-commerce Retail?
Explore Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa more closely. Amazon has effectively integrated its virtual assistant, Alexa, into its products and those manufactured by other manufacturers.
Customers can use Amazon Alexa to locate local events through StubHub or arrange transportation using Uber, as well as order Domino's pre-event food (and follow its status life) through Domino's or 1-800-Flowers in real-time and send flowers with just voice commands in real-time to any address in the US or internationally using voice recognition technology. Virtual assistants offer eCommerce retailers unique opportunities.
9. Integrate Into Everyday Household Products
Amazon Alexa-enabled fridges from LG's Smart InstaView appliances represent one of the more remarkable AI integration examples.
LG has experimented with its InstaView refrigerator multiple times, including adding large touchscreens integrated into its doors. However, they have introduced webOS and virtual assistance into this version - an invaluable asset in such situations! Online retail may also aid your shopping. No longer will you need to trek out for milk! Imagine what online stores could accomplish by directly accessing consumers' homes!
10. Customers Will Receive Better Recommendations
Intelligence is essential in providing consumers with a personalized shopping experience, which Starbucks has taken great strides toward accomplishing by employing AI to analyze all consumer data and provide more tailored recommendations.
Starbucks recently unveiled their AI service, 'My Starbucks Barista,' which allows customers to place orders using voice commands or text messages. This search algorithm collects customer journey details, account, purchase history, and third-party details - providing a seamless order-placing experience!
Coffee giant Starbucks can now create more tailored messages and recommendations for their B2B customers, thanks to the innovative eCommerce sector, which has changed how consumers shop. Many digital commerce companies seek to recreate an in-person shopping experience online by giving shoppers easy access to finding products. AI technology has already been working to customize recommendations based on subscribers' tastes, and we expect this trend to accelerate significantly over 12 months.
11. Virtual Personal Shoppers Are a Great Way to Introduce Your Customers
As noted in #8, AI also allows brands to build virtual assistants; but AI enables brands to develop "shoppers," who directly assist online customer engagement. Both brands and consumers appreciate the advantages of shopping in stores; customer loyalty can engage directly in conversations with shop assistants.
Customers often request complementary items of specific colors or sizes; when shopping online, these benefits can become limited due to needing to tick boxes and enter keywords - an inefficient buying process that may frustrate some customers. eCommerce retailers must find new and effective solutions for replicating the offline experience online.
Flipkart, an Indian eCommerce firm, has made significant efforts to develop brain-like abilities that enable it to sell intelligently to its 45 million registered buyers online. Ping is an AI-powered messaging app that provided virtual assistance in shopping until 2016 when Flipkart discontinued it after only ten months to focus on user-to-seller chat instead.
Macy's and IBM Watson collaborated in 2016 to develop an AI assistant known as 'Macy's on Call' that provided shoppers in Macy's stores nationwide with helpful information via Watson's Natural Language API, providing shoppers with a convenient shopping experience through voice control tools such as Alexa or Siri. AI will play an increasing role in society as society becomes more efficient. Sentient allows consumers to buy products they didn't even realize existed or wanted! Virtual personal shoppers, an AI-powered customer service tool, demonstrate how far AI is pushing eCommerce aside.
12. Intelligent Agents Are Available to Assist You
With advances in agent and artificial intelligence technology, intelligent agent systems have become an indispensable eCommerce element. Automated agents perform three main functions for sellers and buyers: matching buyers with sellers, facilitating transactions, and providing institutional infrastructure support.
Agents are fully automated systems with complete control over their actions and actions taken. Each agent has their language to respond to its surroundings and take initiative when necessary, such as setting targets on its own. Agents offer AI at its finest; they're also perfect for eCommerce use cases!
13. Create an "Assortment Intelligence" Tool
Customer expectations force retailers to alter their pricing strategy, necessitating multichannel retailers to be flexible when setting prices to keep customer relationships. Assortment intelligence offers retailers 24/7 visibility into competitor product offerings.
Businesses can monitor the product mixes of competitors by monitoring product-mix data, such as segmentation of brand categories and percentage overlap between them and products being sold on the market. With intelligent software, retailers can precisely determine product mix and price while providing full transparency into what relevant products are selling on the market. This gives businesses a competitive edge by providing complete transparency of sales products on offer for sale on market shelves. Intelligent tools also help retailers make specific planning/assortment decisions before measuring impactful impacts for business goal performance analysis purposes.
14. Bridging the Privacy Gap With Personalization
Personalization often sparks concerns over user intent privacy; recently, this topic has become more relevant than ever. Its significance now outshines its previous prominence. Brands strive hard to achieve new levels of transparency, honesty, and security with their operations. To do this, user personalization plays a vital role in any successful eCommerce solutions venture - which many brands think can be solved via artificial intelligence solutions.
Users tend to share more when there is something worthwhile in return. For instance, by giving Google Now account access, its program will sync up all your emails, calendar entries, and search terms history before providing you with an overview of your day - such as any train delays that might make you late for work.
Alexa, Amazon's assistant for everyday life, uses its magical approach to help consumers manage their day-to-day routines. Modern shopping assistant Alexa puts you first while streamlining daily chores. Amazon recently implemented the intelligence required for Alexa to purchase on your behalf, resulting in Echo and Dot devices becoming even more popular and many consumers using Alexa software daily.
15. Wearable Technologies Can Be Used to Generate Sales
Mobile commerce plays a central role in today's e-commerce industry. According to Shopify 2016, mobile traffic eclipsed all other channels for traffic growth in 2016. eCommerce industries face new challenges as wearable technologies such as Fitbit and Apple watch become available.
Wearable technology offers eCommerce platforms great benefits: Wearables can collect more data than eCommerce platforms do today and identify and track user preferences and interests to instantly suggest personalized products. Furthermore, physical data like vital statistics or pupil dilation rates could further customize products - Amazon Go promises a completely cashless shopping user experience; wearable technology enables shoppers to shop without ever needing their wallet!
AI integration will become central to future retail developments as retailers aim to enhance customer experiences using data. eCommerce retailers wishing to stay relevant may utilize artificial intelligence technology in new partnerships to better connect with global clients.
16. Enhance the Dialog Systems
Amazon recently adopted artificial intelligence technologies to resolve standard dialog system challenges such as natural language understanding, speech recognition, and question answering.
Deep learning, an AI technology created from machine learning algorithms, is used by Amazon. Using this method, Amazon accurately transforms consumer speech into text. Additionally, their AI is being used to respond to consumer inquiries by accessing content from website pages, such as user reviews or product details, for example: How many USB ports does this laptop have, if someone were to ask? To respond to consumer concerns as promptly as possible, Amazon works hard to overcome its AI challenges. For instance, one could respond to queries like "How many USB ports does this laptop offer?" utilizing the knowledge they have obtained. Online businesses now have extra channels for communicating with their customers thanks to AI technology.
17. Fake Reviews Are a Problem
Experienced online retailers may have at least one tale to tell about receiving false reviews, from spam comments to customer mistrust issues. Every day the consumer is confronted with numerous advertisements, which may become overwhelming and inhibit making decisions. Word-of-mouth recommendations can provide invaluable support in these circumstances.
Customers influenced by positive online reviews are likely to purchase your product if their personalized experience with it was positive; according to Dimensional Research's study, 90% of respondents who remembered reading online reviews said positive ones influenced them somehow. 86% of respondents reported being influenced by negative online reviews when making purchases, yet 86% also acknowledged being affected by false or fake reviews online. AI can help manage this problem effectively.
18. We Are Combating the Sale of Fake Goods
As with fake reviews (17th on our list), product category attributes such as brand and category can also help detect counterfeit goods.
Consumers may need help identifying counterfeit goods on significant online marketplaces; purchasing one and finding that it performs poorly could tarnish a brand's perception among its target consumers. One solution offered by 3 PM Marketplace Solutions of Chicago provides another layer of protection by employing machine learning algorithms for detection. 3 PM also helps brands understand consumer behavior when researching potential new product opportunities by assisting brands in understanding which channels consumers discover products.
This tech startup then analyzes data collected by online marketplaces to detect which items are fake and artificial intelligence is an exciting solution to combat counterfeit products. Rob Dunkel, the founder of this tech start-up, recently stated that factors like posting conversion rate, type of sold items, and potential false reviews help identify fakers; clients can then submit claims directly with eBay or Amazon to have these fraudulent items taken off sale.
19. Localize Customer Experiences
Now more than ever, we are seeing engines explicitly tailored for specific industries; Wayblazer is an artificial intelligence (AI) platform tailored to travel industry professionals.
Wayblazer uses AI to provide solutions for businesses that sell hotels, tours, cruises, and activities - including those selling tours to B2C companies seeking new revenue through booking hotel stays. Their platform also leverages IBM Watson's natural language abilities for localized potential customer recommendations - click here to watch a video demonstration! Personalizing results reduces much of the overwhelming information provided to travelers, helping them make faster, more confident decisions than before.
AI will grow to the point where customers can enter specific activities and receive tailored responses - for instance, if someone asks where to rock climb on their honeymoon trip, an intelligent system might offer customized recommendations or insights into local attractions they didn't even know existed!
A Wrap-Up
Artificial intelligence may seem inhuman or dehumanizing to some, yet it allows companies to offer customized customer experiences. eCommerce company retailers use artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze millions of customer interactions every day before targeting individual offers to individuals - the dream experience for every marketer! Now more than ever, sales teams can access information they never had access to before. AI-powered sales apps enable sellers to tailor their cycle and engage prospects immediately.
Many articles have discussed AI's effects on industries reliant on manual labor. Marketing expert Seth Godin recently commented that Artificial Intelligence takes over tasks that no one wants to do anyway and performs them better and quietly than humans ever could, taking responsibility away from us but remaining invisible until humans again require humans."
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AI will have an enormous and positive effect on eCommerce sites over the coming years, changing and improving consumers' ways of searching for products online. AI already exists among us - see Instagram or Snapchat and the rapidly declining attention spans of the digital age; signs suggest new AI-powered platforms will play a crucial role in eCommerce's future success.
