Covid pandemic has brought a severe disruption among businesses. But finally, many companies have accepted the circumstances and are implementing ways to get their ships back to the ocean. The traditional ones who lacked social media presence are now leveraging its use, and many have come forward and joined eCommerce platforms to start sailing again.
From 2020 to 2021, the growth of eCommerce had seen a drastic change like never before and is expected to reach $6.54 trillion by 2023, which before the pandemic was $3.53 trillion in 2019.
However, in these challenging times, AI and machine language has not left corporations alone and has been great rescuers. Though the relationship of AI in the eCommerce sector is nothing new, there’s no denying that shopping has gotten quick and more enjoyable with its novel tremendous operations.
The customer services are getting better every other day. Even if we talk about other assortments, all of them can never be ignored. That makes it crucial for companies to maintain a robust online presence to maximize their sales.
Here are the nine ways AI is scaling up the profit of eCommerce businesses that are thriving when everything else is falling.
1. Grocery Shopping Has Gone Digital
Online grocery shopping was the key champions of the covid pandemic. According to a report by Waitrose, today, 77% of people look for their desired products online than 61% in the pre covid era. When we wish to buy a product, most of us first look for it on eCommerce platforms; this is how customer behavior has changed through this pandemic.
With this massive number of people turning to digital shopping, retailers are often placed under increasing pressure to cater to their customers and fulfill their demands. That’s where AI comes with its help.
AI bids these dealers an excellent opportunity to elevate their digital channels and other supply routes. Today they can swiftly and accurately pull their customer and supply chain’s data to augment their network and better serve their customers with their latest demands.
It also allows these sellers to forecast any rowdy or uncertain fair changes coming in the pipeline.
2. Improved Forecasting To Analyze Market Demands And Customers’ Needs
When interacting with AI, customers exhibit many of their context information that can be great for an eCommerce business to better understand its customers’ requirements.
The AI tools efficiently predict what products or services consumers want by analyzing their previous purchases and other browsing histories of products and categories preferred.
Since eyeballing manually on every customer’s preference is not an easy task, AI-based analytics provides the retailer insight into customer’s demands and forecast sales.
It also helps the seller analyze its competitor’s strength and weakness to identify potential threats and opportunities.
3. Intelligent Visual Search Engine
Shoppers are extremely welcoming for the AI software that drives visual searches and is open to all scale businesses. Especially in this pandemic where they have taken a fast shift to eCommerce business.
AI today enables clients to get the desired result with a simple click. All they have to do is have a decent picture of the product they wish to purchase. AI-enabled visual searches are the excellent answer for inaccurate search queries and help the customer find the product that matches their search best; that is why it is known as a revolutionizing technology that gives web searches a new definition.
This visual search reads the photos uploaded by the user and looks for the relevant clues such as size, color, fabric, brand, etc., that helps them find the items similar to it.
4. Voice Search Optimization
Since the technology has progressed significantly and people are restricted to talk outdoor, they love the voice searches eCommerce websites offers. In this natural way of searching, Google’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa are getting much prominence and helps the brands reach a solid number of customers who love using voice searches for their shopping queries.
Customers find voice searches with more accurate answers to their queries. This voice recognition automation technology enhances the web search experience and has seen to be a game-changing tool for eCommerce businesses.
5. AR Shopping
AR has entirely changed the pattern of traditional shopping. Today, this technology allows eCommerce punters to preview products in their desired environment at their suitable time before they proceed with purchasing a product online.
It has made it trouble-free for shoppers to view a new product and see how it fits in the desired position—for instance, IKEA. IKEA uses AR technology to drive furniture shopping at home. It allows the user to see if a piece of furniture they are planning to buy fits or matches ideally or not. It gives the buyer an entire visual of the product they are planning to buy, so they have a whole idea and don’t regret it later.
6. Improved Recommendations For Customers
With the help of AI, even in this pandemic, sellers can recommend customers to buy a product according to their intent. Brands can efficiently scan through petabytes of data, analyze customer behavior, and give recommendations according to their needs.
It helps eCommerce retailers find the best solution for their customer, which further helps them accelerate their sales for a better customer retention ratio.
For instance, if a student is looking for Assignment Assistance, he will get many suggestions and personalized message recommendations of the same service; this is how AI works as an inevitable colleague for eCommerce websites.
7. ChatBots And Other Virtual Assistants Provide 24/7 Customer Support
Another popular feature helping eCommerce thrive in this pandemic is chatbots. If you’ve ever used the chat now feature while shopping online, there are higher chances you were talking to a bot, and honestly, they’ve become so intelligent that it’s challenging to differentiate who actually you are talking with.
These AI chatbots identify the dialect and provide the best solution possible. Brands use this tool to provide 24/7 customer support to their visitors. Such as Amazon.
8. Intelligent Fraud Management
According to feedzai.com, where eCommerce retailers are earning massively in the covid pandemic, fraudsters are also making considerably as the world sees a rapid shift to online payments.
They revealed a 30% increase in card-not-present transactions, which increases the chances of charlatans to shop from the cards that have been compromised.
In the covid pandemic, fraud is a significant concern in shifting offline business to online. But the AI advanced data analytics is solving the problem intelligently. It provides intelligent fraud management tools that increase the security of eCommerce businesses. For example, if the transaction doesn’t meet specific criteria, the tool flags it as a risk or blocks it instantly to avoid any fraud attempts.
9. Automated Content Creation
Content is a crucial part of marketing. In this covid era, eCommerce websites need it the most to increase their sales and generate more conversions. Therefore, it’s essential to provide a clear description of the product you are displaying.
A solid content for your brand and services can answer any queries and is one of the most convincing ways besides picture to convert your leads into customers, and AI here comes as a great savior.
All you have to do is provide a few keywords, and unique content will be right in front of you with the keywords incorporated at their best. It also analyzes and then mitigates all kind of content issues and helps to automate relevant content from recent resources right according to your customer’s needs.
Conclusion
Even after the development of covid vaccines, the virus has no plans to go away. It has become essential for companies to maintain a significant presence at eCommerce websites as it is probably the best way to glide back to the market.
The partnership of AI with eCommerce is the best collaboration for retailers as they are leveraging its use to the utmost, from personalization to voice and visual searches, etc.
If you are also planning to resume your business, there’s no excellent way than shifting it to eCommerce because AI is all there to make your business faster and smarter, with an expected growth of 59% by 2035. So, what are you waiting for?