online commerce

Artificial intelligence is one of, if not the biggest technological advancements so far. When used well, it can prove to be a boon in every field of life. Not only can it automate the functions carried out at regular intervals, but it can also come up with new and better ways to perform them. 

So why not use it to improve the development, updation and management of new and existing eCommerce stores?

Let’s take Amazon as an example. Do you think the home page of Amazon shows the same products to everyone? Simply put, no. Amazon and other prominent eCommerce websites use AI to recommend customers products based on their individual likes and dislikes, their search queries from websites like Google, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc., and even based on what you frequently order. That improves the user experience, resulting in a better conversion rate. 

That’s why more and more companies are trying to incorporate AI into their eCommerce websites. Now you might ask, “How should we use AI in the eCommerce stores?”. That’s what we’ll discuss in this blog. We’ll also check out what the future holds for AI in the eCommerce industry. 

Ways of Using AI in Ecommerce

When looking for the top eCommerce platforms, one of the most common things businesses look for is the ability to deliver a customized user experience. If you are one of them, Artificial intelligence can help with excellent user experience on your eCommerce websites to further that goal. But to ensure the best results, you must first understand how AI might help online stores. So let’s check them out:

Intelligent Product Recommendations

As we mentioned before, one of the best AI techniques for eCommerce stores is intelligent product recommendations. According to recent surveys, personalized product recommendations through artificial intelligence improve the conversion rate by around 915%. It can help predict the customers’ future purchases so that the sales strategy works on improving the revenue and profits. 

For intelligent product recommendations, AI checks your purchase history and search patterns on the website as well as other platforms like Google and social media channels. With AI, your website can predict the customers’ future purchases more effectively, improving the user experience of the platform. 

Advanced Semantic-Based Search

Unlike traditional search algorithms that only deliver the results based on what the user has typed in the search box, semantic-based search uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to deliver the most logical results based on what the user might have intended to find. 

For example, you search for “XYZ brand car window cleaner” on an eCommerce website. The semantic-based search algorithm will try to understand your intent behind this search, i.e. to find a product that cleans the windows of your car. So after processing this request, not only will it show the exact product (if available in the inventory), but also other relevant brands and products that might help you clean the window, like microfibre cloths, window wipers, soft brushes, and so on. That will help you make a suitable choice from what’s available, based on your requirements. Or if not interested, you can search elsewhere. 

Chatbots & Other Virtual Assistants

Until about a decade ago, getting in touch with customer care used to be a tedious effort. You either had to wait in long queues (on your phones) to get through to a representative on a call or had to wait for their reply on messages or emails for days on end. But then came AI, which completely revolutionized customer care through chatbots and other virtual assistants. 

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So many people think of AI-powered chatbots as robots. But in reality, they’re much more than that. Chatbots on eCommerce websites are carefully designed to mimic human conversations by understanding the queries and responding accordingly. Let’s take chatbots on eCommerce websites like Amazon, for example. If you are not satisfied with your recently-purchased product or have a query about any aspect of the website, you will go to the help section and try to get in touch with customer care. For that, you’ll have to converse with the chatbot. It will first ask you to describe your issue. After analyzing your answer, it will generate the response that is most suitable for you while staying under the company guidelines. 

Moreover, virtual assistants can help you navigate through the website and find the products you are looking for more easily. That’s why including chatbots and virtual assistants would be excellent for your eCommerce websites. 

Efficient Company-Wide Decision Making

So many companies use AI across departments to make simple and complicated decisions, from product pricing to inventory management. Let’s take product pricing, for example. To put a suitable price on a product, AI looks at several factors in the industry, like consumers’ inclination towards it, prices assigned by the competition, your company’s profit margin on the products, etc. 

Then, there’s inventory management. When your inventory runs out of a particular product, the AI engine looks at the demand for it on the website in the recent past (by analyzing the search queries) along with other factors and sets the requests for the product restocking accordingly. 

AI can also help with business analysis. It will analyze the website data to check for the products and operations that have decreased the efficiency or improved the conversion rate and suggest suitable decisions accordingly. 

That’s why major corporations now use AI on their eCommerce websites to improve department-wide decision-making.

Cybersecurity Enhancement

Other than the operational functions, AI can be used for securing the website. eCommerce websites have integral data of thousands, if not millions, of customers worldwide. So AI helps with cybersecurity in two major ways: blocking bots and detecting (preventing) direct cyber-attacks.

Bots are of two types. First, good bots, like search engine crawlers, go through millions of websites to rank them accordingly on the SERPs. And second ones are bad bots, which make up for a significant amount of web traffic on almost every website. The bad bots are very dangerous for the customer data and credentials stored on your websites. So AI on your website can help identify the bad bots and block them from your websites to secure the data and customer information. 

Moreover, AI doesn’t just stop malware and ransomware attacks; it memorizes their patterns to prevent the threats in advance. That’s why it would be wise to incorporate AI into the security measures of your eCommerce website. 

Sales Forecasting

Sales forecasting is another significant operation of an eCommerce website, where AI can be of great help. It’s very important for companies to know when they are going to run out of a particular product and how much of it they should order in advance to keep their business running without a hitch. That’s where AI comes in.

As mentioned before, AI analyzes the business data, including sales, to see the purchase frequency of each product in the listing. After that, with the given information, it predicts when the website inventory will run out of a particular product. It also gives a suggestion for how much quantity that product should be ordered in so that the business runs smoothly and there is no surplus left at the wrong time.

Dealing with Fake Reviews

Fake reviews, be it bad or good, can have detrimental consequences for your brand or website. If the fake review is bad, there will be an obvious negative response from the potential customers. But even if a review is good, but the customers find out it is fake, you will lose their trust forever. 

That’s why so many eCommerce websites have started using AI for sifting through reviews to identify and handle fake reviews. Even Amazon has an AI engine to go through the information and characteristics of the user that has posted the review. Artificial intelligence will also see if the user is genuinely a past customer of that particular product. It will also push the verified customers to the top to ensure the potential customers get the most trusted reviews.

Future Of AI For eCommerce Store

Although AI techniques are already being used in almost every major eCommerce website, there is still so much to explore in this field. Artificial intelligence can help improve the customer experience by personalizing different aspects, like the actual home page, product recommendations, better search and navigation for product discovery, and 24×7 customer support. 

Moreover, AI can help with image recognition (already in use on some websites), with which you can find the product on the websites just by taking its picture on your phone. For example, if you see a pair of shoes you like and want to buy them, just take a picture through the camera icon on the website. Then AI will perform image recognition on it and search for the shoes on the website. That will save the customers a lot of time navigating through the website in search for the exact product. 

When it comes to eCommerce, AI can implement almost anything you can think of. So we predict the future of AI in the field of eCommerce is bright as day. It’s going to be exciting to see what comes next.

Conclusion

When you think of making advancements in already-advanced digital technologies, it’s always going to be associated with artificial intelligence. eCommerce is no different. Until a few years ago, so many people didn’t even know about eCommerce, and now, the same people are ordering what they like from the comfort of their homes. 

AI has been a great asset in improving the user experience of eCommerce websites with intelligent product recommendations, advanced semantic-based searches, chatbots, enhanced cybersecurity, sales forecasting, and even department-wide decision-making. 

So if you are developing a new online store, think about integrating the AI techniques mentioned in this blog. It would help enhance its user experience, thus improving the sales and revenue of your business enterprise.

By Anurag Rathod

Anurag Rathod is an Editor of Appclonescript.com, who is passionate for app-based startup solutions and on-demand business ideas. He believes in spreading tech trends. He is an avid reader and loves thinking out of the box to promote new technologies.