Human technology is evolving and so are the methods of conducting your business. Thanks to the success of E-Commerce, a lot of entrepreneurs are taking the plunge and embracing E-commerce big time. The growth of E-commerce businesses has proven that when it comes to growth in business and presence, companies are willing to invest in the right avenues. 

With the growth of e-commerce, the method of conducting business also has changed. If you consider the E-commerce websites of the olden times, their main motive was to make their products available on the internet. But business today is beyond this because of its all about data now. Artificial intelligence has embedded powerfully in all aspects of our life today. From the self-checkout cash registers to advanced modes of security checks at airports, AI is omnipresent. AI is taking over the world and its grip on E-commerce is stronger every day.  

Before moving further to understand how AI is a powerful weapon all E-commerce businesses can use, we must understand how E-commerce has grown and will grow in the future. 

The opportunities for growth are high because E-commerce is not a fad. 

We can see the potential growth of E-commerce in the year 2021 and the numbers are encouraging. 

Some interesting facts about AI

• There is still a huge market for AI and scope to inculcate because only 23% of businesses have included AI on a serious note. Others are either not doing it or just paying lip service to it.
• About 47% of the digitally mature organizations have a well-crafted AI strategy in place.
• A close to 63% of the organizations claim that to reduce costs they have to adopt AI shortly.
• Nearly 54% of the executives believe that after adopting AI in their processes, their work productivity has increased.

Source: Forbes.com

So now that it is clear that AI is here to stay, we should also know how hot AI is in different applications and businesses. 

As is apparent from the graphic above, AI in E-commerce is an important aspect of business which is being taken very seriously now. 

AI in E-commerce is the best for a successful business strategy. We will further see what powerful benefits AI can provide to E-commerce websites and up their productivity.

Top applications of Artificial Intelligence

The essence of AI is spreading everywhere. Its presence in E-commerce is like a dark horse that goes slow but wins the race. In fact, according to one of the research reports of Tractica AI in E-commerce is booming like never before. If the growth is incessant, then the revenue is expected to cross $ 36 billion globally by the end of 2025. 

With the upsurge in numbers, it will not be a surprise that AI is soon going to dominate the E-commerce sector too!  

Many companies have understood the power of AI while others are sliding their way to inculcate in their system. Whatever it is, AI is hard to ignore. 

It will be interesting to see how AI can be used in E-commerce websites to augment growth and opportunities.

1) Voice Assistants:  50% of all searches across the internet will be via voice command! Yes! in the modern age of Alexa and Siri, getting what you want is just one voice away! Alexa and Siri can be your shopping assistants allowing users to communicate with diverse web services by your voice command. This technology is now even successfully integrated into smartphones. So, if you want your business to stay atop competition then leverage on this and see the difference! 

2) Customer-centric visual search: AI uses NLP or Natural language processing to improve the search result especially when you are shopping online. AI also makes use of visual search abilities that will match the product and will present on your screen your desired product.

3) Data Analytics and lead generation: So we are all aware that the main reason why we are making our processes powered by AI is that we want data. The data so captured is extremely useful in generating leads, understanding the needs of customers and even predicting consumer behavior. A survey conducted by Conversica, 37% of the market sales are affected by poor leads. These businesses are yet to realize the importance of AI. 

4) ChatBots: We give full marks to Chatbots, the primary reason why E-commerce websites are alive 24*7. The Bots are programmed to provide solutions to all customer queries and in turn, help the customer make purchase decisions. They communicate with a potential customer through text messages or calls. 

5) To Personalise: Every E-commerce website aims at increasing customer engagement on their portals. To do that past data captures the essence of historical purchases made by the customer. Collating all that data, AI can successfully be used to increase conversion rate, increase customer engagement and reduce transaction time. According to research conducted by E consultancy, 74% of the marketers believe that targeted personalization has won them more customers than they ever have! 

6) Inventory Management: For any E-commerce business inventory management is a strategic area that determines its success. Keeping an eye on inventory becomes next to difficult always because there are thousands of products on the website. With AI in the picture, the worries have been put to rest because inventories are a lot easier to manage now. 

7) Detection of Cyber fraud: Frauds and scams are reducing by the day thanks to the smart algorithms used through AI. E-commerce can be very vulnerable when it comes to cybercrime. Loads of private data are being compromised and the reputation of your business also goes for a toss. To prevent this AI and machine learning algorithms are employed by companies to mitigate the possibilities of fraud. 

Top E-commerce websites using AI

Many E-commerce companies have successfully embedded Artificial intelligence in the manner they conduct their business. Let us see some of them: 

1) Amazon: Alexa which is one of the most successful products of Amazon is a gleaming example of AI embedded product. Not just that Amazon has smartly included AI in its prime marketing strategies to leverage its benefits. Amazon now uses AI in predicting what the users will demand and also are providing product recommendations to users based on past data and present behavior. 

2) Alibaba: Here is not just a revolutionary idea but also space which has united wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers. Alibaba is the market leader now, was still not happy and has used AI to increase its competitive edge. Its customer-centric chatbot successfully resolves 95% of customer inquiries in both written and spoken forms. AI algorithms have helped Alibaba drive internal and external processes which also includes smart product recommendations. 

3) eBay: By using NLP eBay has successfully utilized the power of AI in ensuring it stays on top of the competition. eBay has successfully embedded chatbots, voice assistants and even image search processes to enhance customer experience on their website. 

Benefits of Artificial Intelligence in E-commerce 

The best thing about AI is that it has seamlessly integrated itself in business strategies without letting the person know. According to Hubspot, about 64% of customers are not even aware that they are using AI in some form or the other. 

While we have already explored many benefits that AI provides to your E-commerce business, we also want you to look at the powerful ways it helps to revolutionize your business. 

1) Predictive marketing: If you want to go up the ladder then your E-commerce business has to start predicting what the customer might require. Predictive marketing is a prominent tool that uses ML to make this possible. With the help of a predictive market, your E-commerce website can be optimized to show only what your customer wants, how they view the product and various price points that might interest them. 

2) Personalization: With the power of AI, E-commerce businesses can now create personalized marketing campaigns to effectively interact with customers. A personalized intelligent automation system can respond based on customer history, current needs, and specific tasks.

Now you will be able to make product recommendations, create personalized emails and set prices according to the needs of the customers. 

3) Customer service: E-commerce websites have adopted a smarter route to satisfying their customers. Yes! With the incursion of chatbots, customers are hardly neglected. Their queries are attended to almost immediately and responses are given to them based on their queries. A human is not approachable round the clock, but with Chatbots, in the picture customer can interact with the company round the clock, 365 days a year. 

According to research by Juniper, Chatbots are expected to save more than $8 billion annually by 2020. The sanctity of Chatbots as a reliable technology also has been established by Business Insider when it reported that 67% of customers are currently using Chatbots for communication. 

4) Search optimization: To integrate AI successfully in the search capability of your E-commerce website is half the battle won. When you make it easier for the customer, they tend to browse more on the site. The search has become so simple that AI now even gives suggestions by recognizing individual characteristics. 

5) Social Media listening: With an AI-powered E-commerce website, your social media acceptance will help you provide opportunities for further growth. Social listening is not monitoring because it represents those responses that its websites have got which will help them improve it further. You can now use the data to discover new avenues for profit-making, improve overall customer experience and make informed strategies about further progress. 

6) Location-based intelligence: Have you ever noticed that your favorite E-commerce website offers you products and services which are akin to your location? Using AI in E-commerce you can now gain unrivaled access to customer location which will help you drive mini-marketing campaigns. 

7) Dynamic Pricing: Whether you have hundreds or thousands of products, manually amending prices can be redundant and taxing. Dynamic pricing now uses AI to adjust the price of your inventory based on the diverse data terminals. The current inventory, market conditions, and customer expectations can be used to set prices without the need for human intervention. 

8) Helps in effective transportation: If you approach an all in one e-commerce solution development, they will advise you to invest in a custom Ecommerce shipping software which will help your E-commerce business deliver the right product at the right time to the right person. For any E-commerce business, successful delivery of the product is the key and with such software in place, the chance to err has reduced dramatically. 

Why E-commerce businesses are not adopting AI? 

A few years later companies will not be able to refute the applications of AI in their businesses. But as of now a lot of companies are still thinking whether or not to adopt it. We believe some reasons could be:

1) Fear of change: Change is inevitable and permanent but we fear change. Companies not willing to change and infuse AI are not aware of how AI can benefit them. They don’t see it because they do not want to see it. 

2) Lack of skills: People believe that if AI has to become a part of their E-commerce business they have to upgrade their skills. But, it is also true that AI-related amendments to the business model can also be learned on the job! 

3) Poor Quality data: The success of AI depends on the quality of data. If there isn’t enough past data then the AI model can do no prediction management nor it can provide customized data for your marketing campaigns.

Future of AI

We are all aware that the success of an E-commerce website is heavily dependent on how responsive it is to customer needs. It is time now that every E-commerce business rolls its sleeves and makes it a part of their game to gain a competitive edge.  

Artificial intelligence is a requisite tool for eCommerce businesses as it  can easily optimize the platform holistically for a seamless software development process. If you want to address marketing, customer service or anything check with us on how to cloud deliver and discuss how to deliver this technology effectively.  For more on AI, contact Chapter247. Our exclusive IT consulting services ensure you utilize the power of these technologies to the fullest.