"Collect Customer Data
Understanding customer needs wants, and expectations are key to increasing sales. Any eCommerce store that wants to increase sales must be able to meet and exceed customer expectations. You can't do that unless you truly understand your clients' needs. This means you can use the data AI provides to improve your efforts, personalize and customize offers, and encourage consumers to buy from you by meeting their needs. Because of better informed and strategic decision-making, your eCommerce store will be able to drive more sales.
Lead Retargeting
It's no secret that many eCommerce stores use retargeting to increase sales. After a while, non-converting customers are retargeted with new offers. But such efforts are based on guesswork. In other words, you can't be sure your retargeting will work this time and that consumers will convert.
Reducing Cart Abandon
Cart abandonment is a problem for eCommerce sales. Consumers are ready to buy but abandon their carts at the checkout or even before. In fact, the global cart abandonment rate for online retailers is 69.57 percent. Fortunately, AI can assist you here. However, AI can automate abandoned cart follow-ups. It can therefore tell you why your leads gave up when they were so close to converting. Perhaps a technical issue, lack of payment options, shipping conditions or hidden fees caused the issue. By removing obstacles that cause customers to abandon their carts, you can increase sales.
Optimum Customer Service
It's no secret that improving customer experience leads to increased sales. If customers are unhappy with your eCommerce store for any reason, they will not buy from you and may leave permanently. Again, AI can help you. A chatbot is an answer. A simple AI-powered computer program can improve customer service and support. Chatbots are available in messaging apps and use natural language recognition to communicate with users. They can also handle multiple customers simultaneously and work 24/7. But that's not the strangest thing about chatbots. Their main advantage is their ability to analyze customer data and respond accordingly. They can give advice, answer questions, and resolve issues for customers. Younger generations prefer to communicate with a chatbot rather than a human customer service representative.
Technology has once again shown its value to online businesses. Technology like artificial intelligence (AI) will revolutionize eCommerce. That means helping online retailers increase sales as well as creating a new level of online consumer experience"
"Using the power of artificial intelligence can dramatically boost eCommerce sales. All modern marketers have likely heard of AI and are probably wondering how it can help their eCommerce business. The truth is those who don't use AI in their development process are missing out on some considerable sales opportunities.
AI has become an integral part of the marketing strategy for businesses across the globe. It allows them to not only analyze their data but also anticipate trends before they happen.
Since many eCommerce stores face stiff competition from other online retailers with similar products, using AI for market research will allow companies to better understand what customers want which could give them a competitive advantage over others who don't bother utilizing this technology.
The development of AI in eCommerce has been a long process. In the beginning, there were simply chatbots and they weren't very good at what they did. But now we have told like Maropost Commerce Cloud that’s using AI to make the shopping experience more personal and enjoyable. And with all these new advancements, it's no wonder that eCommerce is on the rise!
Ultimately, AI can help do two main things that lead to increased sales: save time and money.
1. Save time
Wouldn’t we all like that? With the right eCommerce platform that allows business owners to manage it all in one place, it’s possible. Here’s how.
- Add a blog, buying guides, articles, forms, unlimited products, and more
- Automate Marketplace listing, inventory, and orders
- Get real-time insights
- Simplify customer engagement, increase customer LTV and manage all aspects of the eCommerce site
By having access to all of that in one hub and connecting each aspect of the business to one another, so much wasted time and effort is erased. Instead of going to different platforms, trying to make them integrate and work together, fixing errors, manually inputting information, and doing it all daily, sophisticated automation tools do it all while also eliminating human error.
2. Save money
AI requires investment. Sometimes it’s a monthly subscription, other times there’s a set-up and an annual fee. So, it’s not obvious to have automation can save money.
- All the tedious repetitive tasks (like shipping labels printing) are terminated freeing up those resources for more productive work
- A well-integrated platform helps a business save money by only paying for tools that it actually uses. Instead of having hundreds of apps that offer overlapping functionality and don’t speak to each other, a unified solution can allow a business owner to manage it all in one place.
- Deep insights into buying behavior can save unnecessary advertising costs. Rather than targeting those who’d never buy from this store, ad dollars can be put to better use by promoting potential leads. Those leads can be uncovered through carefully curated insights and analytics that automation tools provide.
Most importantly, a good automation tool always allows for a test drive. Only by experiencing what it feels like to automate mundane functions to AI can a business understand the true value of automation."
- Maria Vasserman Marketing Specialist at Maropost
"1. Use chatbots to offer a personal touch
Chatbots are a particular computer program that is designed to affect conversations with users over the internet. Very easily, chatbots can automate the order process and offer effective and low-cost customer service. When you integrate a chatbot system with one of your shopping carts, then it can easily work with all the stores based on the platform. Keep in mind that the more chatbot apps are supported, the more potential customers it has. Chatbots offer the most efficient customer support solution for eCommerce businesses. Such alternatives are available like contact forms, emails, and phone calls, but online chat is the fastest and most convenient way to offer wonderful customer support.
2. Product recommendations in a personalized way
Now with the help of AI technology, it's pretty easy to collect and process customer data about their online shopping experience. We've experienced that eCommerce brands have started using AI to offer personalized product recommendations based on customers' past behavior and lookalike customers. Many eCommerce portals which recommend items you might like based on previous purchases use machine learning to analyze the purchase history. eCommerce retailers depend on ML(machine learning) to capture customer data, analyze it, and use it to deliver a personalized experience, implement their marketing campaigns, optimize their pricing, and generate more customer insights.
3. Retarget likely customers with AI
As per Conversica, any eCommerce brand can retarget 33% of marketing leads that are left in between by the sales team. When you're running a marketing campaign, then you might have noticed that few customers have spent a healthy time on a particular product, and then suddenly they exit. This information will be stored for use upon their future visit. So, with the help of AI, you can easily retarget those customers on their next visit, or else you can retarget them on their social media accounts, too, like Facebook. With the advancement of AI technology, sales are changing, with businesses responding directly to the customers. eCommerce brands are now reading the minds of customers, and it's happening just because of AI technology."
"AI is a valuable tool in boosting sales for online stores, which is a vital aspect of eCommerce. Here are a few efficient ways AI can boost your eCommerce sales.
- Customer data
Understanding customer expectations, needs, and preferences are essential to boosting sales. This is where AI can help.
- Retargeting leads
AI can help you craft specific offers and messages that seamlessly direct retargeted potential customers down your sales funnel.
- Cart abandonment decreases
Automation can help revive abandoned carts. You can gain insight into why your leads gave up when they were so close to converting.
- Customer service
Chatbots powered by AI can provide exceptional customer support. By analyzing any relevant information about an individual customer, they can cater to a customer's needs 24/7."
"Artificial Intelligence has hijacked workplaces globally. It has been a movement that has brought a major shift in the outlook of labor and wage systems. E-commerce as a newly emerged field has especially benefited from AI and boasts of the sheer compatibility of both.
From self-checkout systems to security checks, AI has pressed the pedals on the global movement with companies like Google and Microsoft already
spending substantially on new AI efforts.
Collecting consumer data
Understanding client requirements, preferences, desires, and expectations is key to increasing sales. Any information it may give you can be utilized to accentuate your scales of effort and personalize and modify deals.
Retargeted leads
Your retargeting intentions can be significantly amplified with AI's assistance. AI can give you up-to-date customer data.
Cart abandonment
Consumers are ready to buy, yet often ditch their carts after approaching the cash register or even before that. Any online abandoned cart can benefit from AI-assisted follow-up questions. You may use the information you gather to assist you to overcome challenges.
Better customer service
A chatbot is an answer to your problem of not being able to serve consumers the service they want. When it comes to offering excellent customer service and assistance 24/7, a simple computer program powered by AI may make a difference. Moreover, it significantly decreases call time.
Suppressing churn and upselling
Implementing AI techniques in predictive analytics would help you retain customers and gain accurate knowledge on customer satisfaction.
Sales management
AI can be helpful in providing you with precise sales quotas, optimized sales territory, flexibility in realigning sales procedures and incentives, and easy staff revision. It's even capable of predicting the impact of product adjustments. Predictive analytics may assist in identifying the possible impact of product changes and minimizing the sales impact.
Upselling and cross-selling
Upselling and cross-selling efforts are frequently concentrated on all of a salesperson's clients. AI can assist in determining who is most likely to purchase more and when as it can pick existing clients who are likely to sign on for additional or better solutions.
Low overhead
Automation cuts down on various additional costs and spares time for employees and salespeople to focus better on expanding the client base.
Increased selling time
Most salespeople will be able to spend more time selling as a result of AI. When it is harnessed to reduce non-selling time spent by salespeople, it has a favorable influence on sales operations. Instead of inputting data and lead sources into the CRM, it allows sellers to spend more time preparing for the early meetings."
"AI can be used to improve the customer experience and satisfaction and expedite payment administration and detect any fraud. Artificial intelligence (AI) is used by eCommerce businesses to enhance the buying experience for customers and keep them coming back.
Virtual assistants and chatbots
Online retailers increasingly use chatbots or digital assistants to provide 24/7 customer service. Chatbots built with AI are becoming more intuitive and improving customer experience.
Product recommendations made intelligently
Personalized product recommendations for online shoppers increase conversion rates and order values. Using big data, AI in E-Commerce influences consumer choices based on previous purchases, product searches, and online browsing habits.
Personalization AI
Rated among the most effective modes, personalization is at the basis of AI in Ecommerce marketing. Based on specific data obtained from each online user, AI and machine learning in Ecommerce are deriving significant user insights from the provided consumer data. This information enables E-Commerce shops to offer good product recommendations and a consistent user experience across all devices.
Inventory management
Inventory management is about keeping the proper amount on hand to meet market demand without adding to idle stock. With the advent of autonomous robotics, AI is now enabling warehouse management, which is predicted to be the future of AI in Ecommerce. Unlike human personnel, AI robots can store and retrieve stock 24*7."
"Conversational artificial intelligence is just a technology. For e-commerce companies, the most popular implementation of conversational artificial
intelligence is artificial intelligence chatbots. Artificial intelligence chatbots have become very versatile. I have compiled a list of five ways conversational artificial intelligence can help drive e-commerce sales in 2021.
1. Additional points of sale
The point of sale is where the actual transaction takes place. For e-commerce companies, the end of the deal is traditionally their website or mobile application with shopping cart and checkout functions. But now, e-commerce companies are deploying sales chatbots, an appropriate point of sale and more than just a communication channel.
These sales chatbot examples use conversational artificial intelligence and have a shopping cart and checkout capabilities, allowing users to make
purchases directly from the chat window. They are usually deployed on popular messaging applications such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and
Google to make online shopping more convenient. Additional PoS is especially useful for e-commerce companies that sell relatively low-value
and low-risk products/services (such as groceries, takeaways, stationery, etc.) because these products are most likely to be ordered regularly.
2. The future of business information
Every company deals with customers through different communication channels. Traditionally, the two most popular business information channels
are email marketing and text messaging, but both platforms lack personalization and customization requirements today. Therefore, social media platforms are expected to surpass email and text messages in terms of popularity and effectiveness, achieving this goal through conversational
artificial intelligence.
Different from the two one-way communication channels of SMS and email, chatbots open a traditional chat window to enable businesses and consumers to communicate with each other. This is a big step for customer engagement, and the results show its effectiveness. The average open rate of business emails sent by chatbots is 85%, the click-through rate (CTR) is 40%, the available speed is 23%, and the click-through rate is 3%.
In addition, consumers are easier to read information, but they are also easier to switch. A real example is Aveda, a cosmetics company, which deployed its chatbot and increased its weekly bookings by 7.67 times.
3. More effective retargeting
Usually, the initial business messaging is not enough to convert new customers, so companies have to retarget. Retargeting includes trying to convert enthusiastic potential customers or consumers interested in the brand but did not initially convert. Retargeting is very important because only 2% of online shoppers tend to buy on the first visit, but retargeting can increase the conversion rate of online shoppers by 128%.
Many features of chatbots make them very effective in business messaging and equally effective in retargeting. However, conversational artificial intelligence plays a more important role here because it is responsible for finding the most likely reason potential customers did not initially switch and taking corresponding actions. Luxury Escapes, one of Australia's largest travel agencies used conversational artificial intelligence in chatbots to successfully increase the response rate to 89% when retargeting.
4. Use digital assistants to shop faster and more conveniently
Another popular method is to use chatbots as digital shopping assistants and conversational artificial intelligence to promote e-commerce sales. E-commerce companies, including Lego, H&M, WholeFoods, Sephora, Domino Pizza, etc., have deployed their digital shopping assistants on their websites/apps or popular social media platforms.
Most shopping assistant robots use powerful artificial intelligence recommendation engines and conversational artificial intelligence to recommend products based on customer preferences and help them quickly find what they want.
5. Brand loyalty and repeat customers
Until market uncertainty is eased, improving cost-effectiveness will be one of the main goals of most e-commerce companies. Unfortunately, the balance between cost efficiency and better customer relationship management is challenging to achieve. Managing customer relationships is expensive, but since customer service has become the primary product differentiation in 2021, it is also the key to staying competitive.
Create a personalized welcome message.
The first impression determines whether a visitor will continue shopping or leave our website. That's why it's so essential to grab visitors' attention right from the start. With AI, you can create a welcome message to greet your customers by name (if the customer has already visited your store) or offer a coupon for free delivery. Moreover, chatbots can communicate in multiple languages depending on the location.
Notify your customers about an upcoming sale or available discounts.
Nothing drives sales like discounts and special offers. With AI, you can make sure your customers know about upcoming promotions in the first instance. Additionally, a discount chatbot can be triggered, for example, when a customer visited a specific URL, forgot to complete a payment, or read an article on your blog.
Recover abandoned shopping carts
Abandoned cart recovery chatbots are one of the most popular and effective ways to use AI in e-commerce. They are much more effective than standard emails because they can immediately react and assist the customer in completing the purchase. When the customer added items to the cart but didn’t finalize the transaction, your chatbot can ask him additional questions or offer a discount. A chatbot can also collect feedback to help you improve your store."
- Karol Nowacki, Acquisition Manager at Tidio