Artificial Intelligence vs. Human intelligence in eCommerce
The use cases for eCommerce artificial intelligence are increasing. But in what ways is artificial intelligence beneficial to the world of eCommerce. Well, in short AI gives eCommerce owners the ability to automate tasks as well as improve the way they complete tasks based on the desired outcomes.
In doing so, they can maximize both their productivity and their communication.
Source: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=artificial%20intelligence
For marketers and eCommerce owners, the speed at which artificial intelligence is growing is crucial for completing tasks that would in ordinary circumstances require manual human input — which obviously takes longer.
The rise in AI ultimately means we — as humans — have more time to focus our energy on other tasks.
But remember, the benefits of AI don’t just lie in the speed to which it completes tasks, but the level of efficiency it develops in so far as the computer is able to learn how to improve the way it does tasks.
In this post, we’re going to look at a number of different of use cases for eCommerce artificial intelligence and compare those to human intelligence.
Let’s dive in!
Personalization
With all the competition out there in the world of eCommerce, how do you manage to stand out? How do you ensure customers shop with you and not your competitors?
Some vendors choose to differentiate themselves through their products or pricing. However, what many eCommerce business owners aren’t doing is improving the level of personalization they offer to their customers and potential customers.
Understanding personalization within eCommerce means understanding that each of your customers is different and have different needs.
Businesses that don’t understand personalization often write boring product copy that attempts to speak to everyone and instead speaks to no one.
Customer experience is important for shoppers and those who feel as though they’re receiving a personalized experience are more likely to spend money.
Personalized shopping experience involves tailoring their shopping experience based on their needs, interests, previous purchase history.
As you can imagine, in brick-and-mortar stores, personalization is easier. A customer enters the store, you ask them a few simple questions about what they’re interested in and take them directly to the products that will be most suited to them. Over time, as you come to learn more and more about your customers this process becomes intuitive.
Online, however, it’s harder. You’re not sat with your customers and you can’t see what they’re looking at. In this instance, then, personalization is better conducted by AI computers.
AI can use a users IP address to track where they go online and use that information to present them with direct messaging or advertising that directly speaks to them.
Think about the times you’ve googled something, only to be shown that same item in an advertisement a few days later.
The image above is an example of a retargeting campaign where you visit a site and you’re presented with adverts for specific products you’ve viewed.
You can also use AI to offer suggestions for products a customer might like to buy based on the items they’ve bought in the past.
This is very common on Amazon where they use an individual’s browsing and purchase history to predict other products they might be interested in.
Scale eCommerce customer service with Artificial intelligence
One of the great benefits of online shopping is the ability to shop in your own time without having to talk to customer service reps. Although, this doesn’t mean users don’t want to talk to anyone ever.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Many visitors might have specific questions about the product they’re about to buy or the shipping details.
That’s why successful eCommerce businesses spend a fortune on their customer support teams. But there’s only so many customer support reps you can hire before it starts eating into your profit.
In comes AI. AI gives eCommerce owners the ability to scale their customer service efforts through the use of tools like Chatbots. Chatbots are programmed robots that can assist shoppers with their experiences online. In many instances, their responses are so well programmed it’s difficult for the user to know whether it’s a human or a robot responding to them.
Sephora uses chatbots to speak with their customers and provide them with brilliant suggestions for products they might like. Sephora can then use this data to personalize each customer’s experience just like we mentioned in the previous point.
The best part about using AI to help your eCommerce customer support is the ability to scale the efforts. As we’ve mentioned, you’re not there when your customers are shopping — you don’t even know what time of the day they’ll do their shop and need help from your support team.
Because of this, implementing AI means you can have “support agents” on hand 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to help your customers.
Source: https://www.osiaffiliate.com/blog/ecommerce-chatbots/
And even if the problem cannot be solved by the AI computer at the time, you can program it to send an urgent alert straight away to the first human-support agent who’ll be online at the next available opportunity.
Although chatbots can’t replace actual human-interaction, they are a great replacement for smaller tasks that are easily solved but take time out of support agent’s days. The technology provides eCommerce owners with the freedom to focus on other important tasks — meaning your customer support department can be scaled without having to hire more and more support staff.
Use eCommerce artificial intelligence to help price your products
We’ve waxed lyrical often enough on the Prisync blog for you to understand that if you want to maximize your profit, one of the most effective ways to do that is through using AI to create a dynamic pricing feature on your eCommerce store.
Dynamic pricing is the idea that prices aren’t set in stone and instead, are subject to fluctuating change.
Source: https://www.cleverism.com/complete-guide-dynamic-pricing/
Dynamic pricing works best with the use of AI because it ensures that eCommerce owners don’t have to manually check the prices of their goods each time. Without the use of AI dynamic pricing software, in order to change your prices, you’d have to manually keep track of what your competitors were charging and come up with your own conclusion as to what you should charge next.
It’s clear to see that this approach is time-consuming and does not make the most out of your time.
Therefore, in these instances, use an AI dynamic pricing tool to understand not only what you should be charging for your products but when. Then combine that data with your own human intelligence to understand how to market your products at their new price points.
Takeaways
There’s no doubt about it, AI is here to stay and with that, we’re set to see exponential advancements in the coming years, especially with eCommerce.
As competition for customers’ attention increases so does the need for eCommerce vendors to find better ways to serve their customers.
If you want to use intelligent data to predict what your customers might want, help them throughout their pricing journey and optimize your prices to charge exactly what they’re willing to pay, then look into using artificial intelligence within your own eCommerce business.
Have you begun using artificial intelligence within your own business? Leave a comment below.
Originally published at blog.prisync.com on August 15, 2018.