Artificial Intelligence and E-Commerce: Applications and Opportunities

With the rise of online retailers, the competition among them has also risen. With their many offers and product discounts, retailers compete to have the edge over their competition. AI may be the new weapon for online retailers.

Applications of AI in Customer Experience in E-Commerce

Personalization provides customer-specific customization of their journey in an online retail website based on the user’s information collected and stored by the website like user location, browsing history, device and its operating system, and the time the user spends on each page. The more a user interacts with the website, the more relevant the personalized experience will be. It provides timely messages and alerts that may be of the user’s interest. With the knowledge of users’ data and how to use them, online retailers can change their website interface, send notifications about the most demanded products or those that the users looked at but did not buy, and offer time limits on the most desirable products.

AI-powered personal assistants on online retailing websites provide answers to customers’ simple queries, let the customer know about the status of an order, or find a product from the inventory that matches the customer’s product description. Chatbots reduce the time for response as they give instant answers and take less time than human correspondents, increasing user retention through reminders and notifications and upselling opportunities through the personalized approach.

Image recognition is a massive hit among users of online retail stores as it helps cut down the customer’s journey and proceed to checkout as the customers find exactly what they want. Connected home applications have changed the way purchases are made. Voice assistants like Alexa, driven by AI, can perform purchasing tasks like adding or removing items, checking the items on the cart, checking out, reordering a previous order, reviewing the shipping status, and checking the availability of a product.

AI content generation tools help create product descriptions for users to make their choices. AI can tackle fake reviews on online retail stores since fake reviews sometimes deter users from buying a product.

Application of AI in Inventory Services

AI-powered technologies can provide accurate information that can be used in sales forecasting, which is a critical disruption opportunity. Possessing the ability or technology to accurately forecast the stock sold by a particular date and using past information of the product’s sales helps efficiently manage the inventory and save high costs. Having such planning is essential, especially if the item is perishable like vegetables and transportation tickets which will be worthless if not sold within a specific period. AI can help the sales department in making decisions about sales by providing information on parameters like the most popular and least popular item in a specific period, products that can be promoted on a particular day with success, the impact of sports and cultural events on sales, and the sales probability of getting an understanding of a short-term turnover.

Source by Shalini M