Integrating AI for eCommerce: Why and How

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Integrating AI for eCommerce
Integrating AI for eCommerce

AI is now widely applied to every single piece of our life. It works in different categories, from providing advanced security, suggesting the shortest roads, recognizing faces, checking passports, etc. Many digital stores have started using AI for eCommerce.

This article explains all advantages you will have when integrating AI for eCommerce platforms. Also, we guide you on how to do AI integration. Please slide down and have a look!

What is Artificial Intelligence?

AI stands for artificial intelligence. It is a part of computer science that involves replicating all movements and thoughts of humans. 

There are many samples of AIs. You may notice many machines and robots that use databases and sensor features to reproduce the activities of a human being. Some advanced AIs even respond to questions and solve complex problems in a short period.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence

AI for eCommerce is technically a group of unique methods of data analysis. It accesses the database on the computer and uses algorithms to predict all conditions in the future and then give recommendations to the users. For example, some AIs suggest keywords that the admin should use to improve SEO ranks or recommend products that a person should sell. 

On the other hand, AIs can analyze the data received from the customers and return to them the exact results they need. Online store owners apply AIs as 24/7 customer service tools.

Must-read articles to convert more customers:

Why Should You Integrate AI For eCommerce?

AIs can do a lot of work that humans need a long time to complete. It is a miss if you don’t take advantage of this ability to improve the performance of your eCommerce store. 

Below, we list the top benefits that an AI will bring to your online business.

Filter And Give Product Recommendations To The Customers

Many companies now use AI as a filtration and recommendation system. The artificial intelligence filters all products that customers do not need and gives recommendations for the items that they may be interested in. 

How can the AI know what products the customers like? It analyzes the information in the database of your eCommerce store. There are a lot of stages to process. But technically, it sees the results of your best-selling product, checks the view history of your customers, filters the aggregation parameters, and then processes all the data to make the final decisions.

AI eCommerce personalization

AI eCommerce personalization

The best AI eCommerce personalization system can even track the purchasing behavior of your customers and remember what they like to buy. It will suggest the most suitable products based on their preferences.

Moreover, AI can track the behavior of your customers not only in your eCommerce store but also on different platforms. In detail, this artificial intelligence will analyze the activities of a person in his browser. It stores and uses the data when the customer reviews an item, posts or mentions any product, shares a product using his social platform account.

The best sample for a successful application of AI is Starbuck. This coffee brand uses a machine that allows guests to order drinks using their voice or messages. The AI collects all the information that the customers’ input, including their preferences, account data, their buying history, the data from third-party apps, contextual details, etc. The technology processes all the data to suggest the best customization for the drink in the guests’ order to suit their personalizations.

Search And List Out The Most Potential Customers

Many studies show that the sales team of an eCommerce store usually misses following up to 1/3 of prospects. These potential customers may have made purchases if the sales team gets in touch with them.

Not only that, many business stores don’t know what to do with the extensive customer data that they collect. If the owners apply artificial intelligence to process the data, they definitely will increase the sales cycle enormously.

For example, the AI can check the view history to see what customers usually care about. The guests may not buy the products. But this does not mean they don’t make a purchase the next time they visit your store. 

Probably, the customers don’t buy your products because they don’t understand their uses. But the AI remembers what item the guests have checked. It delivers the data to the sales team. The employees in the sales group will then contact the customers to explain the features of their exciting products. As a result, the prospect comes back to your store to make the purchase.

Many advanced AI tools can even measure how long the customers stay on a page on their computer screen to see a product offer or advertisement. 

For example, you see an online advertisement about milk products. You are interested and read the ad for about 5 minutes. The AI understands that you like this product and sends the data to the milk sales team.

Suggest The Essential Product To The Buyers

Chatbots or virtual assistants are not an unfamiliar term anymore. They are an automated system that chats with customers. AI chatbot for eCommerce is applied to listen to the needs of the customers and find the products that serve them. The shoppers don’t have to waste time surfing your entire store to see what they like anymore.

For example, the customer inputs the information: “I have a baby.” The AI understands that they are looking for products to take care of their child. It filters and suggests the most related products, including baby cribs, bottles, milk, diapers, toys, etc.

Some types of AI technology nowadays (Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant) can learn natural languages and understand voice. If you integrate them into your CRM – Customer Relationship Management, they will help you answer customers’ questions, solve all their issues, and find new chances for sales.

Throughout the chats, the AI can also learn the buying behavior of the customers. As we have mentioned above, since this artificial tool knows what the shoppers like, they will suggest more items that catch their eyes. The more the AI chats with customers, the deeper it can analyze the insights.

Offer Better Search Results

Text Search

The search engine does not give 100% good results. Sometimes, customers need to input different keywords to find the products they need. But things are other with the help of artificial intelligence.

AI Text search

AI Text search

In the past, the search engine worked by searching for the product name that has the closest match to the keyword (which the user inputs). But as AI improves the search engine, it returns the result not only based on the keyword but also on how it understands the customer.

For example, the shoppers’ keyword is “laptop with good webcams.” The search engine may give the list of the laptops, including ones with and without cameras and webcams that are sold separately. With artificial intelligence, the results are only laptops with quality cameras, precisely what the customers have expected.

By integrating AIs, you will reduce the risks of customers not finding the products in your eCommerce store, although you are providing what they need.

Image recognition is also an AI method for better search results. Instead of text, customers will upload pictures of the items they want. The AI will see the image and find the products that have the same shape, color, style, design, brand logo, and more. This method is known as visual search.

In case your eCommerce store does not supply the exact product that matches the customer’s image. The AI can still read the picture and understand the features of that product. And then, it will suggest alternative products in your store that have the same functions.

If your eCommerce store only sells Android smartphones from Samsung. Customers input the image of an Oppo phone. The results for alternative products are your Samsung devices. The chance for successful sales is still there. The reason is that the guests only require an Android smart device, but they only have Oppo pictures.

As AI understands what people say, you can apply voice search features for your eCommerce platform. The process is relatively easy to understand. The AI listens to the voice of the shoppers, converts the speech into text, and then performs text search.

Save Budget By Reducing Customer Service Cost

Instead of hiring employees for customer service, you can use AI for this task. The technology offers an automatic system that hears the questions and answers guests. The AI is basically a chatbot or a virtual assistant but works to solve problems that customers have with your products.

In fact, AI for eCommerce even takes care of customers more efficiently than humans do. It can provide customer service anytime during the day. 

Throughout machine learning, the AIs understand what difficulties the customers are having. They analyze the usage history and chats with all customers. Every time a shopper asks a question, the AI will search for the same situation that has been solved and then give not only 1 but many solutions for the case.

The only disadvantage is chatbots can not know sarcasm or don’t have a sense of humor. They can not detect whether the customers are lying or making jokes to respond with accurate results. But many developers are improving AIs. 

For example, Siri from Apple and Google Assistant has now started to understand some essential touches of sarcasm. They can even tell jokes to entertain people.

Enhance Security

An AI based eCommerce platform is always more secure than a regular website. The AI helps protect databases from being stolen by other competitors.

The technology detects new threats from malware, viruses, and hackers. Normal humans can not do this job in a short period of time. However, AIs are able to find and destroy all threats before they make changes to your platform.

AI based eCommerce platform

AI based eCommerce platform

Also, there are many competitors who use bots to automatically access your website, create fake accounts, and cause errors in your platform. The AIs will use unique methods to distinguish between bots and real users.

A standard method you probably have seen a lot is a captcha. For example, the AI sends 9 different pictures and requests you to tap on ones that have the image of a bus (or any other object).

Prevent Fake Reviews From Competitors

In this modern era, businessmen are afraid of bad reviews the most. Customers will not buy products if they read reviews of the previous buyers. Due to this reason, many competitors try to make fake accounts and then give fake reviews.

The AIs can recognize whether the reviews are accurate or not. They analyze the day that the account that does the reviews is created and track the behavior of that account. Of course, a user that does not buy anything can not base on anything to say wrong about your product. And then, the AIs will automatically erase the reviews or warn other customers about the fake accounts.

Manage Pricing 

Pricing is a hard thing to do. Typically, this is considered guesswork. But with complex machine learning algorithms, AIs can take part in market dynamics and other relevant parts of the competition. They will compare all prices and then leave the ultimate price recommendations to help your business succeed in a competitive environment.

How To Use AI In eCommerce?

An AI eCommerce platform should be made right in the beginning. The developers will program backend features with AI algorithms. However, there is still a way to integrate AI with existing platforms.

Many providers supply AI plugins, which you can download and install to your eCommerce platform. In this section, we will recommend the top ways to use AI in eCommerce and recommend the most trustable extensions.

Note: If you want to transfer data from your old website to another new platform, you can use the shopping cart migration tool of Next Cart. The tool supports many popular AI-based platforms, including WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Shopify, and so on!

AI Bots

Chatbots are the most common applications of artificial intelligence nowadays. According to Start Up Bonsai, Facebook has more than 300,000 chatbots. It is calculated that chatbots have handled up to 70% of chats from the beginning to the finish.

AI Bots

AI Bots

Advantages of using AI chatbots in eCommerce

  • Chatbots work on many different digital platforms. You can integrate this virtual assistance not only with your website but also on social networks. Many networks that accept AI chatbots are Facebook, Messenger, etc.
  • Chatbots run 24/7. They can provide customer service anytime the customers need, even at night. Unlike human assistants, AIs don’t go to sleep.
  • The AIs analyze, search, and find products, as well as solutions to help customers with their issues in a short period of time.
  • Chatbots can deliver precise details about the product
  • AIs help you save costs of hiring human workers
  • Chatbots have the ability to translate between different languages
  • AIs collect data from the customers and track their behavior automatically, thereby increasing the opportunities for your sales.

We share with you the best AI extensions for chatbots:

Gobot

Gobot is a chatbot plugin that is free to install. It works with many applications on BigCommerce and Shopify platforms. The chatbots are designed to support shoppers in searching for the required products, transferring personalized emails, and so on.

Drift

The chatbot Drift integrates with multiple platforms. About 4900 eCommerce stores are using Drift at the moment. This AI will help you generate more leads, automate sales funnels, and get more traffic.

Blog 360

Bold 360 integrates with many eCommerce platforms, including WordPress. Also, you can use it with Facebook, Chrome browser, and so on. The plugin offers live chatbots to increase customer conversions, as well as support HR and IT better.

Product Recommendation AI Engines

AI plays an essential role in helping brands understand customer preferences. This artificial tool will recommend products that users are interested in. Then, the customer discovers more new products, and the seller also knows what they should do next.

Advantages of using Product Recommendation AI Engines In eCommerce

  • ​​Increase the conversion rate of leads into customers
  • Increase the store’s total revenue
  • Avoid shopping cart miss

Here are 3 great AI plugins you can install to your store for product recommendations:

Magento 2 Recommended Products

This application helps recommend products based on intelligent algorithms as well as analysis of AI.

Personalized Recommendations by Beeketing

This AI plugin of BigCommerce is an application that analyzes the buying habits and behavior of customers based on the tracked history. From there, they suggest new great items to customers.

AI Dynamic Product Pricing

As mentioned above, AIs give a lot of support in pricing for types of dynamic products. It helps you keep your sales performance consistent in a competitive market.

Advantages of using AI Dynamic Product Pricing

  • Compare pricings and adjust pricings automatically for dynamic product
  • Give the best price for your products to draw attention from customers
  • Recommend suitable price changes

Best AI Dynamic Pricing Extensions

Below are the top AI plugins that we recommend for Dynamic Pricing:

Dynamic Pricing

This extension offers an AI system that tracks your product sales volume and changes the prices automatically. After installing the plugin, you just need to set up the price change rule, and the AI will follow your commands.

Wiser

The Wiser plugin views all of your data to give you the best solutions for managing product price, competing with other competitors, increasing your revenues, and providing many other great features. With the help of this AI extension, you can build and set up the best price strategies.

AI Interface and Content Customization

The AI can customize the interface and content of your platform to suit the personalization of the customers. In other words, different guests will have different experiences while visiting the site.

AI Interface and Content Customization

AI Interface and Content Customization

In other words, the AI shows a different page to a female customer, and another different website looks to a male customer. The front end is also different on the mobile screen and on the computer screen.

Advantages of using AI Interface and Content Customization

  • Show the interface that suits the personalization of the customer.
  • Prevent showing the same content for the same visitor. For example, a person accesses your store for the first time and sees a registration form for signing up as a member. The AI remembers this customer so that it does not show up on the form the next time he goes to your web.
  • Send notifications to the customers based on the actions that the customer makes on your stores.
  • Ai tracks the buying history of the customers and sends personalized gifts.

Top Recommended AI Tools For Interface And Content Customizations

We advise you to use the following AI tools for focused personalization customizations

Choice AI

Choice AI is an application of BigCommerce that generates factors based on the decisions of the AI, such as intelligent pages, banners, etc.

Smile.io

Interactive and gifting apps like Smile.io help you personalize the VIP customer experience. This application is compatible with any website because it is custom integrated.

Octane AI

The AI tool of Octane can send SMS, marketing features, and support services to the customers automatically. All messages are processed by the AI for the best personalizations.

Last Words

AI for eCommerce is an objective certainty. Early adaption would bring upfront advantages. And it has been proven that an AI-integrated platform is essential to eCommerce today.

Hopefully, after reading this article, you can understand all the benefits that AI brings. We have also listed the top extensions you can use for your eCommerce store. Try it, and your sales performance will be improved enormously!

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