Artificial Intelligence in eCommerce: Benefits, Statistics, Facts, Use Cases & Case Studies

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AI has taken over a large chunk of the market in today’s intelligent era, and eCommerce is no exception. In fact, the trend of AI in eCommerce has gained so much momentum that today, big or small, every eCommerce brand is readily integrating AI tools to make their business smooth, profitable, and trendy. Whether we discuss the inclusion of NLP-based chatbots, innovative recognition systems, or intelligent recommendations based on a user’s experience, AI in eCommerce benefits businesses and consumers more than ever. 

Don’t you believe us? Well, here are some of the fascinating stats and facts about the penetration of AI in eCommerce. 

  1. Almost 54% of the eCommerce stores adopted AI to analyze data for forecasting their sales, while 36% adopted it for real-time managing their stocks. 
  2. AI-driven eCommerce is expected to reach $49 billion by the end of 2021.  
  3. As per Gartner, almost 80% of the customer’s interactions today are held by chatbots.  
  4. Around 51% of the eCommerce marketers have implemented AI across their departments like marketing, sales, customer service, and inventory management.   
  5. 71% of marketers find AI as a powerful platform for delivering personalization.  
  6. Computer vision, the emerging scope of AI, will reach $25 billion by 2023 and completely transform the eCommerce industry. 

Still not convinced? Wait till we offer you some more amazing benefits of AI in eCommerce! 

Benefits of AI in eCommerce 

Although AI has played a vital role in defining the future of the eCommerce industry, let; ’s take a look at some of the most influential and profitable benefits of AI in e-Commerce that makes it the best of all the trends. 

  1. With AI in eCommerce, today, businesses can facilitate personalization and can offer an accurate suggestion of the products to their customers at the right time. 
  2. Apart from intelligent recommendations, AI in eCommerce can automatically select the best deal and offers to lure customers and increase sales. 
  3. An AI-powered chatbot is one more reason to invest in AI in the eCommerce trend. You can automate all your customer support operations and offer real-time assistance to your customers resulting in a higher user experience.  
  4. With AI in eCommerce, you can even keep track of all your inventories in real-time and get an accurate sales and demand forecast resulting in substantial cost savings.  
  5. With advanced AI applications like NLP and computer vision, you can probably facilitate automated checkouts and human-less stores that further make you stand apart from the competition.  
  6. AI in eCommerce is all about gathering data and offering suggestions. You can use this capability to track your customer’s sales journey, identify the exact cause of their loss, and even eliminate that cause in the future.   

As evident, AI in eCommerce is growing tremendously; and is ready to conquer almost all segments of this robust industry. Whether we talk about tracking your stocks in real-time or offering automated checkouts in your brick-and-mortar shops, AI in eCommerce today has offered so much to the retailers that none of us have imagined a few years back.  

But the main concern is how you can implement AI in your eCommerce store? Do you need extra resources for that? Does AI in eCommerce call for some more technical expertise?  

To help you get answers to all such questions, today, we will discuss the benefits and use-cases of AI in eCommerce. So, without wasting much time, let’s begin!  

How is AI used in eCommerce?  

Although there are many use cases of AI in eCommerce, we will be discussing a few prominent ones here in our article. 

Personalization 

So, the first and foremost use case of AI in eCommerce is personalization. Everybody today is aware that the key to success in any field is personalization, and eCommerce is no exception. Everything needs to be personalized to grab the trust and attention of your valuable customers, from content to product suggestions to even discounts and push notifications. 

In fact, as per a trusted source, 80% of the customers tend to buy from an eCommerce store that offers personalization. Hence, AI in eCommerce is the only best tool that can help you offer that to your customers. With smart AI algorithms, you can find the trends and patterns in customers’ behavior, shopping experience, and searches that can help you frame a perfect marketing strategy for that customer. Besides that, AI even facilitates sending personalized notifications and offers that any customer cannot deny, thus, increasing your sales and revenues.  

Customer Service 

Another most amazing and pioneer use case of AI in eCommerce is customer service. Now, customers are vital in almost every business, and their effectiveness further increases when we are talking about eCommerce. From handling customer queries in real-time to assisting them 24*7, customer service is one major department that calls for constant work. And, hiring dedicated resources for all that work may not sound like an economical idea. Enter a chatbot! 

With an AI-driven chatbot, you can automate all of your customer support operations in a fraction of your time. From solving their product-related queries and tracking refunds to assisting them in their shopping, a custom chatbot development is capable of doing a lot more things for your eCommerce business than we can imagine. The best part? You do not need to be tech-savvy to work with a chatbot!  

Future Sales Prediction 

One of the significant aspects of any eCommerce business, whether big or small, is getting an accurate demand and sales prediction to eliminate wastages and ensure profits. However, the manual operations for calculating the demand forecast includes traditional methods and may involve error due to human involvement. That’s where AI in eCommerce comes to play! 

With an AI-powered solution, you can easily predict your eCommerce store’s accurate sales and product needs in much less time and with better accuracy. These smart solutions track down your inventory and warehouse levels and also consider past sales. Besides, they also analyze the present-day customer behavior and list down all the products with maximum sales. The self-trained algorithms offer you accurate sales and demand predictions with all those crucial parameters for the next year.     

Product Search 

One of the primary reasons today for a higher bounce rate for any eCommerce site is the inability to offer the perfect product to the customers at the right time. As per a trusted source, almost 88% of the customers search for a product before buying it. That said, if you do not offer the right kind of product to your prospect at the right time, then the chances are high that they will leave your site forever! 

However, with AI in eCommerce, this situation is not likely to happen. The AI-powered tools carefully analyze the specific requirements and experience of the customers, and based on that data; they suggest the best products and deals to the customers that they cannot deny. In fact, many of the leading businesses today are actively using AI-based recommendation systems to make their business more user-centric and profitable.  

Cybersecurity 

Last but not least, we have cybersecurity as the latest and most crucial use case of AI in eCommerce. It is often seen that payment frauds or customer data thefts are some of the critical and unmanaged risks associated with the eCommerce industry. To further add to this potential threat, many leading businesses are still unclear how to handle these cybersecurity threats. 

That’s where Ai in e-Commerce comes in! With solid and reliable AI-powered tools, you can track every transaction that happens on your platform. Besides that, the secure cloud storage and AI-protected platforms also make it easy for you to store all your crucial business and customer-related data with access-based rights.  

AI in eCommerce – Case Studies 

So far, we have discussed the market share and benefits of AI in eCommerce. We also noticed some of the popular use-cases of AI that are transforming the future of the eCommerce industry. But it might come to your mind that all companies use this trend of AI in eCommerce? Are there any possible case studies that confirm the benefits of these amazing use canvases of AI? 

Well, there are many! Let’s check out the top 3 most popular use-cases of AI in eCommerce to answer all your queries efficiently.   

Rakuten 

Rakuten is one famous online retailing company that focuses on customer satisfaction and offers fascinating tools to its online visitors. The company has a worth of $7.2 billion and is often regarded as the Amazon of Japan. Rakuten constantly invests in some advanced AI algorithms to upgrade its services and offer a better experience to its users.  

In fact, the company’s research and development branch recently adopted a popular AI mechanism to help the users get the perfect-sized clothes while surfing online. First, the users need to enter their basic physical information, and then the smart algorithm will automatically suggest the best dresses that fit the person. With that, the visitors easily find their matching clothes, and eventually, their shopping experience increases. The use of image recognition, deep learning, and self-trained ML algorithms was being used by Rakuten to develop such a smart system.    

The North Face 

Another great eCommerce brand of the USA that adores the trend of AI in eCommerce is The North Face. This retail brand deals with clothes and is considered as one of the very first eCommerce companies to have implemented AI in their operations. With the use of AI in the eCommerce trend, this company implemented IBM Watson, a cognitive system that understands the complex nature of the customers and offers data-backed decisions that can lure them effectively.  

The brand uses the smart cognitive technology of Watson with Fluid’s Smart Shopper Expert to accurately deliver the right product to the right customer and at the right time. You only need to enter a few details or specifications of what you are looking for, and the system will assist you as a physical salesperson would do.    

Alibaba 

Finally, we have Alibaba as our last case study of AI in eCommerce. Well, the last two brands used automated AI tools to enhance the customer-front systems. However, Alibaba took AI to a whole new level by completely automating its warehouse operations. The company incorporated AI-powered robots to manage its complete inventory and warehouse management operations. 

The integration of AI in their store resulted in a whopping 10% decrease in their total vehicle travel and a 30% decrease in their total distance traveled. In addition, the AI-powered robots used at Alibaba can categorize the products into the right shelves. Still, they alert when the products are below a minimum level and eliminate thefts or faults at shop floors.   

Final Takeaway!  

So, those were some of the prominent use cases, benefits, and case studies of AI in eCommerce. To conclude, we can say that, in today’s digital and competitive world, implementing AI has not remained a luxury; rather, it has become a necessity. The same can be said about implementing AI in eCommerce!  

Hence, one should not limit themselves to trying and implementing the new and successful AI trends in their eCommerce store to stand out from the crowd and make a better brand name. AI in eCommerce is not just about simplifying your tedious operations. Still, it even ensures a better sales journey and customer satisfaction, resulting in more revenues and a vast customer base. So, what’s that one trend you will try for your eCommerce store? Let us know in the comment section below!  


About Author 

Nainika is the Senior Technical Content Writer at Matellio who loves and loves to cover various aspects of next-gen technology. She enjoys implementing various writing styles and techniques. In addition, she is an engineer, which further gives him a broad spectrum of understanding various tech tools and platforms.

Artificial Intelligence in eCommerce: Benefits, Statistics, Facts, Use Cases & Case Studies

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