13 Ways to Use AI in Ecommerce (with Tools Recommendations)

In the last few years, eCommerce businesses have slowly started implementing artificial intelligence into their daily operations. Online retailers nowadays use various AI in ecommerce tools to improve customer experience, detect fraud, optimize prices, and create ads.

Most importantly, machine learning and its subset deep learning allow you to significantly increase conversions. The whole online shopping process has become automated, with little to no human involvement. Among others, this helps you eliminate errors while making the results more predictive.

Let’s discuss these benefits in more detail.

The Benefits of Using AI in Ecommerce

Artificial intelligence is much more than some modern technology that helps you automate your daily tasks or writes content for you. It’s a vital ingredient for the survival of eCommerce retailers. Without these apps, businesses can’t provide a good enough user experience and ensure customer loyalty. On the other hand, implementing AI will give you a competitive edge over the brands that don’t use these tools.

That being said, here are a few specific ways AI can improve your business performance:

Improves Business Operations

First and foremost, artificial intelligence can optimize every aspect of your business operations. Besides on-site improvements, such as providing personalized experience, this technology can help your finances, product design, competitive analysis, marketing, sales, and so on.

These programs can help simplify every aspect of your business while eliminating human error. As a result, you’ll not only be able to enhance on-site conversions, but you’ll also improve the performance of every department. The use of these tools can also help reduce human input, thus allowing you to save resources on repetitive daily processes.

Saves Time

These programs are also incredible for saving time and increasing availability. For example, you can use virtual assistants to provide round-the-clock support to online shoppers. You can use artificial intelligence to create product descriptions, optimize pages, manage inventory, and create ads in just a few clicks.

Machine learning shines for comprehensive tasks that involve numerous variables. Good examples of that are competitive analysis and tracking customer behaviors, which would otherwise require weeks to perform. With these platforms, you can gain premium business intelligence with minimal effort.

Enhances the Shopping Experience

Even if we disregard all other benefits, which is a tall task, you should still utilize AI to improve the shopping experience. This software can significantly improve users’ time on site, simplifying the search, providing instant product recommendations, and giving access to 24/7 AI-powered chatbots.

Not only does this help with conversion, but it also helps customer retention. Even if a person doesn’t buy from you, increased customer interactions with the site can provide numerous indirect benefits, such as better brand awareness.

Eliminates Human Errors

For whatever reason, experts rarely talk about AI tools as something that can eliminate human errors. These platforms don’t make mistakes when creating content or managing inventory. They can predict market demand with perfection while also providing actionable user and competition insights within seconds.

People who run eCommerce platforms can’t allow themselves any mistakes on or off the website. Given the stiff global competition and limited room for success, you need to utilize every competitive advantage you can get.

13 Ways to Use AI in Ecommerce

Whether we’re talking about eCommerce companies or any other type of business, AI can be used to automate various processes. In this case, we’ll focus on how machine learning can improve your external (customer-facing), internal (backed-operations), and advertising processes.

Customer-Facing Ways

This category focuses on how AI can improve visitors’ online shopping experiences. Among others, these tools create a customized buyer journey by taking into account customer preferences. They also help improve textual, voice, and visual search by better understanding linguistic nuances.

1. Chatbots to Enhance Customer Service

One of the main reasons for getting frustrated with online shopping is the lack of customer support. This is especially noticeable when you deal with less-known brands. As a way of resolving this issue, many online brands have started using AI-driven chatbots. This software can help with customer queries and, more importantly, assist with shopping cart and payment issues.

Among all the different tools available on the market, Chatfuel stands out as one of the best options for WhatsApp (in addition to Facebook Messenger et. al.) communication. It can help business owners with numerous tasks, including re-engagement and converting abandoned carts. The chatbot also provides customer support to users and collects feedback from buyers.

Further Reading: The 13 Facebook Messenger Management Tools You Should Know

2. Product Recommendations Tailored to Your Individual Customers

Using software for personalized product recommendations is vital for your conversion rates. These marketing tools are excellent for simplifying product search and increasing customer satisfaction. With personalized suggestions, you can point visitors in the right direction, so they don’t miss items they might like.

Klevu is a good option if you need personalized recommendations for customers. The platform utilizes intent data to predict consumer demands. By relying on advanced natural language processing, Klevu can analyze different languages, which is especially fantastic for large international online stores.

3. Provide Personalized Customer Experience

Providing a personalized shopping experience goes way beyond basic website recommendations. You can also send personalized emails and notifications to previous customers, enticing them to visit the store once again. Some platforms also make automatic inventory sorting and search based on user preferences.

Vue.ai works as your personal shopper. The platform allows you to enrich and extract product data so that users can easily access your inventory from any device. Not only does the tool help tag products, but it also automatically tags different parts of these products. Vue.AI also adds a virtual dressing room so that the shoppers can see how certain clothes would look on them.

4. Create Customer-Centric Search Functionality

If you wish to convert website visitors, it’s vital that you provide them with fast solutions. The more they stay on your site without finding what they’re looking for, the less likely they’ll make a purchase. Unfortunately, many visitors use convoluted keywords that make no sense to stores’ internal search engines.

This is why nowadays, online shops turn to software such as Algolia. This platform uses a technology called neural hashes, which taps into the human brain and the way we express ourselves. So, when people use the search bar, the website can return more relevant results to their queries.

5. Allow Consumers to Visually Search

Image optimization is one of the trickier parts of digital marketing. In this particular case, users rely on visuals instead of keywords to find what they’re looking for. This can be really helpful when looking for a specific item, but you don’t know what it’s called.

Syte is among the best tools for visual search. By adding it to your platform, you allow visitors to upload their images into the search bar and browse similar items within the store. You can point to any small detail on a dress or trousers, and the tool will show products with the same or similar parts.

6. Optimization of Product Images

Having beautiful product images is the top priority for any online shop. Low-quality visuals can be so damaging to your brand, affecting not only your sales but also your reputation. Unfortunately, hiring a professional photographer takes time and money, something that small companies don’t have.

This is why businesses nowadays rely on image optimization tools such as Pixelcut. With this software, you can quickly create professional visuals without having to hire experts. The tool allows you to remove and change the background, erase picture elements, and improve the resolution with a click of a mouse.

Backend Operations

There are so many things happening behind the scenes of an online shop. Besides having a well-optimized platform, you also have to utilize efficient inventory management methods. On top of that, your site requires easy payment processing and extraordinary protection to put customers at ease.

7. More Efficient Inventory Management

Inventory management is one of the top concerns not only for eCommerce businesses but also for traditional stores. Spending too much money on products can easily put you in a financial pinch by severely hindering your cash flow. On the other hand, you also shouldn’t neglect potential product deficits.

So, if you want to better manage your stock, you should try out Monocle App. With this platform, you can automate purchases from your suppliers, helping you procure the right amount of products at the right time. As if that wasn’t enough, the software tracks the movement through the supply chain from the manufacturer to the end user.

8. Auto-Generated Product Descriptions

Like imagery, product descriptions are something that eats away a lot of your time. Luckily, we now have access to innovative solutions that would help automate this process.

Jasper.ai is an artificial intelligence platform that can help generate different marketing materials. Besides product descriptions, you can use them to create blog articles, email templates, and Google and Facebook Ads. Although this form of marketing automation is still in its inception, it can provide great results for your brand.

Further Reading: 15 Best AI Social Media Post Generators to Check Out

9. Detect Cases of Fraud

Safety is probably the main concern when it comes to online shopping, both for buyers and sellers. Alas, despite the fact that eCommerce has been around for a while, there are still numerous cases of fraud, even in highly developed countries. And although anti-theft technology has improved, so did the hacking methodology.

Shield software relies on artificial intelligence for analyzing the safety of devices, users, and accounts. Basically, the tool focuses on previous consumer behavior and assigns a risk score to every transaction. Based on its assessment, the program decides which users can and which ones can’t finish their purchases.

10. Dynamic Pricing Optimization

Although the price usually isn’t the main priority for online shoppers, it still remains an important consideration. Unfortunately, forming the right prices can be really tough, especially when selling products online. Tracking market fluctuations is virtually impossible, especially if we consider the number of products and competitors.

At least, this was the case until recently. With Minderest, you can analyze competitors’ prices in real-time, both in their online and physical shops. On top of that, you can also gain valuable insights about suppliers’ prices, promotions, and stockouts. When everything’s said and done, Minderest can help maximize your profits without extra effort.

Advertising

Many companies nowadays use AI tools for marketing campaigns. Aside from creating powerful, intriguing ads, these platforms are fantastic for predictive analysis and targeting ideal customer persona.

11. Create Ads

Many online stores use paid ads to quickly reach the target audience. When done correctly, these campaigns can have a direct impact on your bottom line, allowing you to bypass the development of your digital marketing channels.

AdCreative.ai is a tool that can simplify this process. You can use the platform to create different textual elements, including powerful headlines, to convert CTAs and social media posts. The platform adapts to your company’s existing visuals, creating solutions that will fit your branding. AdCreative.AI also has a comprehensive analytic suite that will help you track the success of your campaigns.

Further Reading: What is the Facebook Ad Library and 13 Ways How to Use it for Facebook Marketing

12. Optimize Ad Spend Across Campaigns and Channels

Although the idea of reaching new customers and increasing marketing share sounds compelling, that doesn’t mean you’ll succeed at your advertising campaign. There are too many things to consider, which is why companies use platforms such as Adline to automate and thus simplify their marketing.

With this platform, you can run several concurrent campaigns from a single dashboard. Most notably, this software helps you analyze the customer journey and conversion during every step. As if that wasn’t enough, Adline uses natural language processing to create ad texts, but also imagery and buttons.

Further Reading: The Top 13 Facebook Ad Tools You Didn’t Even Know Existed

13. Advertise to Lookalikes of Your Potential Customers

Marketing your shop to a lookalike audience is a good way to generate leads. These users have similar tendencies and consumer preferences as your current buyers, which makes them prime targets for your ad campaigns.

Nowadays, many platforms use AI tools to track down these consumers. The best example is Facebook, which uses people’s internal data to predict their consumer preferences. However, there are also other third-party tools that rely on similar technology. You can use these platforms to customize your campaigns for maximum profitability.

Further Reading: How to Retarget on Facebook in 2023: A Comprehensive Guide

AI in Ecommerce Conclusion

Ecommerce teams can get numerous benefits from content tools, virtual assistants, inventory managers, ad creators, and similar programs. Many of these platforms analyze previous purchases to provide online shoppers with a seamless customer experience. The others rely on available data on the web to optimize prices, logistics, and other internal processes.

Whatever the case, I suggest you try some of these tools. Not only will they simplify and hasten daily tasks, but they will also help you squeeze as much money as possible from your customers while optimizing your business operations.

If you’re looking for more ideas on how to integrate AI into your digital marketing, check out my video below:

Hero photo by Lance Reis on Unsplash