Transforming eCommerce Environment With AI, AR, & Voice Commerce

Artificial intelligence (AI), voice commerce, and augmented reality (AR) are amongst the major factors contributing in leaps and bounds to increasing the convenience in eCommerce customer experience. The changing economic landscape has contributed greatly to the success of online businesses. Needless to say that the eCommerce industry has hit its heyday in the last 2 years. Here's how you can incorporate these cutting-edge technologies into your business and see how retailers are using them.

There are several factors that contribute to convenience in e-commerce like expedited data entry at checkout, instant shipping rates, delivery date information, different payment options. There are several factors that make e-commerce convenient, including expedited data entry at the checkout, real-time shipping rates, delivery date information, and multiple payment methods. Upgrading customers’ experience with convenience has become essential to put retailers on top of the market. Here’s how the technology can help in driving convenient, customer-centric retailing across industries for better growth of the organization.

Voice Commerce in a nutshell

Using technology like smart home speakers or mobile devices, voice commerce allows customers to ask for what they want. Compared to browsing with a keyboard, this innovation has been hailed as an innate form of shopping. By 2022, that number may surpass $40 billion. Amazon has been ruling the market by stepping forward and blending innovation and technology into a human voice through its invention, Alexa. It is possible to request product recommendations, reorder essentials, add items to shopping lists, and hear different options for products. As a result of Amazon's end-to-end purchase cycle, customers can also track packages via Alexa.

Customers enjoy voice shopping for its convenience, but they are also attracted to its novelty. Instead of typing a letter, shoppers can browse and buy the products they want based on customer reviews and data. Modern retailers attract customers who seek cutting-edge shopping experiences. Voice shopping brings a whole new level of convenience to online shopping in line with the strong push for hyper-personalization in eCommerce. As per the report, among voice search users, 54% believe their digital assistants will be able to assist them in making retail purchases in the near future. Moreover, 38% indicate that these devices should understand their preferences when it comes to purchases. Voice commerce will be a natural outcome as smart technology progresses.

Blending innovation with voice

Major brands are experimenting with voice commerce these days to create a strong foothold in the market. Despite being relatively new to the eCommerce sector, many of the biggest players are eager to adopt it to provide ease and perfection.

Micro-retailers and voice commerce

Some brands don't have the resources to build a dedicated AI for customers to shop with voice commands. However, that does not mean they can't use the technology.

The owners of shopping apps who have the resources may find it beneficial to include a voice search function. This allows one of the most revenue-driving aspects of voice commerce to become viable: reordering. Voice ordering works better for restocking everyday items you know and trust rather than placing an order without some research and product knowledge.

Google's featured snippets are one of the best places for your brand or product to be displayed in search results. Whenever possible, these "position zero" excerpts are pulled from search results in response to a voice search inquiry. In more than 40% of cases, voice search results are derived from featured snippets.

Significance of Artificial Intelligence

Let's dive into the most common ways retailers may use AI today:

1) Chatbots

Ecommerce sellers are gaining popularity by using conversational chat interfaces. These interfaces use artificial intelligence to assist customers. Chatbots typically answer frequently asked questions, complete simple tasks, or help clients find the information they need. With these helpful communication features, retailers are able to handle simple customer requests, allowing them to focus on solving complex problems or improving the customer experience instead.
The majority of people use chatbots to solve problems quickly.

2) The Visual Search Method

Similar to voice search, visual search allows us to locate items that appeal to us more naturally. Visual creatures can identify images in 13 milliseconds. In such a market, it is not surprising that visual search is growing. By using an image to search for items, customers can locate similar products. Due to its convenience, speed, and coolness, it's widely appealing to customers.

3) Orders taken via text

Ordering via text remains the number one feature on smartphones, with more than six billion texts sent every day. Customers can communicate with retailers via text message, which provides a unique convenience for retailers. Re-engagement, promotional offers, order updates, or most lucratively - re-ordering can all be done with these. By incorporating user information, preferences, and payment options, creates a seamless reordering process that drives customer loyalty.

4) Filling orders with robots

AI is increasingly used behind the scenes by retailers as well to increase efficiency. Globally, AI-enabled robots are reducing labor costs for brands, which would otherwise require human interaction. With the help of AI-powered systems like SORT, repetitive work like picking and sorting can be performed by machines rather than humans. As evidenced by the massive growth in eCommerce in 2020, these robots are of great help to the sellers with high-volume eCommerce operations experiencing increasing order loads.

Augmented Reality for new Try-Before-You-Buy

Another tech-savvy cousin of AI, augmented reality (AR), is becoming increasingly popular. By leveraging artificial intelligence, augmented reality makes online shopping a more personal and tangible experience. The buyers cannot feel or experience the product before they buy it - augmented reality turns the issue on its head by creating experiences for the buyers shopping online.

1) The use of social media filters

People needed specialized headsets a few years ago to experience augmented reality. A branded social media filter was one of the first uses of the technology on a large-scale platform. As social media platforms are consistently used and have a high-touch component, filters offer a great level of engagement.

2) The Preview Placement

Product returns affect some industries more than others. The cost of returning large products on eCommerce generally is high, but it is especially high for large products. Seeing that retailers incur hefty fulfillment costs with every order, customers expect retailers to help them understand the product they're buying, and how it will look in their space.

Using AR, we can reduce returns for small consumer items, too. In recent years, many people were hesitant to try on products they had to buy online. A product's appearance is an influential factor in deciding whether you will purchase it. Innovative solutions are being developed by retailers to make at-home try-ons a reality. The more you understand how an item will look in the context of your life as a customer, the higher your conversion rates will be and the fewer returns you'll have to make.

How to Get Started with Voice Commerce, AI, and AR

Take a step back and consider a few basic steps. Using these technologies helps your customers to have a better experience when they shop from your store. So, it's important to consider the following questions:

• How can I improve my customer journey?
• How can I improve my browsing options?
• Which products would be best suited to these technologies?
• Once they have been applied, how can I gauge their success?

Once you've determined the details, start exploring solutions that fit the scenario. Virtual try-ons aren't needed with every brand, and voice commands aren't likely to be used to make high-end purchases. If you keep your customers at the center of your efforts, you are sure to succeed. Look for creative opportunities in partnerships and integrations. By improving SEO and tagging your products accurately, you can enhance your products' visibility in voice and visual searches.

Conclusion

Lastly, if you are striving to improve your e-commerce store, you cannot ignore the most important thing, your shipping procedure which contributes immensely to the success of a business and in order to do so you need to organize the most important part of your online selling i.e. logistics and be in pace with the recent trends in the market. Shyplite as an end-to-end logistics automation platform is here to provide you with a single dashboard to look after all your shipping needs. Now expand your business and ship globally with ease!