With the holidays being around the corner, the countdown has already begun on the numerous sales across all retailers and brands. A growing number of shoppers are avoiding stores and are increasingly embracing e-commerce to shop for gifts due to which prospects for online sales are looking up.

Here are five strategies that companies can focus on to break through the holiday shopping noise and score bigger online sales this season:

Using relevant imagery and information 

Displaying holiday-themed, creative and shoppable images, with product images from different angles as well as using video to showcase products creates more impact as it delivers a more immersive experience, in turn, increasing engagement. Personalized recommendations of products also stimulate interest and likelihood for a purchase.

Key purchasing elements about the products also need to be clear and precise, including the pricing and shipping options, which plays an important role at this time of the year.

Selling uncomplicated and useful products 

Shoppers must not be given too much choice and time to make a purchasing decision. Companies must choose products in such a manner in which it would tap into the shoppers' desires for products and that has the potential to enrich their lives. The best impulse purchases are the ones that shoppers don't regret - and the ones that are exciting, easy, and fairly universal.

Companies need to ensure that the products that are being offered answers a need for shoppers. It can be a gift for large groups such as all boys under 12, or a makeup palette that can compliment every skin tone, etc.  

Keeping the purchasing process simple 

The purchasing process refers to the technology (one-click purchase), fulfillment (free shipping), convenience (returns policy), and the driving factor - product content. During this season, impulse purchases happen more often, and in order to encourage shoppers to make a purchase, the product copy should be presented in a manner such that the shopper does not have any questions about the product, with the product copy being clear and concise, ratings and reviews being well presented with all the information up front.

Increasing visibility by diversifying platforms

In the digital sphere, one can not be sure where a shopper can come from, hence repetition is required. Showing products across various platforms and devices also help create brand recall for the shoppers and increasing the possibility of shoppers purchasing products. Retailers and brands can also depend on banner ads as they utilize “since you viewed” algorithms to feature adjacent products.

Informing shoppers on how much they will save

Shoppers would lean towards offers that allow them to save time or money - especially where gifting is concerned. Most shoppers choose to take advantage of a value deal while making purchases, especially during an impulse purchase. For digital, product copy should mention seasonal pricing or special gifts with the purchase, or free shipping. The information must be presented to the shopper clearly, but also with the mention of value to seal the deal.

E-commerce is an intensely competitive market where businesses need to keep innovating and adopting new technologies to sustain. These technologies come in packages, large & small, to help optimize the systems and processes, ensuring seamless experiences for the customers.

One of these technologies - Chatbots - has been a popular topic of discussion in the retail and e-commerce industries. Some discussions focus on how the user experience is improved while the remaining provides a detailed view of implementing and adopting chatbots for businesses. In this blog, we try to provide a holistic view of how chatbots help scale e-commerce businesses and subsequently consumers by dividing the benefits into three categories - predictive recommendations, engaging consumer engagement, reduction in the purchase process

Predictive recommendations 

E-commerce industries are user heavy and need to cater to different segments of audiences and their requirements. Whenever there is a discussion about the role of chatbots, one quote stands out -

“Goal is to turn data into information and information into insights.” – Carly Fiorina, Former CEO of HP

Imagine chatbots to be the one that hoards information and turn information into insights. They help customers find the products they’re looking for without extensive browsing, thereby providing users an incentive to stay on the platform and reduce drop-offs.

For instance, Amazon provides best-in-class search for users to find the products they want. The search takes into consideration a number of factors including user dialects, ease in product categorization and user buying behavior & patterns.   

Simple & Quick Consumer Engagement 

The primary function of chatbots is to be conversational by nature using text, buttons, and images and understand typed natural language requests. This is the reason that the most famous chatbots run inside messaging applications such as Facebook Messenger or Skype.

Hence, chatbots provide a huge benefit to e-commerce businesses to connect with the users.  In a high volume business of e-commerce, chatbots provide a highly scalable system to manage individual user conversations simultaneously for millions of users while gaining user insights to improve the product flow and experience.  

Reducing Purchase Time 

Chatbots help consumers to interact with the products at critical stages of their journey, increasing customer satisfaction, loyalty, and engagement. Chatbots provide the assistance to access product information quickly and make informed decisions to purchase the products.

Moreover, customers do not need to look at any other source to gain information on the products. Chatbots process information in the form of notifications, reminders, product updates to fuel conversions and enhance social experiences.

Image credit: Photo by Matan Segev from Pexels

The retail experience of a shopper is the latest area that AI and machine learning are causing disruption. Most retailers recognizing the potential of these technologies have started aligning them into their business goals. Two crucial aspects - data and computing power have changed in the past few years in the space of AI, which has opened up new opportunities for retailers today.

Computing power is easy to see, with the advent and rise of smartphones which have phenomenal computing power when compared to the bulky phones and computers used decades ago. Businesses today have unlimited computing access to train their AI algorithms. Furthermore, the data available today is extremely rich and scalable. AI systems that leverage learning techniques such as Machine learning thrive on large, rich data sets. When fed appropriately, these systems discover patterns and correlations that would be otherwise difficult with a human intervention. These machine learning approaches automate data analysis, enabling users to create models that can then be used to make useful predictions about other similar data.

The speed at which AI can be deployed depends on specific critical factors. The first is the ability to test and measure. Retail giants can effectively deploy AI and test and measure consumer response. They can also leverage AI to measure the effect on their entire supply chain.

There is some innovative and interesting robot technology taking place in retail such as Grocery giant partnering with Nuro.AI to deliver groceries to the customers’ doorsteps. But most significant changes will come from the deployment of AI rather than the use of physical robots or autonomous vehicles.

Here are 3 AI-based scenarios that will transform the retail experience -

AI can detect underlying patterns in the shopping behavior of shoppers from the products that they buy and the method used to buy them. This could be a simple weekly purchase of groceries from the supermarket, the sporadic purchases of wine from the liquor store or the complex midnight icecream cravings from the local convenience store.

At a larger scale, analysis of the behavior of millions of consumers would enable supermarkets to predict the number of households that cook pasta every week. This would then inform the inventory management systems, and automatically optimize the stock of pasta. This information can also be shared with the suppliers, enabling more efficient inventory management and organized logistics.

The pricing challenge for supermarkets involves applying the right price and the right promotion to the right product. Retail pricing optimization requires data analysis at a granular level for each customer, product and transaction. To be effective, many factors need to be considered such as the impact of sales due to the changing price over time, seasonality, weather and competitors’ promotions.

A well-defined machine learning program can factor in all variations, including details such as purchase histories and product preferences to develop deep insights and pricing tailored to maximize revenue and ultimately, profit.

In the past, customer feedback was collected through forms and feedback cards that were filled out and placed in a suggestions box. The feedback had to be manually read and acted upon appropriately. With the rise of social media, the platforms were leveraged to express feedback publicly. Retailers subsequently engaged in social media scraping software to respond, resolve and engage with customers.

With the growing innovations, machine learning will play a larger role in this space. Machine learning and AI systems will be able to analyze unstructured data from multiple sources such as verbal comments or video content.  

The evolving retail experience

As a shopper moves through various stages in life, the circumstances and spending habits change. AI and machine learning models will adjust and be able to predict the needs of the consumer before the consumer even searches for a product.

This shift to predictive marketing would change the way shoppers purchase products, bringing in suggestions and recommendations that they would not have even considered. The possibilities would widen, all because of AI - for both consumers and retailers alike.