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How to Improve Sales and Heighten Customer Experiences with AI-Powered E-commerce Features in BigCommerce
While Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not a new concept, and many companies have utilized it for years, groundbreaking discoveries in this field, including the release of OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT, have led to a notable surge in interest across both the general public and various business sectors. This heightened interest has spurred E-commerce companies to explore AI-based solutions.
Eager to delve into the potential of these innovative solutions, E-commerce experts from Emerline, a company providing various E-commerce development services, including E-commerce web development services and BigCommerce development services, have analyzed the current state of the market. They have also discovered the top five challenges that E-commerce and retail industries face today, and analyzed how AI, particularly through BigCommerce, can help address these challenges.
What Challenges Does the E-commerce Industry Face?
- Personalization. Personalization is an important E-commerce challenge, aiming to satisfy individual tastes. Despite abundant digital data, only 27% of E-commerce businesses are fully satisfied with creating tailored experiences, as per the market intelligence company Aberdeen. Yet, 77% of consumers are willing to choose, recommend, and pay more for brands providing personalized experiences.
- Data insight and analytics. Retail analytics involves using software to analyze data from sales channels, revealing customer behavior insights. Although 90% of enterprise professionals prioritize data and analytics for digital transformation, many are unaware of tools that can maximize their potential. Unlocking meaningful data insights remains another key challenge for E-commerce.
- Customer service. The management consultancy company McKinsey & Company reports that effective customer experience boosts retail sales by 2-7% and profitability by 1-2%. Surprisingly, businesses often remain unaware of poor customer service, as only 1 in 26 customers express negative experiences, making it challenging to recognize and address issues.
- SEO rankings and product discovery. The ongoing challenge is to boost SEO rankings and improve product discovery. About 38% of E-commerce site traffic originates from organic search, emphasizing the importance of SEO. Businesses strive to optimize product catalogs for better visibility and a larger audience, remaining competitive in search results.
- Security. In the 2020 Trustwave Global Security report, retail was the most targeted industry for cyber attacks. These attacks aim to steal sensitive customer information, make fraudulent transactions, and damage reputation. In the data-driven age, retailers must create robust strategies to prevent attacks, protect customer data, and swiftly handle threats without disrupting the shopping experience.
Artificial Intelligence Capabilities in E-commerce
The integration of AI technologies signifies immense potential for transforming E-commerce companies. The technology has already helped businesses to ensure:
Personalized product recommendations
AI algorithms meticulously analyze customer behavior, preferences, and purchase history, paving the way for personalized product recommendations, targeted marketing strategies, and customized user interfaces.
Improved customer service
AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can enhance customer service by efficiently managing routine queries, delivering product information, and offering instant support. This capability allows human agents to concentrate on addressing more complex issues, elevating overall service quality.
Top SEO rankings
AI can efficiently generate targeted content strategies, provide innovative blog ideas, conduct research on niche topics, and facilitate the creation of impactful internal links. Additionally, AI excels in identifying high-ranking keywords, contributing significantly to enhanced visibility and improved search engine performance, ultimately bolstering your business's online presence and competitiveness.
Strengthen data security and privacy
Through robust analysis of extensive datasets, AI-powered solutions easily identify patterns and anomalies, swiftly signaling potential security breaches. Furthermore, AI excels in monitoring user behavior, facilitating the early detection of suspicious activities, and ensuring a vigilant stance in safeguarding sensitive information. This proactive approach enables retailers to promptly respond to threats, minimizing the risk of data breaches.
Data-driven decision
AI and Big Data Analytics revolutionize retail by enabling data-driven decisions. Through in-depth analysis of vast datasets, retailers can unveil hidden patterns and insights, enhancing operational efficiency. This approach facilitates swift responses to market dynamics, customer preferences, and emerging trends, ensuring adaptability and sustained competitiveness.
How Can These Opportunities Be Realized Using the BigCommerce Platform?
Unlocking these opportunities has never been more seamless — all within the capabilities of a singular platform. BigCommerce is about to introduce Google Cloud AI-powered E-commerce features, empowering users to work more efficiently. These cutting-edge features include:
Writing feature for compelling product descriptions
This feature uses AI-powered writing capabilities, leveraging Google Cloud’s Vertex AI, to simplify and expedite the creation of product descriptions, enhancing the speed at which catalogs reach the market. By improving the efficiency of writing and creative processes, this feature aids in quicker market entry, thereby enhancing SEO rankings, product discovery, and ultimately increasing traffic and conversion rates for more sales.
Personalized storefronts
With personalized storefronts, merchants can create highly personalized product recommendations tailored to each customer’s taste and preference, providing a seamless way to elevate product discovery. The personalized recommendations enhance the customer shopping experience, potentially increasing average order value (AOV), conversions, and lifetime value (LTV), as customers are more likely to engage with products that match their preferences.
AI-Driven data analytics
The BigCommerce Ecommerce Insights tool, enhanced with new AI capabilities, enables merchants to gain deeper insights and analytics into store performance, customer trends, and respond to business changes in real-time. Deeper data insights allow merchants to make informed decisions, optimizing store performance and responding promptly to customer trends, contributing to improved overall business strategy and potentially improving online sales.
Conclusion
The upcoming integration of Google Cloud AI in BigCommerce marks a pioneering step, providing cutting-edge tools for more productive operations. Do you want to unlock the power of AI for your business?
Emerline stands at the forefront of unlocking these opportunities. Our BigCommerce services encompass design, development, migration, and integration solutions for both B2B and B2C needs. Beyond BigCommerce, our expertise extends to custom retail software development, UX/UI design, and support for various E-commerce platforms. Contact us to explore tailored solutions for elevating your business, and book a free consultation with our experts to delve into our capabilities!
Update: February 12, 2024
