7 Ways AI Can Help Boost E-Commerce Sales

Finding it challenging to boost your online sales?

If your answer is yes, then you might want to consider applying AI – otherwise known as artificial intelligence. 

Many e-commerce stores use AI because of its dynamic capabilities. This includes enhancing the shopping experience, improving customer engagement, sales, and more. 

In this post, we’ll walk you through 7 ways AI can help you boost your e-commerce sales: 

1. Cart Abandonment Recovery

Cart abandonment is a common problem among e-commerce business owners. 

Using AI to capture information from your site visitors who browse your online store is one way to decrease the number of customers dropping off last minute. Using this data, AI tech can be used to display ads, emails, app notifications, or even messages depending on the available information. 

For one, shoppers who already expressed an interest in your products or services can be retargeted to keep your products in mind and increase the chances that they make a purchase. It always helps if you work with the best e-commerce fulfillment providers to ensure that once a purchase is made, you can deliver your products on time!

2. Effective Site Search

Providing your customers with exceptional customer experience is another effective way to help boost your sales – you can treat your customers far better if you know their intention in the first place. 

You’ll need to have a valid sales search for understanding your customer’s behavior. That way, you can provide what your customers really need. 

A site search powered by AI almost thinks like a human, thanks to Natural Language Processing (NLP). This allows AI to understand your customer’s intent, allowing you to provide reliable results.

3. Automatic Lead Retargeting

A lot of e-commerce stores use retargeting campaigns to attract more customers. We briefly touched on this in point 1, but to take it one step further, you can retarget the leads that you were unable to convert during your past marketing campaigns using very specific ads. This is especially ideal if you have new and exciting offers. 

It’s important when retargeting that you don’t leave everything to guesswork. You’ll need to use your data to accurately understand who has high intent to purchase and who’s a cold lead. If marketing isn’t your strong point, then AI is something that can be used to help you improve your retargeting process.

This is achieved by analyzing vast amounts of information across the internet. With the right information in your hands, it’s easy to create specific messages and customized offers to your prospects, making it easier for you to convince potential customers to proceed and buy your products. 

4. Enhanced Customer Experience

Another essential factor that helps you increase your sales is customer experience. When people aren’t happy with your e-commerce store, it’s unlikely that they will make a transaction with you. 

A sister product of AI – the chatbot – can be handy in providing customers with impeccable customer service and support. 

Some chatbots use NLP when communicating with your customers. 

A huge benefit is that they can handle many customers at once, operating 24/7. They cater to the needs of customers by analyzing all relevant information about them. They can also provide customers with recommendations, answer their questions, and provide solutions. 

Chatbots are quite popular with the younger generation – according to a study by 3Cinteractive, 40% of Millennials claim they interact with a bot daily. Millennials seem to prefer to communicate via chat rather than the phone. Not to mention the fact that chatbots can reply in an instant.

Keep in mind that nothing beats a real human. Chatbots can’t answer every question, but they are certainly a great solution when you are low on man-power. 

5. Visual Search Optimization

Have you tried searching for an item in an e-commerce store but found it hard to look for the right keywords to use in the search bar? 

You may know what the product looks like but struggle to remember its name. Or it may be that the design of the product is too intricate for words. You wish you could search it using a photo that you have of it. Sound familiar?

There is now such a thing as AI-powered visual search tools that customers can use to find their desired items in an instant. Remember, making a product easy to find has a positive impact on your online store’s user experience. This is why it’s important to also look into how to improve increase your website’s SEO. 

This decreases the wasted time that’s brought about by attempts in keyword guessing. Furthermore, it provides you with more accurate results.

As a result, you can meet your customers’ needs. They’ll also be more likely to want to buy an item, which can ultimately help improve your e-commerce sales. 

6. Customer Review Verification

According to a study, 37% of consumers rely on customer reviews before making any purchasing decisions. Reviews are the cornerstone of trust, especially in the e-commerce industry, as long as they’re legit. 

AI helps combat these false reviews by putting more emphasis on verified customer reviews.

Amazon, for instance, has a built-in system that filters reviews per product. This allows them to show genuine customer reviews. It also provides shoppers the option to mark whether a particular review is helpful to them which, in turn, affects the placement of the review as well. 

7. Customer Data Interpretation

Enhancing your sales means understanding your customers’ needs, wants, demands, and preferences. You should be able to meet all these expectations. 

But you can’t do that unless you understand what your customers want. This is where AI can help, especially when it comes to personalizing and customizing your offers –  it can encourage customers to make purchases from you, and cater to their individual needs. 

The more accurate the information you gather from AI, the more you can be strategic with your marketing strategy to drive in sales. 

Luckily, e-commerce platforms nowadays make it easy for business owners to implement AI on their online store. And you can integrate other tools like ManyChat, Boomtrain, and Sentient Technologies to understand your customers better and enhance their online shopping experience.

This guest post was written by Jake Rheude of Red Stag Fulfillment.