When it comes to running an online retail business, retailers often face significant challenges to keep up with their customer expectations.

Traditional shopping experiences often fall short, lacking the speed, convenience, and personalization that today’s shoppers demand.

Issues like incomplete orders, abandoned carts, and lack of proper attention, make it difficult for many retailers to provide more personalized responsive service that buyers now expect.

Multiple studies have shown that as many as 55% of consumers believe that brands should engage them on a one-on-one basis and create personalized experiences, whereas only 17% of brands manage to meet these expectations of meaningfully interacting with the customers; there is the danger of losing sales and revenue for retailers that fail to match others in offering highly personalized experiences to the clients and business partners, which can potentially affect competitiveness in the modern market.

But, as they say – “every problem has a solution” and that solution here is AI-powered shopping assistants.

This smart technology can incline to recommend products that suit the needs of the customers, help the customer to answer basic questions regarding the products and even help the customers in the act of choosing/ purchasing the products of their choice at the right time.

The result? Fewer drop-outs during the purchasing process and a better consumer satisfaction that will eventually translate to more sales.

Did you know that businesses using AI-driven personalization have seen an average 10-30% increase in sales?

This is just one of the many reasons why integrating AI in an online store is becoming a must have for retailers who want to succeed in the digital marketplace​.

To explain this concept further, here is a detailed blog that will talk about the future of online retail with AI-powered shopping assistants. You will also know how AI shopping assistants can literally impact your online retail sales.

The New Generation of Shopping: AI Shopping Assistants

Chatbots or AI shopping assistants are gradually evolving into a trend in online shopping. The market size for these tools in 2022 was $516.4 million, and the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 30% over the next 10 years. Such assistants ensure that online stores provide customers what they want, perhaps similar to physical stores.

Since AI assistants have access to customer data about browsing history and purchases, it can easily recommend a product that customers could purchase rather than leaving empty carts.

How AI Shopping Assistants Can Attract More Shoppers

1. Optimizing Inventory Management

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a dominant factor in the field of retail business, impacting on how retailers manage their stocks.

Through the active use of AI, stores can determine customers’ demand, update the inventory data in real-time, and restock products without the need for a human intervention.

This has a positive impact on customers’ shopping experience or convenience and also aids in the effective management of stores.

AI enhances the precision of demand estimation. This is different from the traditional techniques whereby people make wrong estimations leading to overstocking or stockouts; with AI the system goes through large volumes of data for instance previous sales data and current market trends to arrive at an accurate estimation of the type of stock that should be available in the store.

Also, using AI, one can have more dependable forecasts as they can be easily adjusted according to changes in the market system.

It offers real-time updates on the stock, which means that there is no need to conduct continuous checks to determine when a particular item is out of stock; the system alerts the managers when stocks are low and orders for the product to be restocked. AI also changes its reorder points depending on the current stock available with the aim of minimizing on stockholding costs.

The advantages are evident: In turn, retailers would benefit from less stockouts, lower storage costs, as well as a smoother shopping experience for consumers. AI helps stores to meet customers’ needs and make the right decisions to stay relevant by maintaining high-demand products in stock.

2. Personalization Drive the Engagement of Customer

AI shopping assistants transform the shopping process by delivering customers high-quality, personalized experiences. This analyses the preferences and behaviours of individuals to recommend personalized products fitting the respective tastes of each customer. Therefore, it creates a more engaging shopping journey. Here is how AI achieves that:

Smart Recommendations: AI analyses the history of previous purchases, browsing history, and consumer interests to suggest products that mirror each customer’s interest. This approach makes finding desired items faster and more intuitive, ultimately enhancing the shopping experience.

Voice and Image Search: Through AI, customers can search for items by speaking or even through images. Whether a customer describes an article or uploads an image, all these features provide an easy and efficient way to find the correct items.

Lookbooks through AI Personalization: AI curates’ collections specific to individual styles, creating interesting lookbooks that encourage customers to browse and purchase more articles.

3. Reduce Cart Abandonment

For any e-shop, cart abandonment is one of the biggest challenges: 70% of shop owners lose potential customers because they leave things in their cart without making any purchase. Here’s how AI shopping assistants have changed this – keeping the buyer engaged and attending to their needs.

Reminder Alerts: The AI can send the reminder alerts to the customers for the items they left in the cart and reminding them to come and finish shopping. Mostly, these are the reminder alerts with additional incentives of discount or free shipping, making the offer irresistible.

Help During Checkout: AI assistants can answer the most common queries in shipping fee, return policy, or a product’s details and would assist customers in gaining confidence with the purchase as well as facilitate checking out.

Proactive customer concerns and gentle reminders by AI shopping assistants can serve as the base for recovering abandoned carts and successful conversions in business.

4. 24/7 Customer Support

AI shopping assistants are always available online and provide round-the-clock support, so customers can get help anytime they need it, ensuring a seamless journey through the buying process. Here’s how AI contributes to constant support:

Non-stop Availability: The AI assistant is online at all times providing instant help to the customer with their queries even during holidays or odd hours. This ensures constant convenience for customers and overall satisfaction.

Quick Responses: Customers usually enjoy quick answers for often-asked questions in regards to their products, shipping etc. making customers more likely to return.

The development of a sustainable customer relationship, which would eventually lead towards repeated sales and brand loyalty, becomes possible with fast and reliable support services provided by the AI shopping assistant.

Case Studies: How AI Shopping Assistants helped in Retail Growth

Amazon’s Rufus

Amazon has integrated AI through an assistant called Rufus in its shopping app to enhance the customer experience. Rufus is designed to assist shoppers by answering questions, providing detailed product information, and offering personalized recommendations.

During the 2024 Prime Day event, Rufus played a key role in supporting millions of customers, making the shopping experience more efficient and enjoyable. This AI-driven assistance contributed to higher customer engagement and satisfaction, helping shoppers navigate the massive sales event with ease.

The personalized recommendations and real-time support from Rufus also played a significant part in boosting sales during the event.

Walmart

Walmart uses AI in streamlining its operations, particularly on inventory management. The retail giant can use AI to foresee what will most likely be in demand, ensuring the storerooms are always well-stocked with popular products.

Additionally, robots are employed to scan shelves and update inventory, which helps reduce operational costs and improve stock accuracy. As a result, customers are more likely to find what they need, leading to better service and higher satisfaction.

The combination of efficient stock management and automation in Walmart’s operations has led to both cost savings and enhanced customer satisfaction.

eBay ShopBot

ShopBot is an eBay’s intelligent shopping assistant who aims at improving the customer’s shopping process and make it faster to find products. For instance, when using Facebook Messenger, ShopBot communicates with the customers directly, giving them support and helping to direct them through paths to buy.

A positive effect has been recorded on the satisfaction factor of users, as ShopBot delivers speedy and precise responses to the questions of its customers. Further, with the feature of helping customers to search products, ShopBot has provided more conversion rates, which indeed has been beneficial for eBay in terms of its sales.

Shopify’s Kit

The Kit is an AI marketing partner for small businesses which is developed by Shopify to assist in handling marketing activities. Kit performs several tasks including running of ads, sending of emails and even consummating customer data section hence giving business people other issues to address.

Kit has been proved effective for growing small businesses where marketing automation enhances sales by 15%. Further, the time that was spent previously on manual marketing activities has been significantly cut by automation hence business owners have gained more time dealing with other core areas in their businesses.

Conclusion

In wrapping up, AI shopping assistants offer retailers the chance to create more meaningful connections with customers. By delivering personalized recommendations and real-time support, they not only make shopping easier but also increase customer loyalty and sales.

Rather than being a trend, AI is becoming an essential tool for businesses aiming to streamline the shopping experience and meet the evolving expectations of today’s consumers.

If you’re looking to drive growth and improve customer engagement for your online store, integrating an AI shopping assistant could be the next step for your business.