The impact of AI on eCommerce web design

AI is no longer just a catchphrase or buzzword. It’s an integral part of industries and daily life, influencing everything from healthcare and finance, to entertainment and education.

The many practical applications of AI are vast and growing, shaping how we work, communicate and solve problems.

Businesses no longer have the option to ‘opt out’ of using AI to inform business decisions, attract new customers and improve digital customer service. Industries across the board, and companies big and small need to come to terms with a new frontier that has the power to impact their bottom line and ultimately have a tangible effect on everyday operations. 

Although an end-to-end transformation of jobs and businesses completely being taken over by robots and artificial intelligence is far-fetched, getting on the bandwagon at this point is critical to stay afloat within an increasingly competitive and digitally-enabled eCommerce market. 

In all honesty, AI isn’t exactly new. But the rise of large datasets has enabled the development of deep learning and neural networks has lead to breakthroughs in image and speech recognition, as well as natural language processing 

Making AI systems more transparent, robust and aligned with human values. 

AI has indeed come a long way, and while it's not a new concept, recent advancements have significantly expanded its capabilities and applications. Some of the following trends that have caught our attention.

Dynamic pricing 

AI algorithms can analyse market conditions, competitor pricing and demand patterns to adjust prices in real-time. 
By continuously monitoring and responding to changes in the market helps the AI identify the best price points to attract customers, especially in fluctuating or seasonally affected markets. 

Dynamic pricing is traditionally a tactic for businesses in the travel, entertainment and ridesharing industries among a few to continue to stay ahead of the competition and respond to market trends. However, ecommerce businesses can also benefit from this tactic to continue to maximise revenue and optimise their market offering, ensuring that pricing aligns with current consumer behaviour and market trends. 

Amazon is a classic example of dynamic pricing where they leverage sophisticated algorithms and big data analytics to adjust prices in real-time based on demand, competitor prices, time of day and user behaviour. Access to data is a big necessity to make this work effectively, and larger companies like Amazon are in no shortage.

Enhanced customer service

AI chatbots and virtual assistants are becoming increasingly sophisticated in handling customer inquiries. 
These systems can provide instant responses, handle many different queries to help your business operations and reduce one less task. 

Understanding natural language was a significant breakthrough that has enabled these types of software to deliver more accurate and relevant answers in a way that resonates with your customers. 

AI doesn’t sleep, and so your customer service doesn’t have to either. Businesses claim that chatbots improve customer satisfaction and free up human agents to focus on more complex and nuanced issues, improving your operational efficiency.

Visual search and recognition

The success of a visual search engine hinges on several factors, with computer vision and image recognition being paramount. Image recognition empowers devices to identify, understand, and categorise the objects they see, transforming raw visual data into tangible product suggestions.

AI-powered visual search allows customers to find products by uploading images. Overall, this sort of feature has the potential to improve the shopping experience with many Gen Z and millennial consumers wanting visual search capabilities, serving to attract and engage your younger customers. 

Image recognition relies heavily on data and experience to improve performance over time, so leveraging existing visual search software such as Google Lens, and optimising your content and images to be searchable should be best practice. ASOS is just one of the leading fashion eCommerce platforms that lets users take a photo of a clothing item or accessory to search their catalogue to recommend similar items available for purchase.

Predictive analytics

AI can forecast trends, inventory needs and customer behaviour. Even if you don’t start with a perfect set of data to enable predictive analytics, it’s important to begin with what you have and build your data over time—starting late is still better than not starting at all.

For businesses yet to fully embrace AI, transitioning from experimentation to full-scale implementation can be challenging. One significant hurdle is data maturity. Without a robust data infrastructure, you can still harness general shopping and consumer trends, but you might be at a disadvantage when it comes to your own business forecasting. 

However, when properly implemented, AI-powered analytics can lead to a 15-20% increase in ROI for eCommerce businesses and enable more informed, data-driven decisions.

As tempting as it is to jump headfirst into new, exciting technologies for your e-commerce business, it's essential to ensure your digital strategy and website can support an AI implementation effectively. 

At Vivo Group, we thrive on innovation and aim to help your business achieve user engagement the right way. Our proven end-to-end design and development process ensures your digital strategy is solid, preventing wasted time on false starts or assumptions. 

We start by creating a comprehensive strategy, conducting user research, and identifying the best tools and readily available AI models for your needs that align with your goals. At Vivo Group, we focus on revenue-generating opportunities that align with your business objectives where you have a data advantage and proven AI technology can be applied to maximise returns. 

By partnering with Vivo Group, you can successfully implement AI into your e-commerce business, leveraging our expertise to drive innovation and achieve sustainable growth.

Contact us today to discuss how AI can strengthen your relationship with new and existing customers, and uplift your eCommerce business decisions.