Last updated - March 25, 2024
Online shoppers are notoriously impatient, with 71% expressing a strong preference for quick, personalized, and seamless shopping experiences.
The same report by McKinsey further reveals that 76% of these buyers become frustrated when companies can’t deliver personalized interactions.
The data underscores a shift in customer expectations, with tailored engagement now being the norm for e-commerce businesses.
Despite the inherent challenges in providing personalized experiences, meeting these expectations is crucial. That’s where the role of artificial intelligence (AI) becomes pivotal.
In the sea of online businesses, standing out is essential for delivering an exceptional customer shopping experience. To achieve this, AI is the go-to tool for your tech stack.
Let’s look at different ways you can harness the power of this innovation.
Personalized Product Recommendations
Customers engage with brands through various online channels, including email, social media, and websites. A significant majority — seven out of ten customers — anticipate receiving personalized suggestions across these touchpoints to streamline their buying experiences.
Despite the abundance of data available to brands from different digital touchpoints, delivering personalization across various types of products isn’t a walk in the park.
Why? The associated costs of processing and implementing the valuable insights within these data sets are high. The last thing you want to do is eat up all your resources on data processing (which is already error-prone).
Fortunately, AI has successfully addressed these challenges, enabling brands to offer customers timely and relevant product recommendations in real time (with fewer errors).
Different industries, like travel, entertainment, retail, etc., now incorporate AI to enhance the online experience, improve customer engagement, and boost conversion rates.
Historically, traditional travel agencies dominated the scene. But now, AI-powered platforms provide highly personalized suggestions based on user preferences, browsing history, and even seasonal trends.
Take, for example, those planning a road trip from Southern California. With the help of a modern travel platform, the system can anticipate the traveler’s preferences by analyzing past interactions.
For instance, if a traveler lives in Corona, California, but has always dreamt of visiting Big Sur, the platform might propose renting an RV in Los Angeles and offering a suggested route following the Pacific Coast Highway.
But that’s just the beginning. The renter will also receive a list of top-rated campgrounds and attractions along the route to enhance the overall trip. Pretty neat, right?
The best part? The power of AI can apply to most industries, and e-commerce is no exception. More on that in a bit.
Advanced Customization
Personalization has elevated the e-commerce experience to new heights — it has now become a cornerstone for the success of e-commerce companies (both behemoths like Amazon and smaller online stores).
While AI-driven insights play a significant role in understanding user behavior and enhancing the customer journey, another equally powerful avenue exists: offering customized experiences to customers.
That’s where LeatherCult, a brand renowned for its expertise in crafting exquisite, customized leather jackets, shines.
What sets them apart? They’re dedicated to providing a multitude of advanced customization options to shoppers as they seek to design their perfect leather jackets.
From selecting the perfect size, fit, and leather color to choosing jacket lining and hardware color (or adding a custom monogram), LeatherCult empowers customers to create a one-of-a-kind piece — all from the comfort of their homes.
These unique features help meet changing consumer demands for customization. And AI has the power to take that customization to the next level.
Imagine shopping for a custom leather jacket (or another piece of clothing) and getting a guided tour through the customization process, where AI provides smart recommendations and visual previews of your choices.
Sounds idyllic, right? It makes the shopping experience more interactive and guarantees that the final product aligns perfectly with your inputs and preferences. The perfect product. Every time.
Collecting (and Protecting) Customer Data
At this point, it’s clear that to drive more sales for your e-commerce store, you need to offer deeply personalized experiences to your customers. And to do so, you need to know how they engage with your brand across various touchpoints.
You can learn this by collecting customer data across multiple devices and online channels using a data platform like Hightouch.
Once you have data on users’ actions and attributes, stitch it together to build buyer personas to better understand and engage with them during future purchases.
This process is called identity resolution, which helps you tailor recommendations, deals, and promos for customers based on their customer profiles.
Adopting an identity resolution strategy as an e-commerce store owner allows you to present the most relevant content and product suggestions while keeping the user’s journey in mind.
But there’s a caveat.
As you increasingly rely on AI-driven personalization, the amount of user data you must collect and handle grows exponentially. And it’s your responsibility to protect this data at all costs — to avoid financial or reputational damage.
Plus, you don’t want to lose the trust of your customers.
Having a strong S3 backup plan is crucial for maintaining data resilience and protecting against cybersecurity threats. It’s important to regularly back up your data to ensure it remains safe and can be easily recovered in case of any data loss or system malfunction.
This proactive measure not only safeguards your business but builds trust with your customers, knowing their personal data is in safe hands.
Improved Customer Support
62% of customers now prefer engaging with a chatbot to speaking with a customer agent, which strongly hints at their increasing popularity.
Their rising popularity is due to their improved sophistication and how they no longer provide scripted answers but offer a seamless customer experience through tailored responses.
With the use of natural language processing (NLP), sentiment analysis, and artificial intelligence, chatbots now offer more personalized customer interaction.
By incorporating AI-driven chatbots into your business model, you can provide swift responses to customers, reducing response times and improving the overall customer experience.
Over time, chatbots will eventually increase customer loyalty, bring in happy customers, and drive more sales.
Smart Push Notifications
On average, individuals check their phones 58 times a day. That means you have 58 chances to entice your customers with a deal or promo or to remind them about the items waiting in their carts to be checked out using push notifications.
But 58 notifications coming from a brand every day can be exhausting and lead consumers to mute or block them altogether.
To avoid this, using AI is key.
AI-driven personalization helps brands monitor how an individual interacts with a notification, when they check their phone, and what action they take after receiving the notification.
The collected data helps businesses push customers with tailored discounts, products, and sales notifications to bring positive results.
You can even use push notifications to offer customers loyalty points, coupon codes, or free shipping, or hit them up for feedback, reviews, or referrals.
AI Personalization Tools in E-commerce
The combination of Shopify’s prowess with accessible web design, enriched by AI-powered personalization, heralds a new era in online commerce.
This symbiosis provides all visitors with a seamless and personalized shopping experience regardless of their capabilities.
Shopify’s fusion of accessibility and customized excellence is reshaping the landscape of e-commerce interactions.
Here’s how a Shopify ADA compliance tool can integrate AI-driven personalization techniques:
Identify accessibility issues
The Shopify ADA compliance tool meticulously scans e-commerce, pinpointing barriers such as missing alternative text for images and deficient color contrast.
This detailed analysis provides that every element is accessible, enhancing the user experience.
Provide comprehensive reports
The Shopify ADA compliance tool generates exhaustive reports delineating identified issues. These comprehensive insights empower developers and designers, shedding light on specific problems and facilitating efficient solutions.
Detailed reports enable targeted improvements, fostering a more inclusive interface.
Offer actionable recommendations
Going beyond mere identification, the Shopify ADA compliance tool provides actionable recommendations. These insights offer developers specific, implementable suggestions, expediting the remediation process.
By following these recommendations, developers create a more accessible and engaging digital environment for all users.
Voice search integration
Implement voice search capabilities using AI, making them accessible to customers with disabilities. It provides that the ADA compliance tool checks navigation and voice search.
Final Thoughts
As a business owner, it’s crucial to realize how tough it is to manage everything independently, especially when you want to give personalized experiences, which can seem nearly impossible.
But now automation and integrating artificial intelligence have become indispensable to boost the online shopping experience, allowing you to effectively handle different facets of business operations.
Why not work smarter, not harder, to convert first-time visitors into long-term customers?
Adding AI to your tech stack will boost customer satisfaction tenfold. Plus, now you take some of the heavy lifting off your shoulders, so you can focus on other business processes.
Are you ready to streamline your workload and simplify delivering tailored experiences to your loyal customers?
A personalized strategy (thanks to AI, which tracks purchase history and understands customer behavior) is right around the corner for every customer who visits your store.
What are you waiting for? Invest in personalization efforts today!
FAQs
What is e-commerce personalization?
E-commerce personalization involves tailoring online shopping experiences to individual customers based on their preferences, behavior, and past interactions with a website or brand.
It includes using data and technology, like artificial intelligence, to deliver personalized product recommendations, customized offers, and targeted communication to enhance the customer’s shopping journey.
How can AI help in e-commerce personalization?
Artificial intelligence (AI) enhances e-commerce personalization by analyzing vast customer data to understand individual preferences and behaviors.
AI algorithms can then generate personalized product recommendations, offer customized promotions, and create tailored shopping experiences for each customer.
Is e-commerce personalization only required for large businesses?
No, e-commerce personalization could be done by any kind of business as it helps in enhancing the user experience.
While larger companies may have more resources to invest in sophisticated personalization technologies, small and medium-sized businesses can also leverage e-commerce personalization strategies.
