AI in Retail: Boundless Opportunities

Retail is among the industries experiencing an AI-driven revolution evoked by highly competitive environment, a global trend for switching to digital shopping, and a non-stop rush for providing more personalized services. The survey conducted by Sailthru among 200+ digital retailers showed that two-thirds of them are already using AI for marketing purposes. About 37% of them are using AI in search.

However, AI and ML can help you meet your goals across the entire journey – before, during, and after a purchase of products and services. The benefits can be tracked by the revenues of one of the biggest online retailers in the industry that readily uses AI and ML to facilitate online shopping for their customers – Amazon.

Let`s take a look at the possibilities AI offers to retail businesses.

Outstanding Shopping Experience with AI

These days many stores are eager to make online shopping experience as friendly and comfortable as if you were in a real store. Standard e-com solutions are designed to show the potential customer products` catalogs, however, they can`t assist a customer to find the product he or she really needs at the moment. While artificial intelligence solutions coupled with retail analytics integrated with e-com stores are capable of more.

• Smart search based on NLP

Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology has transformed the e-commerce industry. In the age of personal digital assistants like Siri and Cortana as well as chatbots that allow free-form search requests, you can have a nice chat with a search engine and get what you were looking for. On top of that, advanced NLP algorithms are now affordable for smaller retail businesses, leading to more satisfied customers and an improved online shopping experience.

• Personalized offer

Machine learning steps in when it comes to analyzing your customers` behavior, their preferences and expectations. Such AI systems enable you to provide every and each your client with a personalized approach, offering only the products they like and not imposing them with something they don’t need.

• Customized retail websites

Not only products and services, but an online store itself can be redesigned so that a customer would see only those goods he or she needs, resulting in a remarkable shopping experience and great impressions from your resource.

• Smart assistance

AI systems allow seeing the bigger picture by determining trends and patterns in behavior of different groups of people. Mixing this knowledge with information about customer’s actions and preferences, an artificial intelligence solution can turn customer assistance into expert advice.

Machine Learning Automation and Prediction for Loyalty Programs in Retail

Loyalty systems are also customizable with the help of AI. Different people have different motivators and triggers. It is a well-known fact in the retail market that no loyalty program, unless it is highly personalized, can satisfy every customer. How to make your clients happier? Give them exactly what they want with AI and ML.

Artificial intelligence solutions predict what exactly can become a trigger for each user. It doesn`t matter how you will implement the end retail solution, either you`d issue an infinite number of personalized vouchers, or you`d provide random discounts for the goods that a customer usually buys – you`ll still ensure that your clients feel a special care from you.

Using AI-generated predictions to avoid and handle returns

Another idea addresses the issue of frequent returns by understanding what clothes will fit, based on data about size grids gathered from fashion houses. Otherwise, when return already happened, it can help you avoid stress and make the process easy and fast.

Machine Learning and pattern recognition algorithms can predict when your customers are considering leaving you. Analyzing the enormous volume of data, those AI systems can advise you certain steps to retain your clients. When you are forewarned, you are forearmed.

Implementing chatbots to streamline administrative operations

You can introduce little AI helpers to make your operations more efficient. Artificial intelligence can drive faster business decisions by providing employees with tailored information and guidance.

Automating recruiting or HR processes is sometimes a tricky task for companies in the retail industry, since they usually have large and diversified people management services, distributed teams in many locations. Machine learning, specifically NLP, is already helping many retail companies. Intelligent chatbots are successfully assisting in:

• processing CVs
• prescreening candidates
• analyzing their skillset and personal profiles
• recommending people for the second stage
• answering candidates questions, and more

Smart chatbots are a real catch for retailers; they handle basic requests from customers, employees, partners, while people can concentrate on addressing more-complex issues. A single chatbot, for instance, can provide routine customer service to large numbers of people simultaneously. Some chatbots not only answer questions, they actually can ask callers follow-up questions to solve their problems, others are able to analyze a caller’s tone of voice and use that information to provide better service later.

Automating inventory management based on computer vision solutions

These days, the computer vision is gaining popularity, from “grab-and-go” stores to shelf scanning robots. Computer vision-based cameras and robots are used to track and manage store inventory. Retailers are also testing robots that check for misplaced items or missing price labels. Such systems, however, are quite complicated and require significant investment.

Yet, there are areas that do not require extremely complex AI solutions to optimize inventory management. Those are, for example, forecasting logistics and warehousing.

Forecasting demand with ML prediction models

Using Machine Learning, you can transport and store less products that are of low demand and ensure you have enough of those that people want. A demand-forecasting AI system will also make all the calculations for you to effectively:

• manage your procurements
• plan transportation and warehousing of goods for the next month, quarter, year
• deal with season and holiday products
• cope with peaks in customers activities

and more.

AI Use Cases in Retail

Here are just a few cases that are already implemented by retailers to transform shopping experience using AI and ML.

Reshaping your Retail Business with AI

Being a very challenging and competitive industry, retail always deals with large volumes of data. This opens boundless capabilities driven by artificial intelligence, providing mid-market companies with an opportunity to offer the same level of services as market leaders. A decade ago, the cost of AI systems was only affordable for very large brands. Today, almost every retail business can use AI.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning tools make employees more knowledgeable, producers better informed, and customers happier in different domains, not just retail industry. So, maybe the time has come to consider introducing AI to empower own retail business?

We are recognized as a top E-Commerce Design & Development Company on DesignRush.

• #AI/ML
• #E-commerce
• #Turnkey Project Outsourcing
• #Web Development