How AI can power your eCommerce business during peak

Powering your peak performance with AI  

A decade ago, most retail leaders would have laughed off any suggestion that artificial intelligence could play a role in their day-to-day business. Fast forward to today and we’re surrounded by AI from customer-facing eCommerce websites to back-end logistics and operations. 

There’s image recognition to help customers search and find their favourite products. Powerful personalisation delivers a better shopping experiences across the buying journey and predictive analytics helps forecast trends and allocate resources. 

eCommerce retailers are adopting AI in many new and exciting ways and it’s paying off. Overall, 41% of businesses say AI has a moderate impact on the bottom line, and 77% say it has a moderate to major impact on customer experience.¹

These figures are hugely encouraging for online businesses that are still on the brink of AI adoption. Just imagine how much more time you could have to focus on your business and customers with AI automating repetitive tasks in the background. 

And never is this more important than during the high-demand sale season. 

4 ways eCommerce businesses are putting AI to work

Here are four of the most common areas that AI is delivering value for online retailers. 

1. AI for customer service

Customers now expect any questions to be answered almost immediately. As such, chatbots and virtual assistants have gone from novelty to the norm. 

Richard Li, co-founder of July Luggage, says, “We use a platform called Gorgias. Most customer inquiries can be answered by AI very quickly and this really helps during the busy periods.”

Leading online bushfood and specialty tea retailer Roogenic also uses Gorgias and as Marketing Director Jordan Bruno explains, “Gorgias has access to communication from our chatbot, shipping details from Australia Post, Facebook and Instagram messages and customer order. If a customer calls with a query, the app populates all that data so we can provide a better customer experience.”

2. AI for sales

Always a trailblazer in the online retail space, THE ICONIC is leading the way in the adoption of innovative new AI technologies. To help boost sales, the retailer has adopted AI-powered strategies like multi-modal search (MMS) and the use of AI algorithms to rank catalogues based on customer preferences. As Chief Technology & Product Officer, Adam Cox says, “We are constantly looking at new recommendation engines to help bring relevant content up for our customers. Recently we’ve begun rolling out a new AI-powered ‘Wear it with’ algorithm to help customers with their fashion choices.” 

Online fashion retailer Always Alice uses an AI chatbot to improve sales. Founder, Alice Murphy says, “The number one way it has improved customer engagement and sales is by providing instant responses to our most commonly asked questions, such as details on returns and tracking orders.” 

“Because we can’t answer online enquiries 24/7, having the chatbot allows most questions to be answered instantly. This keeps the customer happy, increases the likelihood of sale conversions and reduces workload for my customer service team.”

3. AI for marketing support

Generative AI is proving a game-changer for content creation and marketing. Not only can it write headlines, craft social posts and create campaign imagery, but it can analyse customer data behind the scenes to ensure your campaigns are bang-on trend.

Alice says, “We use an AI copywriting tool to assist with writing copy for social media posts and Meta ads. This allows us to create content more efficiently and produce better marketing copy overall. We have seen a significant increase in conversion rates since using this tool.”

4. AI for operational support

Behind the scenes, AI and automation help streamline back-end operations when things get busy. At July Luggage, for example, an automated ordering system can easily scale to handle peak volumes. 

Richard says, “It’s a seamless process for our team to send orders directly to our warehouse which then starts preparing the shipments. It’s extremely scalable. Whether it’s one or a thousand orders a day, our team just needs to click a button to get it done.”

At THE ICONIC, cutting-edge technologies are transforming inventory management and logistics. Adam says, “Machine learning models optimise the product selection in our picking robotics, ensuring optimal throughout in our Fulfilment Centre. “

“This has resulted in increased usage of robotics and significant cost savings in the picking process, which in turn has helped increase our daily fulfilment potential by over 10%.”

Getting AI up and running before peak

Getting started with a new technology can feel daunting. The good news is there are many out-of-the-box tools and technologies now available that deliver fast returns and help you realise business value. 

Question is, where do you start? Adam recommends starting small with clear objectives and scalable projects. “Identify key areas where AI can significantly impact your business. Focus on projects with clear, measurable objectives that can be easily managed and back-tested with historical data.”

For example, you could start with a content generation engine that produces social media posts to promote your big sales. Or a simple chatbot to help reduce the pressure on your customer support team during the peak sales period. 

Need any more convincing? As Alice says, “AI has become an integral part of Always Alice running efficiently and smoothly. I'd recommend incorporating it into your business wherever possible to improve efficiency and sales, and to get back some of your most valued asset – time!”