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Americans love shopping — so much so that NPR devoted an episode of its “Consider this” for the country’s shopping culture in the second 12 months of the pandemic. However, although a few dozen years ago, shopping involved visiting a shopping center, nowadays most activities have moved to the Internet.
Personalized shopping is one other area that has been modified by latest technologies. Where just a few years ago, personal shoppers chosen clothes for their customers, artificial intelligence is set to take their place and reinvent our shopping experiences.
AI technologies in retail personalization
Personalization has been an necessary topic in fashion retail for a long time. One sec personal styling was available only to the elite in the nineteenth century, the emergence of private stylists and personal shoppers in department shops made the curated wardrobe accessible to the masses. Today, leading retailers are using artificial intelligence and machine learning to take their customers’ shopping experiences to the next level.
The trend is not limited to fashion. Sellers like Amazon We have been using personalized recommendations since 2010, initially through the “customers who bought” function. Offering product recommendations wasn’t Amazon’s first foray into personalization. The company began this trend back in 1999 by making storage available to customers shipping and payment information.
Today, retailers proceed to make use of advanced machine learning algorithms to supply personalized recommendations to their customers. The use of AI in retail also includes chatbots that greet shoppers on an e-commerce site in the same way a retailer would greet them in a brick-and-mortar store.
Benefits of AI-powered personalization
Imagine a customer in a huge department store looking for a small item. Even with the best signage, they may likely spend a lot of time searching before they find that exact item. An experienced salesperson would make things easier.
When it involves e-commerce, most retailers offer a basic search function on their platform. However, using this search function signifies that someone knows exactly what they are looking for. If the buyer only has a vague idea, the search can again develop into time-consuming. A well-designed AI chatbot can reduce this time by offering products that solve a consumer’s problem without knowing the exact product name.
Looking at fashion, the advantages of AI-powered personalization in retail develop into much more obvious. Legendary jeans brand Levi Strauss & Co. is working on a project using artificial intelligence-generated models that may allow customers to view clothes for different body types. Last 12 months, the company admitted that it was impossible to present every product in different models. Artificial intelligence can step into a breach.
Other advantages include more accurate forecasting of customer demand and the ability to administer supplies and staff accordingly. As a result, residential customers would profit from reduced waiting times, while e-commerce customers would rarely, if ever, see the word “out of stock” when placing an order. Personalized retail marketing incl on social media platformsis already offering customers products that are more relevant than standard marketing tactics. Artificial intelligence can take retail marketing personalization to the next level.
Implementing AI in retail
When it involves implementing AI, retailers are facing similar changes to other businesses. In addition to available and inexpensive technology, they may need to gather consumer data, select the AI tools most appropriate for their situations, and find ways to integrate AI-based applications with legacy systems.
According to National Retail Federation (NRF)many retailers are interested in leveraging the advantages of artificial intelligence and are closely monitoring developments. However, they are still waiting and seeing how the technology develops and what best practices may emerge. Despite the hesitation, there appears to be little doubt that artificial intelligence will transform retail.
Challenges and reflections
Data privacy concerns and implementation costs are the two primary obstacles that currently prevent retailers from expanding the use of AI.
Some NRF members noted that the cost of implementation stays relatively high, while the advantages could seem logical but have not yet been proven and may not provide an acceptable return on investment.
Successfully implementing AI in retail also requires significant amounts of information to coach algorithms to deliver meaningful results. Convincing consumers to share their precious personal information requires a high level of trust. Just as Amazon needed to persuade its early customers to store payment information on the fledgling platform, retailers must assure their customers that private information is not going to be misused.
As retailers and industry organizations work to create a framework for artificial intelligence in retail, the use of those technologies is more likely to increase.
Future trends
Artificial intelligence will play a major role in improving customer experiences in various areas of retail. Early users like Germany’s largest producer of sparkling wines is already using artificial intelligence to customize the content shown to customers in its stores. The company uses digital signs to display dynamic bottle promotions near the sign and avoids mentioning products that are out of stock.
While retailers may vary, many have the same goal – to take the hassle out of your shopping experience, each in-store and online. Improving customer interaction and service using artificial intelligence will likely be a part of this development. Like other industries exploring the potential of artificial intelligence, retailers are not looking to exchange humans in their stores, but reasonably liberate worker time to perform complex tasks.
Whether it’s fashion, gadgets, cars or groceries, Americans love shopping and we’re not alone in this. Personalizing the shopping experience is one of the keys to leveraging this bond and growing the customer base of any retail company. Artificial intelligence will likely be one of the driving forces in maximizing personalization and changing the face of retail as we know it today.