It’s shaping up to be a very AI holiday season. Retailers are using artificial intelligence to try to improve the shopping experience, and customers—whether knowingly or unknowingly—are increasingly encountering the technology.
Both retailers and customers have already seen the impact AI can have on shopping. Here’s what might be different during the 2024 holiday shopping season, and the role customer data plays in all of it.
How AI is already used in retail
AI is not new to retailers. Many companies have already been using it in a variety of ways, including:
- Inventory and demand: Retailers have depended on AI for information about what items to carry and when to have them in stock. AI can help stores figure out product placement on shelves, based on buying habits and depending on what the stores need to clear out of inventory.
- Item summaries: Some organizations rely on AI to give them product write-ups that they can then adjust to their marketing strategies.
- Customer interactions: Whether it’s a chatbot answering questions online or offering personalized suggestions, customers deal with AI in one way or another almost every time they shop.
- This also includes augmented reality technology that some stores are using, which allows a customer to place an image of a couch in their living room, for example, or see how they would look in certain clothing before they complete a purchase.
The difference with the way AI is used this holiday season is in how it enhances some of that customer experience.
A more personalized shopping experience
Retailers are taking advantage of what AI can do to make shopping this holiday season what they hope is a more convenient experience. AI can enhance every step of a customer’s journey, from finding a product to buying it, and even including delivery and returns, if necessary.
One feature of AI that is being stressed by some stores is its ability to produce more powerful search results. Similar to what customers have already experienced with customer service chats, users can ask specific questions that get AI-guided results. Instead of treating a search of “A gift idea for mom,” for example, as individual search terms, AI can interpret the meaning of the entire request and provide shopping guidance and suggestions.
Another AI-enhanced aspect of many stores is personalized shopping. The AI learns customer preferences and provides targeted content to users based on their previous interactions with the store. Walmart is even using AI to curate products used by certain influencers, then featuring those items on its website so customers see some of what’s trending by content creators they watch.
Google is using AI to not only personalize a user’s overall shopping experience, similar to the way stores do by populating their feed with relevant information based on previous searches, but also to bring deals to shoppers. The deals could come from stores where the user spends the most time shopping, but it also updates frequently to include deals from any retailer.
Customer response data
Some of the uses of AI in retail are still pretty new. It is important for companies to monitor another set of data—the customer response. By recording customer satisfaction scores and tracking metrics such as time saved for customers versus other methods without the AI tools, companies can get a pretty good indication of how customers are feeling about the experience.
Whether or not stores are heavily using AI during this holiday shopping season, that customer experience data is still important. And even without relying on AI, retailers still have plenty of other customer data to work with. An analytics solution can help make sense of the data to help drive better decision-making at this busy time of year.
Key metrics like purchase history or personal information like age groups can help retailers draw key conclusions that can make a consumer’s experience better, whether that’s in-store or on-line. No matter what technology is being deployed, stores want to make sure they are taking care of the customer, so they will keep coming back. Using data can help retailers ensure that customers feel engaged and rewarded for their loyalty.
- 5 Trends that Will Impact Your Business in 2025 - December 5, 2024
- Using Analytics to Deal with Shifting Alcohol Preferences - December 3, 2024
- AI in Healthcare is Only as Effective as the People Using It - November 25, 2024
