Are you interested in AI for ecommerce?
AI is capable of generating text, images and other content. It can even interpret human text well enough to help you point customers in the right direction.
In this post, we unpack AI’s use case scenarios and benefits for the ecommerce industry. We then suggest platforms and tools you can use to implement it.
AI for ecommerce: use cases & benefits
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology that uses machine learning algorithms to solve complex problems in a way a human would.
Also known as natural language processing, AI gives a virtual machine the ability to comprehend and manipulate human language in a way that delivers powerful results.
This is true for AI in ecommerce as well. AI technology has a lot of different benefits and use cases that make it incredibly valuable for ecommerce businesses.
Use cases
One of the best use cases for AI in ecommerce is the technology’s ability to generate product descriptions.
Inventory management is difficult enough. If you have a lot of new products to create product pages for, you can cut your workload quite a bit by generating product descriptions with AI.
You can also use AI to edit product images. In fact, some ecommerce platforms have image editing tools that use AI to generate images from scratch or edit the backgrounds of images.
AI is especially good for adding personalization to ecommerce websites.
Online shoppers expect some level of personalization when they shop online. AI can improve the customer experience by using machine learning to understand your customer’s needs well enough to deliver personalized product recommendations and better customer interactions with chatbots.
Predictive analytics is another growing AI-powered technology. This type of technology uses machine learning to interpret data from your store’s sales and conversions and uses it to predict future sales and conversions.
Finally, AI can be useful for generating copy for emails and content for blog posts and marketing materials.
Benefits of using AI for ecommerce
Efficiency is the most obvious benefit of using AI for ecommerce.
Writing product descriptions, copy and blog content, creating and editing images, responding to customer inquiries, and interpreting customer data enough to implement personalization and create accurate sales forecasts is challenging.
AI can give you a competitive advantage by allowing you to implement these processes at a much faster rate.
Speaking of implementing personalization, because AI uses natural language processing to interpret customer data, it improves customer satisfaction and customer loyalty by delivering more accurate product recommendations and chatbot interactions.
This enhanced customer service will boost sales and raise customer retention rates.
Finally, AI makes it easier to create content overall. It can generate outlines, SEO titles and entire articles.
How different ecommerce platforms are implementing AI
Typically, AI is a technology you’ll use outside of your store. For example, there are plenty of writing tools you can use to generate product descriptions.
However, numerous ecommerce platforms are integrating AI tools into their platforms so you don’t have to rely on third parties.
Shopify
Shopify calls its suite of AI features “Shopify Magic.“
Magic mostly offers generative AI tools by helping you generate product descriptions, email copy and email subject lines.
For product descriptions, all you need to do is input relevant keywords and noteworthy features for a product. The tool will generate a product description in the following tones: daring, sophisticated, expert, playful or persuasive.
For images, Shopify Magic can extract your product from your original image and place it in different realistic scenes that have different surfaces and backgrounds.
For Shopify Inbox, which is Shopify’s own live chat tool, Shopify Magic creates personalized frequently asked questions and provides responses for them.
Finally, Shopify Magic streamlines customer service by interpreting email copy and open rates from your messages. This allows it to suggest recommended send times and even helps it generate copy for emails and click-worthy subject lines.
BigCommerce
Many of BigCommerce’s AI features are in the works, but the company plans on releasing them some time soon.
The ecommerce platform’s AI is called “BigAI.”
Currently, BigAI is only capable of performing copywriting tasks. It’s available as an app for BigCommerce.
The app is designed to generate product descriptions. Settings allow you to specify a word count length and tone, and each description will be optimized for SEO based on your chosen keywords.
BigCommerce is also working on AI tools that will be able to provide personalized product recommendations to customers and predictive analytics to your business.
The platform also integrates with three third-party AI tools:
- Klevu for conversational product search
- Loomi by Bloomreach for marketing automation, product discovery, content management and conversational online shopping
- Searchspring for personalized product recommendations and product bundles
Squarespace
Squarespace isn’t an ecommerce platform, but they do offer ecommerce features that allow you to design an online store with its drag-and-drop builder.
For ecommerce, Squarespace’s AI features generate website copy, product descriptions and email copy.
The tool does this based on a simple prompt, such as “write a description for handmade soy candles with lavender scent.”
The tool will also generate SEO descriptions and blog posts.
Wix
Wix is another website builder you can use to build an online store. The platform’s AI tools aren’t as useful for ecommerce retailers, though.
While it will generate website copy and blog posts for you, it won’t generate product descriptions.
Fortunately, it can generate product images.
Thinkific
Thinkific is an ecommerce platform for online courses.
Its AI tool is capable of generating course names and ideas, but it’s also capable of generating entire course outlines and quizzes.
AI tools for ecommerce
You don’t only need to rely on your ecommerce platform or developer in order to implement AI on your site.
There are plenty of third-party AI tools you can use for ecommerce-related tasks:
- Rytr – Responses for reviews and messages, plus content
- Copy.ai – Product marketing
- Pecan AI – Predictive analytics
- Luigi’s Box – Search
- Hypotenuse AI – Product descriptions and content
- Klaviyo – Customer segmentation, plus plenty of other uses
- Drift – Conversational marketing
Let’s go over these tools in more detail.
Rytr
Rytr is an industry-leading AI writing platform. It can help you generate a large variety of types of content.
There are more than 40 content types available. This includes blog posts, website copy, Facebook posts, social media ad copy, landing pages, and product descriptions. And you’ll find plenty of pre-programmed tones of voice. You can also generate content via a chat interface (similar to ChatGPT).
The platform is easy to use and surprisingly affordable. There’s a limited free plan that would be enough for small stores to leverage AI.
Entry-level paid plans are extremely good value and you don’t have to pay much to get unlimited characters.
Copy.ai
Copy.ai takes AI generated content to another level.
Most AI writing tools give you the option to provide the input manually. Then generate the content.
Copy.ai has taken a different approach. Instead, they automate the entire process with pre-built and custom-built workflows. There are also over 2,000 integrations with third-party tools, allowing for extreme scalability.
You could automate almost anything. Not just content creation. For example, you could conduct competitor research, extract information from LinkedIn profiles, automate content refreshing, develop customer personas, build FAQs from documents, and a lot more.
There’s a free plan and fairly affordable paid plans. API access + bulk workflows are available on their enterprise plan.
Pecan AI
Pecan AI is a powerful predictive analytics application that integrates with multiple CRMs and database management systems. You can even integrate your data with a CSV file.
The tool has a chatbot you can communicate with to get the process going. The bot will ask you about the specific type of data you need the tool to predict. This conversation becomes your prompt.
You can ask the tool about any type of data you import from your CSV or app integration, such as customer churn rate. You can then ask it to predict future data based on your data, such as the likelihood of new customers leaving.
Luigi’s Box
Luigi’s Box is a product search and discovery tool for online retailers.
The app’s search tool is powered by AI. It can recommend certain products based on customer data and previous behavior on your site.
For example, if a customer searches for “ice cream” on your site, the first product listed in the results will be an ice cream product the customer has purchased in the past.
Hypotenuse AI
Hypotenuse AI is a generative AI tool that can generate blog posts, SEO titles, Instagram captions, ad copy and more.
For ecommerce stores, Hypotenuse can generate product descriptions based on prompts that include your product name and information about it.
It can even generate product descriptions in bulk if you upload product data from a CSV file.
Hypotenuse AI can also generate copy for blog articles, SEO titles, Instagram captions, Google ads and Facebook ads.
It can even generate images and repurpose content.
Klaviyo
Klaviyo is an email marketing service provider that also has SMS and review capabilities.
The company has integrated AI into its platform well enough to allow you to use it for a variety of different purposes, including generating segments in your email list based on prompts.
You can also use it to spot positive and negative trends in reviews, view predictive analytics, generate personalized product feeds for customers, view competitive analytics, build custom email marketing workflows, generate subject lines and content.
It can even suggest review headlines to customers.
Drift
Drift is a live chat application that uses AI to help you craft personalized responses to customer messages.
AI can help your customer service employees deliver better messages, or you can use it to set up chatbots that are capable of interpreting your customer’s messages well enough to deliver personalized responses on its own.
It can even be used for email and conversational landing pages.
How to use AI in your ecommerce business
The easiest way to use AI in your ecommerce business is to use whatever AI tools and features your ecommerce platform offers.
Some may even offer AI in the form of third-party tools.
If your platform doesn’t offer AI features, consider switching to one that does.
You can also use AI tools away from your ecommerce store. You can use a generative AI tool to create product descriptions, then pasting those descriptions on your product pages manually.
Finally, if you can’t find what you’re looking for in ecommerce platforms and tools that are readily available, consider working with a developer who specializes in AI.
