Artificial intelligence has been around for quite some time. However, Amazon was the first company to apply it in the retail industry. Now, it automates most processes on the platform, replaces the people's’ work, and increases the productivity in every possible field.
Here are nine useful ideas for you to start using AI in retail.
1. Tracking the Overstock and Out-of-Stock Items
It is necessary to know exactly how many items are left in stock (or whether there are any left at all). Sellers lose way too much money every year because they lack up-to-date information. Customers can switch to your competitors if you don’t keep up with your own goods.
2. Updating the Prices
AI can update the prices and sales on your platform, so you won’t have to do it manually. But what’s really interesting is that it can track the prices, sales or promotions of your competitors.
It can also calculate the most reasonable price for you, but you can always change it if you want to.
3. Categorizing the Products on Your Platform
Artificial intelligence can be used for making an algorithm that helps to categorize your products. Such an algorithm analyzes the products from different websites and platforms, creates tags itself, and then sorts all the products.
4. Communicating with Your Customers
Artificial intelligence can answer some common customers’ questions on your platform. Also, it can track items similar to the ones the customer has already bought. It can notify customers about the things they might like or about the price drop on the things that are on their wishlist. AI can be a great help in terms of customer experience.
5. Helping Customers Decide on Their Choice
AI can create a virtual fitting room. Special scans can take customers’ body measurements and create their avatar. If you haven’t heard about it, it’s a high time to find out more. People who shop online return up to 25% of the clothes they purchase and most cases are caused by the wrong size choice.
Several shops like Levi’s, Gap, Old Navy, and others use a virtual fitting room, and customers like this as the chances to get the wrong size get lower.
6. Getting All the Necessary Information on the Product in the Offline Store
It is possible to replace regular price tags with digital ones. They can show not only the price but also different information, special deals, ads, and nutritional information.
And what about real robots that can move around the store and help customers find certain items? They could even speak different languages! Sounds crazy? Lowe’s has already implemented it, and their robot’s name is Lowebot. Isn’t that cool?
7. Checking out after the Shopping Spree
So, the future is here, and we don’t need to have a lot of employees in the stores. Amazon’s AI knows how to make the shopping experience smooth and enjoyable. So, customers can get what they need and just walk out of the store. AI tracks what they took from the shelf and what they put back. After a short period of time, artificial intelligence sends the bill, and the company gets the money from the customer’s banking card.
8. Tracking Customers’ Satisfaction
Artificial intelligence can analyze the comments on social media about different products of your store and track the customers' mood and attitude.
Walmart is one step further. They even installed AI mood trackers that use facial recognition. It can help to find out the mood of the customer right before they leave the store. It is no secret that people will come back to the place where they feel safe and happy, so tracking the mood might be handy. Also, after tracking the mood, the company’s representative might try to talk to the customer to see if everything is alright.
9. Predicting and Influencing Customers’ Mood and Behavior
And here is the ninth thing that artificial intelligence can do for the retailing business. It can track customers’ behavior and predict their further actions. It analyzes the emotions during the purchase which helps to encourage customers to make more purchases in the nearest future.
Also, it can track the prices the customer usually looks at and recommend something from that category. It finds out the triggers that lead the customer towards the purchase. Those could include a low price, a particular color, designer or a specific design, size, etc.
Conclusion
It’s a high time to implement AI in your retail business if you haven’t done it yet. It is a great investment that is worth its money. It gives you all the necessary data for the best profit possible. So, get yourself an AI solution and see your business grow!
