Shoppers eagerly awaiting Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) deals for big purchases has now become an annual ritual. Not long ago, most holiday shopping was done at brick-and-mortar stores, malls, and supermarkets. But things have changed drastically with the rapid rise of e-commerce.
BFCM has already set a new milestone for online oman cell phone number shopping in 2020 with a 22% YoY increase , representing $9 billion. And, despite the reopening of physical stores, 2021 looks to be no different in terms of online shopping. Seventy-four percent of shoppers expect to shop online this year, according to a survey by Publicis Sapient.
A survey conducted by the Black Friday website suggests that 52% of customers are willing to take advantage of promotional offers and discounts on this day. Moreover, online shopping during Cyber Monday is expected to grow by 61% this year.
AI can be a game-changer during BFCM
Retail businesses are undergoing a robust digital transformation, especially after the pandemic-induced lockdowns. Big data-driven machine learning (ML) can help businesses forecast demand and personalize services by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI).
As an e-commerce business, you can benefit from propensity models that help predict consumer behavior based on the data you have about past purchases. Since ML engines are built on artificial neural networks that can mimic the learning process in the human brain, they achieve an increasing level of accuracy with more use.
AI can also help estimate the amount of products and inventory you need “on hand” to account for upselling and cross-selling. Additionally, it allows you to efficiently plan and manage pricing, logistics, and distribution during BCFM sales.
With the why behind the use of AI clear, it’s time to know how you can leverage AI in this BFCM to achieve eCommerce success. Discover these smart ways to leverage AI and outperform the competition.
Custom Recommendations
Online stores are witnessing a 220% increase in traffic on Black Friday, according to data from Adthena. One way to make the most of this is to use AI to optimize conversion. This is where recommendation systems come into play.
Recommendation algorithms pioneered by Amazon have redefined the e-commerce market as almost every online store now uses it. Increasingly, many e-commerce companies use data from a variety of third-party resources to estimate what a customer will buy next based on their recent purchases.
Product personalization is possible when you know what your customers recently purchased. For example, if your customer bought a new smartphone in the Black Friday sales, leverage AI to offer extended warranty and screen protection plan based on “usually bought together” suggestions. This way, you can use AI to upsell and cross-sell products through product suggestions.
AI-powered eCommerce tools like Dialog can offer personalized product recommendations along with tailored messaging. Their #Recommender displays automated suggestions for related products on the product page, collection pages, and home page.
Fountain
Ultimately, you benefit from analyzing the purchasing behaviors of your customers who return to your business again and again. Machine learning tools can help you predict customer repurchase habits and preferences.
Moreover, if you use proper data labeling techniques and high-quality annotations, the AI model can easily learn it and complete the tasks correctly. This will help you deliver a more personalized experience to the customers using the right data for remarketing.
Successfully cross-sell with product recommendations
Personalization is easy if you have a small store in a city and have a personalized relationship with your customers. But most e-commerce retailers don't work that way and have too many diverse shoppers for personalization to be effective.
Most shoppers are sure of what they want to buy during Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. Therefore, if visitors don't find the products they're looking for quickly enough, they'll leave your site and move elsewhere.
Using AI to understand what they're looking for is key to finishing their search faster and cross-selling other relevant products. Many e-commerce giants are well aware of this, which is why you'll see personalized suggestions on Amazon, eBay, Spotify, and Netflix, among others.
That’s why it’s crucial to offer smart product and customer segmentation to tailor product suggestions that lead to upselling and cross-selling opportunities. An online store that personalizes product suggestions with AI can dramatically improve its order value and overall revenue.
Preference profiles that include accurate attribute-level product labels, plus customer data, to create suggestions on every page of your website, improving the likelihood of cross-selling.
Fountain
Users' browsing activity on the site is tracked and they receive suggestions that match their preference profile. Recommendations from returning guests are much more important.
Convert undecided buyers with personalized pop-ups
You don’t want to lose customers who have trusted you in the past when placing orders. If you have a Shopify store, you can maximize holiday revenue by identifying and presenting relevant, interesting, and complementary products based on their behavior.
For example, if your visitors scroll down to a product detail page (PDP) after viewing a product or jump between PDPs, it suggests they aren't finding what they're looking for and may ultimately leave your site.
Methods need to be implemented to control such abandonments, especially in the midst of BFCM sales. One such method is to display pop-ups that appear when a visitor is about to leave your site.