The 2018 Statista report shows that last year was a record-breaking year for e-commerce, with global sales revenues estimated to have reached $2.8 trillion. This year, the numbers are expected to rise to $3.5 trillion. AI-powered automated live chatbots, advanced data analytics, and inventory management tools have been the game changers of the year.
According to Gartner, by 2020, 80% of customer interaction will be without human intervention. About 40% of the millennial population have already used a voice assistant to make purchases. According to a recent report by eMarketer, more than half of social media users prefer using messenger apps to connect with brands, over email, phone, or live chat. Enter the chatbot, which is able to reach customers and respond to requests in real-time, learn more about them, and personalize their shopping experience based on their responses.
So, how are chatbots improving e-commerce experiences? Online shoppers across the world want a faster response. Chatbots for e-commerce is the best way to handle the humongous data flow from millions of requests at the same time and build meaningful responses.
Enhancing the Customer Experience
They can provide product recommendations and use their experience to improve the conversations. Сhatbots have in fact redefined retail service largely by capturing feedback and product reviews from the users. Also, chatbots can engage with shoppers, without forcing them to install a native app. Chatbots integrate with platforms such as Skype, Kik, and Facebook Messenger.
Deep learning technology helps in identifying unknown things such as product names and pictures. With chatbots, clients can look for the appropriate products.
They can simply feed in the name of the product or brand, and what more, chatbots are also great for comparing between similar products and may lead the whole payment process. Chatbots can also be used to provide product recommendations through interactions using natural language. 
Trendy chatbots in the fray Sephora and H&M are two extremely popular chatbots. When users talk to Sephora, the chatbot will provide relevant content (read product information and recommendation) to help them make the most of their beauty products.
Whether it is through video tutorials, photos or other tips, the chatbot qualifies the brand’s authority and informs the user, which in turn can inspire purchases and boosts customer satisfaction. H&M’s bot is quite similar. It helps the user to put together an outfit.
One of Amazon Alexa’s biggest selling points was that users could quickly ask the assistant to make a quick purchase or even subscribe to regular purchases like home goods. Google Assistant has followed suit with Google Express services, of which retail giant Target is a partner.
Smoother Shopping Experience
If you are planning to come up with an e-commerce chatbot on a voice platform, consider optimizing quick, simple, and repetitive tasks. For example, let’s say you’re a beauty salon and spa owner. You might allow users to subscribe to a purchase, automatically making the payment on a set interval (like every week or every month).
This saves the user time by not having to constantly reorder a favorite, often-used service (hair styling or coloring). Bigger players like eBay created Shopbot that can be accessed through Facebook messenger, which functions as an AI assistant. It helps users find products according to their preferences.
Consumers can communicate through text or voice or messages. Users may also upload images from their devices to check the availability of a product or ask for more details. Other successful implementations of AI for e-commerce include Alibaba’s Ali Assistant; a customer service chatbot is capable of processing more than 95% of customer inquiries.
Users can place both voice and text queries to the chatbot for product-related information. Chatbots are constantly evolving and in the coming years will see more on the radar with enhanced offerings that help tab customer information in faster and better ways.
Takeaway: If you remember Drift was only founded in 2014, but it already raised $100 million in investor funding. Again, Intercom was founded in 2011 and they have already raised over $240 million in investor funding. In 2019 we expect to see chatbot adoption to grow rapidly as the market matures, prices decrease, and the barrier to entry is softened.
