Technology has an increasingly significant role in everyday life of people in this fast pacing and ever developing world. People in the information society engage in the creation, distribution and use of information all the time, both offline and especially online via social networking platforms. With the advance in digitalization and information technologies, all interaction and communication people have on those platforms is collected, stored and turned into valuable records that can exist for ever. These massive data records have become a crucial game changer in business. Any information in the offline world can suddenly have rising power once it is widely shared online. Since information is power, those who know how to make use of such data resources can have a big advantage over those who do not.
Technological innovations like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and big data are transforming the e-commerce industry. AI is a branch of computer science that aims to turn computers into intelligent machines, machine learning is an advanced version of AI that can automatically learn new concepts by analyzing received data, while big data is an extensive collection of analogue and digital data that can be used to analyze the past trends and forecast the future trends. Digital technology helps retailers keep automatic records of their customers’ behaviors, what products they searched for and what products they decided to buy. Every consumer action on the Internet is captured and turned into a source of meaningful information for business owners to provide seamless and better shopping experience for customers, which can mean their higher profit.
A great example of how technology plays a part in an e-commerce business is a sophisticated AI driven personalized recommendation system. Personalization is the most important e-commerce technology trend nowadays. A higher level of personalization can lead to customers’ better shopping experience, increasing engagement and increasing satisfaction. AI and machine learning analytics will automatically track customers’ online behavior, identifying their shopping pattern, preferences and lifestyle from the brands they follow, their previous searches on search engines and their purchase histories. Such information will then be interpreted to understand customer tendencies, trends, and affiliations, so that the system can provide suggestions of related products to potential buyers. Accurate product recommendations and optimized search results will help buyers get what they want in just few clicks, which means their satisfactory shopping experience.
Common personalized recommendation features in online marketplaces include production recommendation like “You may also like” and contextually aware interactions like “People who viewed this product also viewed these products”. These features also help in personalized advertising and marketing for online businesses to target a particular group of customers. Business owners can retarget their ads to potential buyers, to show particular products in front of particular target groups and maximize the chance of getting clicks and sales. For example, Amazon, one of the biggest and most well-known online e-commerce marketplace platforms, has a very effective and precise product recommendations system. Their machine learning algorithm and predictive analytics will study purchasing patterns and product interests of their customers in order to approach them with the relevant product recommendations to enhance the chance of making sales for Amazon sellers.
E-commerce has lately been referred to as the future of shopping, evident by increasing revenues generated by online shopping transactions and the recent retail apocalypse phenomenon. Not only do online marketplaces offer an extensive opportunity for retail sellers to reach hundreds of million shoppers all over the world, but the latest innovative technologies like AI and big data come can also efficiently improve sales and profit of retailers. There are many other features apart from the personalized recommendations that can offer more optimized and seamless services to customers such as streaming analytics, virtual assistant or 3D product visualization. This is why business owners who want to grow their business online should embrace those technologies to gain a competitive edge over peers and ensure their chance of prosperity online. However, it is certainly challenging, particularly for small and medium e-commerce businesses, to take advantages of those new technology trends.
Fortunately, there are numerous end-to-end e-commerce experts out there to help you. Instead of investing funds and time to develop full-time in-house digital marketing and e-commerce management resources, outsourcing these tasks to experienced digital agencies can save you both cost and time. These service providers for e-commerce have expertise in online market platforms and also keep eyes on the newest technological features provided to make sure that you do not miss out on a chance to improve your bottom line.
If you are a brand owner in South East Asia who are looking to bring your business to the next level in the Western market, Elevate can help you. Elevate is a one-stop e-commerce solution provider that provides a full range of ecommerce managed services, online brand management and digital marketing for businesses looking to increase sales revenues and profitability on e-commerce platforms, especially Amazon. Our services include content writing, photography and graphic design creation, marketing, logistics, and FBA seller management. With our extensive experience in the playing field, we are confident to be the right ecommerce partner that can help you develop and improve your selling account to accelerate your sales.
