[FR] How can AI be used in e-commerce?

In 2024, 97% of e-commerce managers see generative artificial intelligence as a promising innovation. This figure was revealed in the Fevad and LSA e-tailers’ morale barometer, conducted by OpinionWay, and represents a 7% increase on the previous year.

It has to be said that, in the face of increased competition and ever more demanding customers, the promises of AI for e-commerce are proving to be a real asset.

In this article, discover the benefits and six inspiring use cases for your own online business.

Why use AI in e-commerce?

We all know the great benefit of artificial intelligence: saving time, especially on repetitive tasks with little added value. But what about the benefits of AI for e-commerce?

If we have to summarise all these advantages, we can mention the following:

• Improved customer experience. Thanks to AI, you can personalise your interactions with your customers, offering them product recommendations tailored to their preferences and buying behaviour. This boosts their user experience on the site, and therefore improves your brand image.
• Increase conversions and customer loyalty. By offering a more fluid and personalised shopping experience on your e-commerce shop, AI increases your conversion rates and strengthens customer loyalty.
• Optimising operations. AI solutions can fully or partially automate tasks such as stock management, order preparation and customer service, increasing your operational efficiency.

All in all, AI makes it possible to increase the profitability of a merchant site.

With this in mind, it’s easy to see why 71% of e-commerce businesses will have used one or more AI-based solutions by 2024. What’s more, for 81% of e-commerce managers, marketing is the area where AI has the most potential, and for 74%, it is customer relations(Baromètre du moral des e-commerçants, Fevad x LSA by OpinionWay).

6 tempting use cases for AI in e-commerce

From web marketing to e-commerce logistics, artificial intelligence is proving to be a highly effective tool for making your e-commerce more profitable. Here are a few use cases to emulate.

Content generation to boost customer confidence

You’ve probably already heard of (or even used) ChatGPT. This conversational AI agent is capable of creating original visuals or texts in record time, based on a simple command you give it.

For you, the e-merchant, this is a godsend: AI can help you create product sheets that are optimised for natural search engine optimisation (SEO). It’s a real time-saver and a great way of boosting online visibility, especially for websites with a large number of products to list.

What’s more, generative AI can help you to generate more accurate product descriptions, and so reduce the number of orders returned because customers find it difficult to imagine themselves in the object they are buying.

Chatbots to improve customer relations

Although chatbots have been around for a long time, thanks to AI they are now becoming more powerful and more relevant. They can become real virtual assistants for your customers, offering them assistance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Consider deploying an AI-powered chatbot:

• Pre-sales, to help your customers choose the right products for their needs
• In after-sales, to relieve your customer service department of the most basic tasks (such as tracking orders or handling complaints and customer returns)

You wouldn’t be the first to do so: 64% of customer experience managers had already increased their investment in chatbots by 2024(Zendesk).

AI-based segmentation to refine your communication strategy

By feeding your customer data into an AI algorithm, you can automatically identify customer segments that you have not previously exploited.

This will help you refine your e-commerce offering, as well as your marketing and communications strategy across all channels. You’ll have an attractive product catalogue, newsletters with maximum open rates, and promotional offers that hit the spot.

Personalising the product experience to improve conversion

Another interesting use case for AI in e-commerce: the algorithm helps you to adapt your product information in real time, based on market trends and your customers’ preferences. The aim: to increase the relevance of your online offering.

For example, you could consider deploying :

• A dynamic pricing tool, which adapts the price of your products according to those of your competitors, while respecting your company’s profitability.
• An intelligent search system on your website, which can, for example, allow your customers to carry out a visual search using a photo uploaded to your site. They can then find similar or complementary products on your site.
• An algorithm for personalising product recommendations. AI can predict which products might be of most interest to your customer based on the data available to them, and display these products on the e-commerce site to encourage conversion.
• A purchase assistance system. For example, AI can help your customers select the right size of clothes for them. Given that many customers in the fashion sector “bracket” their orders, i.e. order several sizes with the intention of returning the goods that don’t fit, this system can help you improve customer experience and profitability.

AI for fraud prevention

What if AI helped your e-commerce to be more secure? This is what certain technologies are offering, capable of detecting and preventing fraudulent activities.

By analysing transaction patterns and user behaviour, AI can detect, for example, the use of fake credit cards or the incorrect completion of forms. Ideal for securing your sales site.

Optimising your logistics processes with AI

The era of logistics 5.0 is already here: AI is being applied to e-commerce logistics.

Thanks to this technology, you can :

• Predict your customers’ consumption trends, and adjust your stocks according to the stock-outs or overstocking anticipated by the algorithm.
• Automate your stock management, particularly your inventories, thereby reducing stock errors.
• Streamline your order preparation, thanks to AI-powered robots that move and even pack products from A to Z.
• Improve your quality control, thanks to systems that detect logistical errors in the warehouse.

In short, your e-commerce supply chain will be more flexible, smoother and more profitable – all in the interests of customer satisfaction!

To find out more, read our article “Artificial intelligence in logistics: where does the technology stand?

What are the prerequisites for using AI in e-commerce?

As you will have realised, AI offers a wealth of growth opportunities for your e-commerce business.

However, there are a few crucial prerequisites that need to be taken into account before using AI to its full potential:

• Data quality. You need to have accurate, well-structured data to train the AI models effectively and obtain relevant results.
• Technical skills. Make sure you acquire the skills needed to integrate and manage your AI solution. You can also choose to outsource these skills to specialist partners.
• Security and compliance. Make sure you choose AI tools that comply with legislation on the protection of personal data (in particular the RGPD), for ethical and responsible use of this technology.

And of course, be careful not to dehumanise your e-commerce. Even in online sales, and despite automation, there is still a need for human assistance for customers who want it, and for genuinely human communication.