AI for the Underdog: Leveling Ecommerce’s Playing Field

The Gist

• AI advantage. AI in ecommerce allows emerging brands to personalize customer experiences, closing the gap with industry leaders.
• Timesaver. Automating tasks like image editing and product descriptions frees up creative teams to focus on value-added activities.
• Reduce returns. AI-driven analytics and automated content management reduce uncertainty for consumers, leading to fewer returns.

For many reasons, emerging brands often find themselves at a disadvantage compared to large national consumer goods companies. The most obvious is the resource gap, including access to expensive tools, data and insights, which can hinder their ability to create robust and unique visual experiences that can compete with well-established industry leaders. While the pursuit of success through ideas and innovation is commendable, it may not be enough to bridge the divide. Let’s take a look at AI in ecommerce.

Fortunately, the widespread availability of AI in ecommerce offers a game-changing solution for ambitious brands. By harnessing AI technology, these companies can minimize the resource gap and level the creative playing field. AI empowers them to automate time- and resource-heavy elements of delivering great online experiences, which ultimately leads to better customer satisfaction and sustainable revenue growth.

Here are four key ways AI can level up the impact that marketing and creative teams can have on the bottom line of a growing ecommerce business:

1. Enable One-to-One Customer Interactions With AI in Ecommerce

Personalization is a crucial aspect of modern marketing, where tailoring offers and providing individualized customer service are paramount. Large brands with vast amounts of data and advanced IT platforms have a competitive edge in hyper-targeting consumers. However, AI can empower emerging brands with smarter predictive analyses, granting them insights into consumer behavior like never before. Moreover, virtual assistants can handle administrative customer service tasks, freeing up staff to focus on strategic initiatives.

Related Article: AI in Ecommerce: True One-on-One Personalization Is Coming

2. Automatically Create High Quality Product Descriptions

AI-driven technology, such as Generative AI and AI-powered chat programs like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, may not be writing the next great American novel yet. Still, they are more than capable of handling product descriptions. By leveraging AI databases that contain visual assets and brand language, these brands can produce intelligent product descriptions that adhere to their brand’s standards, boost SEO, and enable content managers to act as strategists and editors rather than full-time copywriters.

3. Spend Less Time Editing, More Time Creating Value

Shooting marketing campaigns or conducting product photo shoots can be costly and time-consuming. The process of editing photos, formatting them for consistent appearances across devices, and managing images and video can also be labor-intensive and slow down developer teams. However, generative AI comes to the rescue, automatically optimizing images to fit the right format and file size. It can auto-edit, crop images, remove unwanted elements, and ensure they adhere to the brand’s style guide.