5 Novel Ways to Win the Tight Race for Online Shoppers

You’re not the only one vying for customers. The competition in the e-commerce space is really harsh, and to out-think rivals, you should add more digital flair to your business operations. Not sure where to start? Providers of e-commerce development services recommend these five methods of retaining existing clients and winning new ones:

1. Make a shift to transactional social media.

When tried-and-true ways of selling goods fail to work, provide consumers with new commercially viable opportunities. Namely, you can use the power of the social media hype and allow users to complete purchases right on your Facebook or Instagram pages. This will not only give shoppers an extra layer of comfort, but will also increase customer growth.

If you want to up the ante, make the most of Snapchat’s Shoppable AR lenses. This innovative feature enables customers to try on various products — e.g., makeup, clothes, shoes, etc. — and then redirects them to the in-app checkout for completing the purchase.

2. Automate product description generation.

A great amount of data management work that presupposes running an online store makes digital commerce a perfect candidate for artificial intelligence. To wit, AI-fueled copywriting tools can spare you a lot of manual efforts by automatically generating thousands of engaging, keyword-rich catalog descriptions in different languages.

For machine-based content creation and classification to be successfully completed, AI needs structured product data and top-quality description samples written by humans. Your marketing specialists can just choose among the variety of generated copy versions adjusted for particular media and devote their efforts to solving more creative tasks.

Besides enormous time savings and improved productivity, automatic narratives will enhance product discovery, helping you boost customer experience and increase conversions.

3. Enable on-the-go shopping.

According to recent research, drivers bring the U.S. economy about $212 billion, and 82 percent of commuters say they would consume even more if online shopping is integrated into their car. With this in mind, focus on creating tailored in-car offers.

Empower drivers with smart screens so that they could seamlessly shop on the fly and order food right to the car. Take it up a notch with voice assistants that leverage all relevant data such as driver previous purchases, vehicle location, in-car temperature, fuel tank level, and more to come up with personalized suggestions like buying a beverage on a hot day, going to a nearby gas station, or purchasing car repair parts.

4. Innovate product delivery.

While your rivals are capitalizing on common methods of transporting orders, take advantage of drone technology and make 30-minute parcel delivery your key deal clincher.

To ensure maximum product safety during transportation, use the best of software and hardware technology. Make sure your smart courier is water resistant and capable of operating under adverse weather conditions. Enhance drones with advanced AI capabilities so that they can perform automatic loading and unloading, easily identify static and moving objects coming from any direction, execute auto-return-home commands in case of emergency, and more.

5. Digitize service with online video.

If you want to continue your upward trajectory in the e-commerce arena, create a comprehensive online video strategy for your marketing efforts.

Tame the diversity of your service offering with live demonstrations of new clothing collections. To provide outstanding viewing experiences, enable smooth live streaming with a focus on diversity of devices and a growing number of concurrent watchers.

One more way to entertain shoppers is to provide engaging video stories and ads about your products. To save time and efforts, use AI for automatic, semantic-driven generation of video content.

Easier Said Than Done

Employing the above-mentioned methods might be a difficult task requiring solid technical expertise. To boost your chances of success, partner with a reliable e-commerce development company able to deliver this and even more.

Yana Yelina is a technology writer at Oxagile, a provider of software engineering and IT consulting services.