The Impact of AI on Ecommerce: Benefits and Examples

AI can interpret and analyze data, make decisions, and then take action on those decisions – a skill set that makes it ideal for applications in ecommerce.

So, how can you harness the speed, simplicity, and seamlessness of AI to change the way your online store operates? AI in ecommerce is expected to hit a value of $8.65 billion in 2025, and up to $17 billion by 2030. So, it’s worthwhile exploring how AI can support your online busness:

#1. Inventory Preparation

💻 Recommended tools: Shopify Magic, Wix’s AI text creator, Hostinger’s AI Product Generator, Squarespace AI

You can use AI to help build and prepare your inventory for selling, making it quick and easy to get your business up and running. In particular, website builders are jumping on this AI bandwagon by offering tools within their packages.

For example, Shopify Magic uses AI to help you generate product descriptions. When testing this myself, I could add a few keywords and set a tone of voice to help the AI copy fit my brand. Hostinger also offers its own version, named AI Product Generator, which takes your uploaded images and generates relevant product information automatically.

#2. Product Prices

💻 Recommended tools: Quicklizard, Wiser, Intelligence Node, Pricing Solutions

When it comes to running an online store, pricing your products can be one of the toughest tasks you’ll face – especially if you’re new to the game, and don’t have an established market or product. Fortunately, AI can help.

AI algorithms analyze several factors – including your competitors’ prices, your inventory levels, and current demand – to price your products dynamically. AI dynamic pricing means adjusting prices in real time, according to current market factors. If demand is low and stock is high, prices might go down; if the opposite is true, pricing should go up, along with your profits.

On top of dynamic pricing, AI can also help optimize your prices. This involves analyzing historical sales data, chewing over patterns and trends, and spitting out the optimal price for your product.

Author's Notes

With these AI-generated figures, you’ll be able to determine the price point that leads to the most sales. This helps you avoid losing any customers through overpricing your products.

Emma Ryan Lead Writer

#3. Personalized Product Recommendations

💻 Recommended tools: Bloomreach, Algolia

Providing a memorable and personalized shopping experience is more important than ever, with over 80% of customers preferring to shop with businesses that add a personal touch. So, does it make sense to use a robot?

Personalizing a buying experience requires a lot of leg work, but AI-powered analytics can provide useful insights into consumer behavior. Its algorithms can crunch huge amounts of data, including user habits across your site, customer purchase history, and product preferences. You can then use this information to offer unique product recommendations to suit the needs of your customers, increasing your chances of landing a sale.

Around 71% of online businesses offer personalized product recommendations to customers, so if you don’t include this feature your store could fall behind the competition.

AI can also lean on something called natural language processing (NLP) – the field of AI that allows computers to understand and generate human language. With NLP, AI can interpret feedback from customers, reviews, and comments to get an even deeper understanding of their preferences and interests.

#4. Customer Service and Virtual Assistants

💻 Recommended tools: Wix AI Site-Chat, ChatGPT, Tidio, Zendesk AI, Intercom, Drift

When your customer has a query, they want answers quickly. In fact, 52% of customers prefer businesses that offer live chat assistance. And if it’s available 24/7? Even better. However, paying someone to provide around-the-clock online customer service isn’t the most feasible option for a small business.

AI-powered chatbots use NLP to replicate the service experience your customer would have through a live chat tool, only it’s all automated. In fact, 80% of online stores are already using AI for customer service, or are at least thinking about using them.

A chatbot can interpret the customer’s request instantly, understand the problem, and provide a solution. This could encompass anything from directing a user to a support article, asking for further information, or offering a solution then and there. Customers won’t have to wait for a response, and it frees up human employees to tackle more complicated issues.

#5. Smarter Logistics

💻 Recommended tools: Zebra Technologies, Logiwa WMS, Zoho Inventory

AI in ecommerce doesn’t only benefit your product, pricing, and customer care. It can also boost the logistics of your operations, including how you order, store, and ship your inventory to your customers. A study by Statista found that 51% of people surveyed claimed AI reduced business operation costs by over 20%, so it can also be a cost-saving venture.

AI in logistics can help your ecommerce business:

• Optimize shipping routes: AI can help you slash delivery times, taking into account factors like distance, weather, traffic, delivery deadlines, and transportation costs.
• Forecast more effectively: By analyzing market trends and sales data, AI can predict future demand for stock, helping you place better orders, reduce the ill effects of stockouts, and improve the efficiency of your supply chain.
• Manage your space: AI can help you streamline operations and get to grips with your ecommerce warehouse data, such as inventory levels and order fulfillment rates. All of this helps you reduce costs, speed up fulfillment, minimize “dead” storage space, and boost your bottom line!

#6. Remarketing

💻 Recommended tools: Salesforce, AdRoll, Seventh Sense, Milled, Reply.io, Mailchimp, Fixel

These days, winning customers isn’t simply about marketing – it’s about remarketing. This means selling to customers again and again by using a set of strategies to engage with existing customers and lure them back into your brand’s ecosystem.

Some of AI’s remarketing strengths include personalized product recommendations, dynamic pricing, and chatbots – all of which I’ve already discussed. Other key remarketing channels include:

• Predictive modeling: AI can crunch data to predict which of your customers is most likely to make and purchase and when.
• Retargeting: AI marketing tools can help you identify customers who have abandoned their cart in a previous session with your site. This allows you to re-engage with them via an ad, an email, or maybe even a custom discount just for them.

You might be impressed by the strategies and examples of AI in ecommerce already, or maybe you’re still unsure if it’s right for your business. I’ll walk you through some of the biggest benefits of AI in ecommerce to help you find out:

✔️ A personalized approach – AI can analyze customer behavior, preferences, and purchase history to recommend the products most relevant to their needs.

✔️ A boost in sales – By offering personalized shopping experiences, quick customer service, and optimized workflows, people are more likely to visit and shop with your business. Companies leveraging AI can see revenue increase by an average of 10 to 12%, and it’s predicted that AI could boost profits for online businesses by 59% in 2035.

✔️ A high-quality customer experience – With chatbots answering queries and providing 24/7 support, AI can improve the customer experience in a flash.

✔️ A more secure way to sell online – AI can identify fraudulent transactions and stop them from happening. Not only does this safeguard your customers’ data, but it also protects your business from the financial and reputational risk of chargebacks and customer disputes.

✔️ A more effective marketing strategy – AI can optimize your marketing campaigns, helping you figure out the best channels to target, timing, and messaging so you can engage with your customers effectively.

✔️ A hands-off style – With AI handling all the tasks you don’t want, or don’t have time to do, you’ll be able to focus on what matters… growing your business!

✔️ A boost in Google’s rankings – AI in SEO offers many ways to help your position in the search engine results pages (SERPs). For example, by using AI-powered keyword research tools to optimize the content on your site, you can give your ecommerce SEO a leg-up.

So, now you know what AI can do and why you need it, but I’ll explain how you can go about introducing AI to your online store below:

• Define your AI goals: First up, you’ll need to understand which areas of your ecommerce business stand to benefit the most from AI. Operations? Marketing? Customer service? This will help you understand where to start in your AI journey, and which arms of your business to prioritize.
• Choose the right AI solution: With your goals and pain points identified, do your research and pick the AI tool that works best for you. I’ve listed some useful AI-powered tools to support your business throughout this guide, such as Wix’s AI Site-Chat and Hostinger’s AI Product Generator.
• Start small, and work up: You need to start small – testing, tweaking, and tuning your AI solution in a controlled environment – before gradually scaling it up, rather than integrating AI across your entire business immediately. This way, you can get a handle on any issues early on, and know about them before your customers do.
• Ensure your AI tools are compatible: Your AI tools need to integrate seamlessly with your existing systems, such as your CRM, website builder, marketing tools, and inventory management software.
• Always iterate and optimize: As I’ve touched on already, AI is a constant process and it’s always evolving. You need to continually feed it data to get the most out of it and monitor its performance to make sure it’s working effectively.

AI is still a topic that divides opinion. Some love it; some hate it. For some, it represents a utopian new future; for others, it’s a thing to be feared and loathed in equal measure.

But for ecommerce business owners, AI should represent one thing above all else – excitement. After all, the possibilities of AI in ecommerce are already thrilling – from chatbots and remarketing to smarter logistics and pricing optimization. The opportunities are evolving every day, and AI development doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.

The future of ecommerce is here, and it’s two letters. All you have to do? Embrace them!