Sales-Boosting e-Commerce Trends Now

The e-commerce world isn’t just all about Black Friday or huge Christmas season deals.  E-commerce sites should perform well year round, more often through best practices and tried-and-tested techniques in making online sales.  Here are some current trends that can boost sales in this platform.

Faster shipping, easier returns

Good shipping times and delivery logistics remain one of the most powerful differentiators in e-commerce.  Delivery should be fast and efficient, and returns and exchanges should be convenient.  Emerging technologies like driverless freight are taking centerstage in facilitating transactions for both companies and their customers.

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Virtual assistance and better customer experience

A virtual assistant who guides site visitors, answers frequently asked questions, and makes product suggestion is fast blurring the lines between purchasing from a physical store and an online one, making the transaction more personalized, realistic, and paving the way for better purchase decisions.

Increased AI integration

E-commerce continues to be disrupted by the seamless integration of artificial intelligence as well as things like machine learning and robotics, anywhere from product recommendations to enhanced search functionality.

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Augmented reality and virtual reality

From Sephora offering different makeup looks to curious customers to the app IKEA Place allowing users to try out furniture and accessories before buying, both AR and VR are increasingly looking promising in terms of significance and progress.

Voice search

It’s predicted that 50 percent of search will be in voice form by year 2020, dramatically reducing or altogether eliminating the need for clicks when buying online.

Abhishek Gattani is the head of search at Walmart Labs and the founder and CEO of Cuberon. He spearheaded the launch of Walmart’s “Polaris” search engine, which currently powers many of the company’s e-commerce products globally. Learn more on this page.

Effective Ways To Use Artificial Intelligence In e-Commerce

Artificial intelligence is not a new concept, but more and more brands have started implementing several AI systems to help in their business. Today, artificial intelligence can be used in a variety of ways. Here are some effective ways to use AI in e-commerce. 

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AI can help brands target the right audience. By filtering elements like location, age, gender, and other preferences, AI can bring your ads to your target market. AI can even go through purchasing patterns of customers and help suggest other items they might want to purchase that can complement that they already bought or are planning to buy. 

And not only can AI find out what consumers want, but they also adjust to every change in their profile. For example, a person moving into a brand’s area of influence will automatically see ads, or if they add a certain sport to their profile, AI can adjust to these changes. 

AI can also learn language and speech patterns. That’s why a lot of brands are investing in AI chatbots. This program lets them communicate with their consumers 24/7 and supply them with relevant answers to any queries. It can run all day and all night, which saves a company money compared to having actual people handling chat support.

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Abhishek Gattani is a senior director at Walmart Labs and, as head of the search, spearheaded the launch of the company ’s search engine and e-commerce platform, Polaris. Registering a 15 percent increase in sales, the platform now powers Walmart’s e-commerce products, including Walmart.com, store search, mobile web, and mobile apps. For more insightful reads on e-commerce, visit this blog. 

Measuring the effectiveness of site searches

Effective search engines are vital to the success of an e-commerce website. People, in general, are more accustomed to using search functions over sifting categories. Those who use search engines are often sure with the purchase they intend to buy and thus represent a potentially lucrative site demographic. Ensuring that the search engine function works for them requires understanding their needs and the problems they frequently encounter. 

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An effective search engine narrows down what the customer’s search terms to items from the store’s inventory that they may be interested in. A search engine must be capable of identifying specific items from the often heavily generalized words used in some search engines. 

One of the main troublesome aspects of using search engines in e-commerce sites is that, far too often, the links that turn up are usually not very relevant to what the customer is looking for. In many cases, the search results lead to either poorly matched selections or redundant entries. Because of this (and the fact that customers balk at having to sift through too many pages), it is vital for search engine algorithms to properly identify the target search term 

Although many searches utilize vague terms, others are oddly specific. Website search engines should accommodate not only occasional typographical errors as many are prone but also the jargon and numbers used to identify them. 

Search engine algorithms should be refined to produce accurate results closer to the terms mentioned in the search. E-commerce developers such as Walmart Labs look at the many intricate ways they’ve optimized site results. One protocol allowed company partners’ selling similar entries to simplify their search results by providing identical products from different sellers into a single entry. 

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Abhishek Gattani is the head of search at Walmart Labs. Learn more about him and his career from this page.

What Lies Ahead For e-Commerce?

E-commerce is big on execution. If all things are aligned, success should follow, provided that there’s enough traffic and time for a website to be established. There are still many things that remain uncertain for e-commerce, yet some things are for sure.

Personalization and customer experience will be better in the near future as it will be crucial for winning and keeping the customer in the seasons to come. In this time and age, consumers have little time to spare for irrelevant information. Thus, businesses that deal with customer experience transformation can hold the hearts and minds of customers. Products and information will assist SMEs in standing out from the crowd online and keep customers wanting for more as they provide personalized services.

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Delivery drones are making their way into reality, thanks to continuous testing and improvement. This is perhaps the most exciting development in e-commerce; drones will be sent out from distribution centers and fly directly to the provided delivery address, with a promise of significantly lower cost and logistical inconvenience than the industry’s current status.

Pop-up shops bridge the gap between online and offline retailing. This kind of shopping experience can provide customers with the chance to connect with a company’s brand in a physical manner while helping the business have an impact on corners of the market that might otherwise have been impossible through online channels. E-commerce is improving by the minute, with businesses and customers on the lookout for the latest development with regard to their shopping experience.

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Abhishek Gattani is a senior director at Walmart Labs and, as head or search, spearheaded the launch of the company’s search engine and e-commerce platform, Polaris. For similar reads, visit this blog.

Chatbots Are Changing Ecommerce

What once was the stuff of sci-fi is now being deployed everywhere, epitomized by technological innovations in the realm of artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and machine learning. The best example of how these advancements are affecting ecommerce is the rise of chatbots.

Chatbots mimic how humans think and make decisions. They are automated programs fueled by machine-learning technology that work by answering questions, handling particular requests, and generally simulating people’s conversations. The key thing to remember here is that a chatbot is not a static thing: it learns, adapting to how people behave, trends in their preferences, and what and when they buy.

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Voice recognition technology is crucial to the future of chatbots. Companies pushing the possibilities of the fusion of artificial intelligence with machine learning include NeuraFlash, and even FedEx. The former’s AI chatbot uses natural language processing (NLP) for comprehending text patterns, while FedEx’s Alexa app allows customers to track their package deliveries without even typing anything. Other notable and specialized Ai bots include Mitsuku and RightClick.

That they offer more personalized one-on-one service makes chatbots more important in ecommerce sectors, especially as people continue to switch to online shopping. Companies need to match the increased volume and traffic to new customers, and chatbots may be the only way to do so very soon.

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Currently a senior director at Walmart Labs, Abhishek Gattani is a graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the founder of companies Cuberon, Big Refunds, and Fireball Solutions. For more on Mr. Gattani’s work, visit this webpage.

Powerful benefits of harnessing machine learning in e-commerce

Machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence (AI), is a method of data analysis that’s based on the idea that systems can learn from data, identify patterns, and make decisions without much human intervention. This is not another buzzword: machine learning is about making sense of digital data at a much faster rate than humans are capable of. But how do they benefit e-commerce? 

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For starters, machine learning allows for segmentation, personalization, and targeting. E-commerce websites typically suffer a great distance from their customers, compared to face to face interaction. Things like machine learning can tweak the customer experience online to drive sales and increase revenue. 

It can, for instance, be instrumental in providing product recommendations. It can tap into the customer’s specific buying habits, preferred colors or looks, and the type of budget they are playing with. In addition, these high-tech solutions can also prioritize product recommendations that are likely to have bigger sales returns. 

As search is critical to the success of e-commerce businesses, machine learning can vastly improve product search and appear in front of potential customers. Search results became more meaningful and geared toward who really need them. 

It also assists in price optimization and fraud protection. In the former, the technology can change prices to account for factors such as competitors’ offer, demand, time of day, and kind of customer. In the latter, it can process huge volumes of data at rapid speed to prevent fraudulent transactions before happening. 

The robots have arrived, and they’re no longer the stuff of science fiction. It’s important to analyze whether machine learning could become your company’s “now” and serve as a huge asset to e-commerce campaigns and initiatives, rather than pursuing costly and resource-intensive manual processes. 

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Abhishek Gattani is the head of search at Walmart Labs, where he spearheaded the launch of Walmart’s 'Polaris' search engine and e-commerce platform. For similar reads, visit this page.

Machine Matters: The Impact Of Ai On e-Commerce

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not sci-fi; it is a reality shaping many businesses and industries today. It powers the most impressive innovations in recent decades, and it is ruling information technology. E-commerce and retail are not exempt from its benefits. In fact, marketing, digital or traditional, has become so dependent on it to the extent that competition among brands has just turned up the pressure. 

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Still not convinced of the ubiquity of AI? You can turn to your home gadgets. Smart TVs, refrigerators, watches, and other devices compile the data they collect so that the internet can interpret the behaviors and habits of potential consumers. Much of AI relies on the Internet of Things, and marketers use data from such to optimize the performance of their platforms. Online retailers, then, can count on AI to point them to the direction of a potential online client at the speed of a click.    

The speed with which AI compiles and interprets data also defines market offerings. Its very large database will be the basis for improvements in and developments of products and services. Brands purveying the same goods can leverage analytics to differentiate themselves. Of course, all these will occur on platforms such as visited websites and social media. In many cases, AI can even penetrate chat apps through chatbots and gather data on market preferences and behaviors from there. 

Online retailers then should be aware of the wave of AI integration occurring in retail at the moment. Speed has become the name of the game, and it needs to be integrated into websites and other platforms where purchases and product selections occur. It is telling that today’s e-commerce websites cannot be powered by basic Web Dev, but an AI website builder. 

Moreover, the biggest tech companies such as Facebook and IBM are pouring money into AI and counting their dollars by its smarts. 

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Abhishek Gattani is the head of search at Walmart Labs and the founder and CEO of Cuberon. He spearheaded the launch of Walmart’s “Polaris” search engine, which currently powers many of the company’s e-commerce products globally.  For more updates on the world of e-commerce, visit this page.

What Makes An Online Business Popular? Tips On Site Creation

Creating a website for a business isn’t as simple as one thinks. First, it has to be user-friendly. One of the most important factors for achieving this is that it can be easily found through any of the existing search engines out there. Here are a few more tips on how to attract more people to a business via a website.

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Make it easy for guests to navigate and search.

If the website is selling products, the list of items should be easy to find. The same goes with services. Businesses with a lot of items to sell can use dropdown menus to save space. Search bars should usually be on the top right for easy access.

Have a lot of information for items.

Aside from the usual explanations on items or services being provided, websites should also inform people just how many items are still available, or if they’re sold out. Other important info includes discounts if they’re bought in bulk, or if there’s a promo going on and which items are included.

Do not complicate the checkout process.

One thing online shoppers despise is a complicated checkout process. This is the part that concludes the visit, and should be short and sweet. One of the best ways to ensure this is to have all the pertinent info such as items, billing, shipping, and confirmation all in a single page.

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A senior director and the head of research in Walmart Labs, Abhishek Gattani spearheaded the launch of the company’s search engine and e-commerce platform, Polaris. The platform now powers Walmart’s e-commerce products, which includes Walmart.com, store search, mobile web, and mobile apps. To know more about Mr. Gattani and his accomplishments in e-commerce, go to this blog.

The increasing role of social media in e-commerce

There’s no denying the crucial role social media now plays in any business, especially those venturing into online platforms. Today, the average person spends almost two hours browsing social media sites every day, and the number of customers buying online in the U.S. will reach 217 million by the end of 2017. 

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Advertisements on paper and on the storefront are simply not enough in the digital age. The reputation and success of any business depend largely on their standing in social media. Sites like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are now being used to increase online presence and to offer quality customer services faster and more efficiently. 

Projected successful brands are those that are able to maximize their reach and effectiveness in paid social media advertising. It’s not enough to pay ads on Google shopping and the like; brands driven by e-commerce are investing more in paid social media accounts to better reach their target audience. This is because a social media ad is easier to both set up and track. 

Another important development to note is that customers are starting to prefer private messaging. In a study done by Venturebeat.com, it was found out that 49.4 percent of customers would rather contact a business through a 24/7 messaging service than through the phone. Snapchat, IG, and Facebook Messenger now provide great engagement options for both startups and big businesses.

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Abhishek Gattani is a senior director at Walmart Labs. He was instrumental in the launch of the company’s search engine and e-commerce platform, Polaris. For more reads on e-commerce, visit this blog.

Enhancing e-Commerce With Chatbots

Last 2016, the total global revenue that artificial intelligence (AI) brought in reached $643.7 million. By 2025, that amount is seen to increase to $36.8 billion as developers continue to enhance the capabilities and efficiency of this technology.

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E-commerce businesses can also benefit from AI through chatbots.

A chatbot is an automated program designed to be able to converse with people through a mix of natural language processing, machine learning, and human operators. The technology has actually been present for a number of years now, a notable example of which is Siri.

Because of consumer behaviors, businesses who have embraced the e-commerce platform should consider adopting a chatbot technology. Many customers prefer receiving responses to their inquiries within a short time. And traffic to e-commerce websites is quickly surging by the day. Chatbots can become an indispensable tool due to these.

And the good news is that consumers are becoming more open to transacting with chatbots. According to Ubisend, 20 percent of consumers would consider buying goods and services after talking with a chatbot. Reaching target audiences, giving efficient customer service, endorsing products and services, and driving sales can be that much easier for e-commerce brands through a chatbot.

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Abhishek Gattani, an alumnus of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and founder of companies Cuberon, Big Refunds, and Fireball Solutions, is currently the head of search at Walmart Labs. He was instrumental in the launch of the company’s search engine and e-commerce platform, Polaris. Learn more about him by visiting this LinkedIn page.

The big data trends of 2017

The term big data refers to sizeable and complex sets of information that need special types of processors to be of any use to an organization. It has increasingly been associated with various methods of data analytics because of its usefulness in the understanding of trends, behaviors, and whatnot once data is subjected to rigorous analysis. Discussions on big data also include the rapid growth of data sets through the widespread use of devices capable of capturing them. From mobile phones to RFID readers, the collection of data is becoming more effortless than ever. 

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Big data analytics has become one of the most controversial disruptive technologies introduced late in the Information Age. According to most technological predictions, it will continue to change the landscape of data processing as innovations continue to utilize the information embedded in these sets. For one, tech companies are banking on the implications of big data analytics on the future of artificial intelligence. Products that add to the Internet of Things network are being pushed out and consequently improved year in year out by tech giants that demonstrate how the development of AI can benefit a lot from big data. 

Since part of the challenges faced by companies with large data sets is storage, processing, and sharing, a lot of them are moving to cloud platforms and services that can offer much flexibility in the management of data. And if corporations are truly becoming more serious by the minute about big data aggregation plans, dark data will continue to be a valuable resource for businesses. Leaders have recognized the value of unutilized data in providing a more comprehensive picture or perspective of performance and trends. 

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Abhishek Gattani is a graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the founder of the companies Cuberon, Big Refunds, and Fireball Solutions. He has also worked for other companies like Kosmix, Stryker, and Newgen Software Laboratories. At Walmart Labs, he holds the title of distinguished architect. To learn more about his professional work, visit this LinkedIn page.

E-Commerce Trend Watch: From Mobile To Ai

Massive trends continue to change the e-commerce marketing landscape this year. According to this articles, here are some e-commerce trends that retailers have to take note of.

It’s still mobile, mobile, mobile, where the growth of the platform couldn’t be emphasized enough as it has found its way at every stage of the purchasing process. The most progressive retailers now develop their marketing and content with mobile first instead of simply optimizing websites for mobile. Mobile payments, too, are on a roll, with brands needing to make their checkout process as seamless and frictionless as possible for mobile users.

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Personalization is high up on the list, too, covering everything from informed targeting to breaking away from one-size-fits-all websites. The conversation needs to be revised in a way that the homepage offers something for everyone, not giving the same thing to all visitors. Along with this is dynamic automation, where retailers should avoid mass outreach and instead enhance relevance and touch each customer based on their inclination to buy or interact with you.

Artificial intelligence (AI) remains big, with potential for better direct interaction on social media platforms via chatbots and live support. In addition, there’s the drive toward seamless experiences, where the explosion of mobile usage in-store entails a greater focus on the need for seamless shopping and consistency across all brand channels.

Image source:Pixabay.com 

Finally, there’s the rise of more delivery expectations, where delivery options continue to expand and embrace customers’ diversifying needs. Same-day service and local drop-off are only some features of this trend in the ever-moving world of e-commerce.

Abhishek Gattani is the head of search at Walmart Labs and spearheaded the launch of the company’s 'Polaris' search engine, which currently powers many of its e-commerce products globally. For similar reads, follow this link.

The Walmart effect: How the retail giant became an institution

Walmart remains to be an American institution. For 55 years, the chain of stores made an impact in the lives of millions. It has also been a key player in U.S. labor, retail, and economy. But how did the company achieve the success it enjoys up to this day? 

Image source: Walmart.com

Founder Sam Walton had a vision when he started Walmart-- "Everyday low prices." Through the years, the business has given millions of consumers what they need for lower cost, which meant leverage over the competition as well. Having over 10,000 retail stores is enough proof that consumers have trusted the company through the years. 

Another quality of Walmart that became a part of people's lives is that it became a one-stop shop for their needs. From food to novelty items, people no longer need to search far and wide to get what they need. A few decades ago, this idea of having a variety of products in one big store seemed to be impossible. These days, stores are expected to have all of a person's material needs and more.

Decades after, Walmart is still a major player in retail and economics. As the largest private employer in the world, it has changed the lives of many in the workforce. And despite the influx of technology in everyday life, Walmart continues to do its core service but with adjustments. Its entry into the e-commerce game is proving to be a promising endeavor as it modernizes what it has been known for through these years. 

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Abhishek Gattani served as the head of search at Walmart Labs, spearheading the launch of Walmart’s 'Polaris' search engine and e-commerce platform. The platform led to a 15 percent increase in sales since its launch, and today powers many of Walmart’s e-commerce products, including Walmart.com, store search, mobile web, and mobile apps. For more on Abhishek and his work, visit this LinkedIn page.

Responsive Design, The Walmart Way

Walmart Labs is charged with developing innovative technology solutions for one of the world’s largest retailers. Its approach to design and development revolves around delivering better service to the company’s consumers.

Responsive design is one of the hallmark achievements of the Walmart Labs team and is the guiding principle to many of its developments. The need for responsiveness is especially apparent when catering to customers across multiple online channels. Not everything that works on one platform would work well on another.

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Responsive technology meets the challenge, allowing the company’s e-commerce systems to adapt to the needs of customers while maintaining the desired level of convenience and familiarity across all platforms.

One of the key accomplishments toward this end is an overhaul of all websites in the Walmart umbrella. The upgrade, which was completed in 2015, allows an individual website to adapt its displays according to the visiting customer’s screen size, allowing for an optimized and easy-to-use website experience regardless of the device the customer uses.

Responsiveness doesn’t just stop at website design. Targeted recommendations and improved mobile e-commerce solutions are also a new development pursued by Walmart Labs. Over the years, it has several companies specializing in the development of sophisticated programs accomplishing a broad assortment of tasks from assessing customer needs and wants through predictive analytics to effective e-receipt delivery.

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Abhishek Gattani serves as the head of search at Walmart Labs, having spearheaded the creation of its search platform Polaris. Visit his company’s website for more on its new e-commerce developments.