6 Ways Chatbots can Increase your E-commerce Sales

Finding it hard to manage the intricacies of a great shopping experience? Find out how other online sellers are using Chatbots to automate actions and increase E-commerce sales.

The only constant in the e-commerce industry is change.

The consistently growing realm of the e-commerce industry has cleared the way for different marketplaces and retailers nationally and globally. Everything from purchasing clothes to ordering food, e-commerce has put purchasing power right at our fingertips. As this e-commerce industry grows — so does the competition. E-Commerce store owners consistently look for a USP that can make them stand out from the crowd.

 

If you want to make your online business successful and set it apart from the rest, you have to foster a better shopping experience and streamline an immense matrix of customer interactions. Chatbots are making it easy for E-commerce store owner to increase sales by automating many of these interactions.

 

What is a chatbot?

A chatbot is software that communicates with users, manages particular requests, answers queries, and so forth. In a conversational format, in assistance with UI language like text, voice, etc. and UI graphics like buttons, menus, images, etc. In a nutshell, chatbots act as an imperative tool, enabling businesses to interact with customers one-on-one in a personalized way.

 

Now let’s talk about how chatbots help e-commerce businesses increase sales by interacting with their target audience, recommending products, and delivering customer assistance.

Here are six ways chatbots help increase e-commerce sales.

 

1. Make the Customer Interaction Better

As per the study by Sprout Social nearly 89% of messages that require a response are ignored by brands, with more than 10 hours of wait for those that do get an answer – even though consumers expect a reply within four hours.

That’s where bots come in.

 

Here are three key ways chatbots can improve the customer interaction process of an e-commerce store-

• Chatbots act like salesmen of any brick and mortar shop. They store a buyer’s history, and at whatever point that specific buyer again visits the store, they recommend products with the caption “You may also like this”.
• Being a conversational assistant, chatbots recognize the requirements of consumers and offer a personalized feel to every conversation. The AI-powered chatbots make your customers feel that they are discussing with a human being. This is because chatbots recognize the typing pattern of each user and accordingly make a conversation.
• Chatbots act as customer care executive and gives incredible customer experience in the best possible way while saving time for both vendors and customers.

 

2. Product Recommendations

Recommending products to your customers can influence the overall customer experience. Bombarding your clients with so many product recommendations can make your website off-putting.

 

For example, brands like H&M’s Kik bot offers services to avoid this issue. Kik puts together outfits based on previous purchases of the customers.

 

3. Upselling & Cross-Selling

Upsells and cross-sells are responsible for between 10-30% of e-commerce revenues.

 

They’re based on your customers’ preferences. Also, they don’t have to go looking for a product they may require. And that’s the core of customer retention.

 

Product recommendations can be exceptionally personalized in Facebook chatbots by combining everything you’ve found out about your customers. From quizzes, conversations, and other interactions, with actions like purchase engagement and history.

 

4. Prevent Shopping Cart Abandonment

Did you know that 75.4% of shoppers abandon their carts universally? 

For e-commerce stores, every abandoned cart is a missed opportunity to make a deal.

 

One small study found that abandoned cart reminders sent by Messenger recover 13%-20% and make 4x-10x more revenue than email. These are the numbers you should take benefit of.

 

In general, Messenger cart abandonment messages:

• Get more people to click without leaving Messenger.
• Get higher open rates than email.
• Give users a personal way of communicating with your brand. Additionally, perhaps you can find out why they abandoned the cart and fix it.

 

5. Offers Product Guides

A chatbot can be a brilliant product guide. And the best part is, they can learn from a few products in a pinch of time and will never get exhausted with their job.

 

Customers normally don’t know where they should search for when they need detailed information about the product they need to buy. They let you hit a conversation with them when they need assistance. This helps in driving more sales.

 

Over 83% of online shoppers require help while finishing their orders.

And over 70% of these expect help within a moment.

And if the customers don’t get the needed support, they simply move to your rivals.

 

By offering a chatbot – help guide, even if it is clarifying the product benefits or describing it, or answering any concerns, you can convey customer insight they require instantly. This is undoubtedly driving higher sales, customer loyalty, and satisfaction.

 

6. Fetch Deliver and Shipping Messages

Customers on e-stores have various questions about the delivery and shipping of their products during the purchase process. Queries that come up before a sale cover topics like packaging quality, shipping costs, delivery time, and scheduling alternatives. The failure of not finding answers to these questions may deter a potential buyer from spending money on the website.

 

Similarly, consumers who have purchased items look for tracking information of the shipment and furthermore request periodic updates on its location and estimated delivery date.

 

A chatbot enables the online store to furnish their potential and existing customers with data and updates on shipping and delivery. FAQs on shipping can easily be encouraged into the script, and instant answers can be given to the consumers who need the information.

 

Conclusion

To put it plainly, chatbots give a helping hand to business activities, saving a significant amount of time and effort in managing your online store.

 

The future of Chatbots in the e-commerce business is very bright. The next-generation of these bots are based on Natural Language Understanding (NLU) integrate AI, as opposed to Natural Language Processing (NLP), empowering them to be more intelligent and understand language rather than just commands.

 

Undoubtedly chatbots have carried a revolutionary change with how consumers enjoy shopping or avail services. From making your everyday work convenient with automation to offering you with stacks of audience data to analyze, chatbots are winding up increasingly more of an essential tool for online store owners.