From improving product recommendations and personalised fit suggestions to delivery, here’s how retail biggies are using artificial intelligence to offer delightful customer experiences
New Delhi: Retailers in India are betting big on enhancing the customer experience (CX) with the use of Artificial intelligence (AI) with heavy investments planned in the technology this year 2024.
According to experts, the integration of AI in retail is more than just an operational upgrade; it’s a strategic move towards creating more customer-focused and efficient retail experiences, especially when the scale of operations is large like in the case of fashion e-commerce platform Myntra.
“With a catalogue as vast as ours, comprising 2.3 million styles from 6000+ brands across fashion, beauty and lifestyle, as well as the need to be on top of the fast-evolving fashion trends, it can get challenging for shoppers to find the right product and discover trends,” Myntra’s vice president (VP), of product management Lakshminarayanan Swaminathan said.
Not just Myntra, but other players too are using AI for better CX. Here’s how…
Amazon
The horizontal marketplace has recently added a new feature where it uses AI to help customers find the perfect fit while shopping online as per a recent blog by Apoorv Chaudhri, director of computer vision and machine learning at Amazon Fashion. This feature gives customers shopping for fashion products various options such as personalised size recommendations, fit review highlights, size charts with AI-powered data, AI-backed fit insight tools and so on.
The company also utilises AI in its digital pharmacy business helping improve prescription processing speed, pricing, customer support and delivery.
Myntra
The fashion e-commerce major uses AI and other emerging technology to enhance the overall shopping experience for its customers, the company said. The company uses features like My Stylist, MyFashionGPT, and Maya that enable customers to have a more enhanced and meaningful discovery-led shopping experience.
MyFashionGPT, a generative AI tool for fashion, beauty and lifestyle allows users to search for outfits using natural language. The feature currently boasts nearly 2 million monthly users on average.
My Stylist, an AI-powered design tool, analyses user preferences combined with a deep understanding of trends, enabling users to discover and shop for complete looks.
Maya, the AI-powered chatbot, streamlines discovery and refines choices for customers, eliminating ambiguity in decision-making. The chatbot is adept at handling a wide range of complex queries. Being contextually aware enables Maya to provide recommendations to customers based on the multiple conversations that occurred in the same session, responding in real time.
Peesafe
Gurugram-based personal hygiene brand Peesafe uses AI in areas like personalisation where it recommends products, offers tailored promotions, creating targeted marketing campaigns based on customer data and shopping history. In addition to this, Chatbots offer 24/7 customer support on product information, order tracking, and issue resolution.
At its stores, the company uses smart shelves, personalised digital signage and AI-powered self-checkout kiosks. Other indirect areas where it employs AI include predictive analytics for anticipating customer needs, maintaining stock levels, predicting future trends and sentiment analysis.
Shoppers Stop
Department store chain Shoppers Stop uses large language models (LLMs) and AI to develop Conversational AI.
“We are also experimenting with the metaverse as a novel avenue for customer engagement, in addition to already existing solutions, such as virtual try-ons, immersive brand experiences, and interactive shopping environments,” said Sandeep Jabbal, Chief Digital Transformation and Information Officer in an interview earlier.
The company aims to enhance customer experience with generative AI and conversational AI, with a focus on enabling personalised product recommendations interactive engagements, and real-time assistance.
Indiamart
Using Artificial Intelligence has helped the B2B marketplace become a conversational commerce hub, facilitating 45 crore conversations last year on the lead management system. The AI-based matchmaking technology on the Indiamart platform matches buyer needs to the most suitable suppliers, ensuring seamless connections beyond the restrictions of location or size of the business. Beyond this, AI & ML are also leveraged in various platform aspects, such as multilingual search results and intelligent cataloguing for easy AI-powered product image editing.
AI in stores
In addition to what the retailers are doing, there are several areas where AI is being used. Giving a perspective on where tech service providers are working with retailers on AI, Ajay Aggarwal, head of Retail at Nihilent Ltd. said that retail brands are incorporating AI into their strategies to derive added value from existing loyalty programs.
“By gaining a deeper understanding of customer basket trends and patterns, these brands aim to employ AI-driven insights for the development of personalized marketing strategies, ultimately enhancing customer loyalty and overall satisfaction,” Aggarwal added.
The company help retailers enhance in-store customer experience with AI.
“We are also using AI to enhance in-store customer experience for retailers. Additionally, AI enhances in-store experiences by analysing CCTV feeds, offering insights into footfall patterns and shopper behaviours, identifying high-intent shoppers and more,” said Dipankar Mukherjee, Chief Innovation Officer, Nihilent Limited.
AI Impact
Brands are already experiencing benefits associated with AI. For instance, Pee Safe has seen increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, personalised experience, and quicker resolution.
“Other benefits include higher conversion rates and sales, reduced operating costs and competitive advantage,” shared Vikas Bagaria, Founder and CEO.
In the case of Myntra, those using the MyFashionGPT are adding products from 16% more categories on average than usual. “1 million of our customer base are currently engaging on average with My Stylist every month. Maya, our AI-powered chatbot users are conveying overwhelmingly positive sentiments, as reflected in the approval ratings,” Swaminathan shared.
Giving insights into the advantages reported by its retail partners Aggarwal of Nihilent said, “We have achieved over a 25% improvement in overall inventory efficiency for the food brands we have partnered with, directly influencing their top-line revenue and profitability by minimizing daily stock-outs and food wastage”.
More insightful and stimulating conversations on technology trends in retail are expected at the Phygital Retail Convention (PRC) 2024.
