5 Best AI shopping assistant tools to personalise buying experience in e-commerce 2023

Small and medium-sized webshops often don’t have the luxury of having a sales team to support their customers. Human seller would bring more sales, but it is expensive and very demanging operation. This is where AI shopping assistants come in to provide an automated, more personalized buying experience that can bring more sales and happier customers.

AI shopping assistant demand surges: Klarna’s insights on personalised e-commerce

Klarna released an interesting study about how post-Covid raised the demand for personalised service using virtual shopping guides on online stores. What happened was that everyone went online shopping during Covid, and business was booming. Now, customers have noticed that having personalised service is not bad. So what do they do? They return to in-store shopping to get that service -feeling they missed the online store.

Klarna stated: “In 2021, e-commerce made up only 19.1% of total U.S. retail sales, despite the pandemic. Klarna researched to discover what the pain points were. According to its January 2022 study :

– 68% of U.S. consumers said they shopped in person once a week,
– 58% of U.S. shoppers said in-store shopping was a better experience.

They said in-store shopping was better because of social interaction and better service.- 78% of U.S. consumers said retailers should invest in new technology
– 45% stated they wanted more personal product recommendations
– 40% wanted personalized services.”

Read again: 45% stated they wanted more personal product recommendations, and 40% wanted personalized services!

What is going to happen in the future of E-Commerce

According to CB Insights: “Shopping online is now part of everyday life. Consumers expect a few clicks to get what they want delivered to their homes in a couple of days — or even hours. These promises of simplicity and speed, alongside pandemic-induced shifts to online shopping, have accelerated e-commerce growth over the last few years. Globally, retail e-commerce sales are set to grow at a 10% CAGR to top $7T in 2025, according to CB Insights’ analyst consensus.

At the same time, the concept of “online shopping” is expanding as the rise of the metaverse and shared virtual spaces transforms how consumers interact with people and businesses. In the not-too-distant future, shoppers may be able to craft entirely personalized digital shopping experiences — from consulting with virtual advisors to customizing physical and virtual goods to seamlessly moving between devices and platforms. Already, retail execs are turning their attention to enhancing the e-commerce experience via personalization, immersive tech, and more.

Retailers and brands will sell across borders more efficiently, as machine learning could cut back on specialized language needs.
Digital human assistants or advisors will boost inclusivity. Digital specialists will shift their appearance or style and modulate their tone based on consumers’ senses. They will instantly adjust to users’ specific visibility, language, or other accessibility needs.
Chat commerce will expand to more platforms. Messaging platforms like Discord are now destinations for meetings, community events, movie-watching, and more. Brands can build their own communities, called servers, which could integrate chat commerce.
Voice-only assistants could rise in importance as they integrate with more devices. Amazon’s Alexa, for instance, is broadening its integration with smartwatches, opening yet another channel to enable easier buying.”

What does this mean for you, the online store owner?

Webshop owners need to adapt new ways to serve their customers to succeed. Those with people and resources can set up an online sales team to support and sell to their customers. Unfortunately, the majority of SME webshops don’t have this luxury. AI boosted Shopping assistants are a popular way to build conversion and better customer experience. They are also way more cost-effective than using real humans.

5 best AI Shopping Assistant tools for small and medium-sized webshops

Our top five tools will help personalize the buying experience and boost sales.

1. Upsy Shopping Helper

Upsy Shopping Helper is an AI shopping assistant for SME online stores. Upsy helps your customers shop more easily and find what they want. The platform uses algorithms to automatically show customers the most relevant products from the online catalog. It also offers daily deals and new arrivals to your customers. It guides the customers through their shopping journey, from discovery to answering the most common customer service questions.

1. Key Features:
  - Mobile optimized functionality
  - Category Search
  - Upselling
  - Cross-selling
  - Daily deals
  - New Arrivals
  - FAQ´s
  - Feedback collecting
2. Target users: SME webshops, Woo-commerce, Shopify, MyCashFlow
3. Price: Starting from 495€ month

What truly sets Upsy apart is its focus on the mobile shopping experience. This reflects the shift in consumer behavior towards mobile browsing and shopping. Nowadays, 70-80% of online store traffic comes from mobile devices. So, Upsy is leading the way in making shopping easy and smooth for most online shoppers. All are geared towards boosting sales and enhancing the customer’s shopping experience.

Visit Upsy website for more information, or connect with Upsy’s team for a personalized demo.

2.RetailRocket

RetailRocket is an AI-driven shopping assistant platform focused on personalized product recommendations, email marketing automation, and customer engagement.

1. Key Features:
  - Personalized Product Recommendations:
  - Email Marketing Automation:
  - Real-Time Analytics:
2. Target user: Shopify, Magento,
3. Price: Various plans and pricing for all types of customers. Contact their team to get a quote.
  RetailRocket is a Russia-based company. It’s particularly popular among businesses operating in that region.

3. Clerk.io

Clerk.io is an AI-driven tool designed to improve customer engagement for online retailers.

Key Features:
- Intelligent Search: Helps customers find products more easily but lacks advanced categorization
- Product Recommendations: AI-driven suggestions but not as personalized
- Email Personalization: Offers tailored emails but not as interactive as Upsy’s features.
Target users: Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce. Less focused on SMEs
Price: Various plans available. Contact their sales team for details.

Clerk offers a wide range of features for online stores. The product works with web page templates, so it’s not the best option for mobile use.

4.Suggestr

Suggestr is a self-serve, no-code personalization solution for the 20M+ e-commerce brands that sell on platforms like Shopify.

1. Key Features:
  - Upselling
  - Bundling
  - Cross-selling
2. Target user: Shopify only
3. Price: $29/month – stores with monthly sales up to US$ 50,000 $199/month – stores with monthly sales between US$ 100,000 and US$ 200,000

5.Coveo

Coveo is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) search engine powered by artificial intelligence based in Quebec, Canada. The Coveo Relevance Cloud offers solutions for e-commerce, customer service, digital workforce, and website search.

1. Key Features:
  - Intelligent search
  - Recommendations
  - A/B testing
  - Cart Abandonment Recovery
2. Target user: Oracle Commerce, SAP Commerce, Salesforce, Magento,
3. Price:
  $600/month – Basic package (A search engine for a single site, product catalog, or intranet)
  $1,320/month- Pro package (A search engine for a multi-site, multi-source digital experience)

Future for online store: AI shopping assistant

The world of technology is changing at an alarming rate, and it’s clear that AI-powered shopping assistants are becoming increasingly popular to boost conversions and create a better customer experience.

If you want to learn more about how to personalise your customer experience, we’re happy to show you how our technology can help you take your business to the next level.

Book our demo today so that we can get started!