Over the last decade or so, eCommerce has grown and become an essential part of the retail industry globally. More and more players are jumping into the fray leading to new technologies and frameworks. eCommerce platforms such as Magento (now Adobe Commerce), Salesforce (SFCC), Shopify, Woocommerce, BigCommerce to name a few, with their technology and offerings, have helped retail store owners provide rich digital experience for today’s tech-savvy customers.
Why is AI powered ecommerce growing?
One such technological advancement that has disrupted the eCommerce industry in the recent past is Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI can help retailers deliver a more personalized shopping experience by using collected business and customer data for better decisions and more accurately predict the future.
A Google study showed that 40% of customers are likely to exceed their budget if a personalized experience is provided on the online store. This kind of information has propelled the implementation of AI in eCommerce.
In this blog we are going to look at two of the biggest eCommerce platforms – Adobe and Salesforce, comparing their AI offerings.
Adobe Commerce : AI platform Adobe Sensei
First introduced in 2016, Adobe Sensei is Adobe’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) platform. Since its introduction, Adobe Sensei has been integrated to support a wide variety of Adobe’s SaaS programs. Currently Adobe Sensei is part of the following product offerings:
Adobe Commerce/Commerce Cloud (Magento) – With Adobe Commerce, Adobe Sensei is the AI engine that drives the advanced product recommendation feature. This feature helps to cross sell and upsell different products to customers. It is used to power the following types of recommendation:
- Shopper-based – Using the individual user information, behavior and similar shoppers, Adobe Sensei can develop a “Recommended for you” list of products for individual shoppers. This leads to higher conversion rate and higher order value.
- Item-based – By taking into consideration the products viewed or bought by a customer or similar customers, recommendations such as “Similar products viewed or bought” can be done. This helps in providing customers with appealing items for their consumption.
- Content-based – This is a recommendation based on the current product a shopper is viewing. It provides a “Similar products” list, which gives more options to the customer.
- Popularity-based – These are recommendations that include “Trending”, “Most Viewed”, “Most bought” or “Most added to cart” list of products. This helps to showcase the most popular products to the customer.
Adobe Experience Cloud – Adobe Sensei is at the heart of Adobe Experience Cloud, which has features like predictive analytics, ad spend targeting, personalized customer journeys and recommendations.
Adobe Creative Cloud – Adobe Sensei AI can be used in Adobe Creative Cloud software with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere to quickly modify or correct issues in photos, videos, and other media. It can also be used for enhanced search capabilities in Adobe Stock and Lightroom.
Adobe Document Cloud – With Adobe Document Cloud, Adobe Sensei improves scanning accuracy, simplifies form filling, and streamlines the process of filling and signing documents online.
Salesforce (SFCC) : AI platform Salesforce Einstein
Salesforce Einstein is the Artificial Intelligence platform that supports Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC). It offers a suite of AI-powered tools to help provide customers with a personalized online shopping experience. The following are the features that are driven by Einstein:
Product recommendations – With the help of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence merchants can set up product recommendations. It helps by guiding customers to relevant products tailored to their interest. Einstein monitors how a customer interacts on the website, to determine which products are most relevant and provides a personalized list.
Commerce insights – This tool offers a dashboard which shows all the aggregated product data – ‘Shopper’, ‘Order’, and ‘Product data’ from the site. It provides information like which product is doing well and which products are frequently purchased together. This can be used to make data-driven decisions like for which products to run promos and which products to bundle.
Predictive sort – Predictive sort showcases products based on the browsing and purchase history of a customer. The results and categories search will be personalized for individual customers and relevant products will be ranked higher. This is especially useful for a mobile user as search will be short like listings on mobile and will be fewer per page as mobile users tend to lose patience to go through many pages.
Search directories – While searching for a product, a customer might not find any relevant results for the keywords they’ve used. They may move out of your website and go to another store. This can be avoided by using Einstein search dictionaries which helps in adding or grouping similar words to be part of a search. For example a customer can search for a “lavender” color shirt, which might not display any results. With search dictionaries, lavender can be added or grouped with purple which will be shown to the customer. This way you can detect similar associations and expand keyword lists.
Search recommendations – The Einstein search recommendations is a Google search-like feature which expands site search with personalized search term completion, popular or trending search word or phrase suggestions and personalized search suggestions. This is achieved by monitoring the search history of the customer on the site to provide the list of most relevant data. Furthermore, search recommendations update the trending or popular search keywords and phrases updated in real time.
Final Word
AI helps improve customer experience, increases conversion rates, drives innovation and improves overall business decision making. The above mentioned AI-powered platforms have their own uniqueness and advantages. As a merchant you need to assess which platform can better use the various customer and business data available with you.
Ziffity has experienced and certified experts with both Magento and Salesforce. We can help you choose the right platform that would help you leverage the data that you have. Get in touch with our experts for a quick consultation.
