Students are submitting papers written by machines; universities are banning those papers. LinkedIn gurus assure you that if you don’t adapt to AI, you die. Endless prompts and fake information are flooding the internet, all thanks to generative AI.
ChatGPT is the fastest-growing app in history, and big tech giants like Microsoft and Google are using advanced AI powers as well.
Artificial Intelligence is taking every industry by storm, and fashion is not the exception.
Transforming an Industry with AI-driven search
Let’s dive deeper into how AI-driven search engines can transform the shopping experience.
While AI has numerous benefits to the retail industry, it also presents challenges to address to guarantee responsible and effective implementation. Retailers must balance leveraging AI search engines for operational efficiency and maintaining a customer-centric approach.
Advantages of AI in Retail
- Increase Average Order Value (AOV): AI-powered search engines can reduce overstocking and understocking issues, leading to cost savings and increasing AOV by driving customers to better options.
- Demand Forecasting: AI algorithms can analyze historical sales data and external factors to make accurate demand forecasts, helping retailers plan inventory and promotions effectively.
- Increase Website Conversion Rate: by showing relevant results, AI-driven search ensures users quickly find what they’re looking for, resulting in higher engagement and, ultimately, more conversions.
- Personalized Customer Experiences: AI search engines enable retailers to analyze customer data and provide personalized product recommendations and offers, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Visual Search: AI tools for searching can enable visual search capabilities, allowing customers to find hard-to-describe visual products—a combination of a Visual AI and an AI-based product search and discovery platform.
Disadvantages of AI in Retail
- Cost of Implementation: Integrating AI systems can be expensive, requiring significant upfront investment in technology and talent.
- AI Bias: AI algorithms can inherit biases in training data, potentially leading to discriminatory or unfair recommendations or decisions.
- Technical Challenges: Maintaining and keeping AI systems up-to-date can be technically challenging, requiring skilled personnel and ongoing investments.
- Customer Resistance: Adapting to a new technology can make some customers hesitate to embrace AI-driven search and prefer “the old way.”
- Overreliance on AI: Relying solely on AI can reduce human oversight, potentially missing nuanced customer preferences and market trends.
How Can Visual Search Deliver More Profit
Many retailers rely on discounts to increase sales, but what happens when your customers do not even see those discounts?
This is the backstory of Percentil, a well-established secondhand clothing marketplace in Spain, France, and Germany for the past ten years. The website had too many options, and regardless of how good those options were, customers faced the paradox of choice – too many options that made the buying decision and the inventory rotation harder.
After implementing Miros’ Wordless Search, PERCENTIL improved their buyer’s journey exceptionally, leading to a significant GMV uplift of +7% after only a month of full deployment. They also witnessed a +4% uplift for AOV and +7% for customer retention.
AI search helped Percentil have better inventory control in a much more efficient way than with discounts without sacrificing revenue for the company, resulting in a more engaging experience for the buyers.
60 seconds is all it takes
The first 60 seconds on your website mirror what your users want to buy. Helping them exceed their expectations can help them stay for an hour or more, browsing for things they never knew they wanted and now can’t live without.
Our AI-powered search at Miros helps your customers find their favorite products without using words and inspires them to find what they love better than Pinterest or TikTok ever could.
Ready to boost your website’s visitor retention and profitability? Book a demo today.
