The fashion industry has seen an expeditious inclination towards technology in recent years. While just a few years ago there was still a lot of skepticism around using digital solutions in fashion, the growth of eCommerce has changed this mindset. This change has partly been due to the revolution of smartphone technology, which forced industries to innovate and provide the user with better tech solutions. In order to adapt and cope with these changing times, the eCommerce industry started to look for digital solutions among which AI-powered assistants for voice or image search have been a major success.
Voice search solutions like Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, etc. have become so popular that they’re embedded in practically every eCommerce website or mobile app these days. This technology uses AI to allow the user to directly search for the product that they’re looking for by tracing the product tag of similar products.
Technology and convenience go hand in hand, and with smart technologies like voice search, companies can go a step further towards providing their customers with better convenience. According to an article by Neil Patel, “Long tail semantic searches push a search engine further by making it understand the intent behind the user’s search.” He further quotes a study done on this theory which states that sites that still use a traditional text-based search have a 40% cart abandonment rate as oppose to the 2% for sites with a semantic-based search engine.
How Does It Work?
At first glance, voice search might seem like a basic feature, but in reality, it has layers of science and technology. On the surface, voice search technology typically consists of four essential elements:
- You speak out or record your request through the voice search feature which is transcribed into text format by the browser.
- This text is then analyzed to determine the command or search request from the user.
- From there on, the software can use the data sources to trace the product through Image tagging or find relevant information.
- Lastly, the collected result or products are presented to the customer.
But, not all voice search software’s work in an effective manner. How effective & accurate a voice search software will be, entirely depends on the amount of data available to the search engine. If the search engine doesn’t have access to the correct information, it would directly reflect on the quality & performance of the voice search software.
Arunava Acharjee
(Product Marketing Manager)
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How Is Voice Search Revolutionizing the E-Commerce Industry?
E-commerce image tagging and voice search have become rather popular in recent years due to the rise of smartphones. Its multi-layered benefits are all in one way or another related to customer experience, which is why it has become an essential part of people’s daily lives. Customers find it much easier to just voice search the product that they’re looking for rather than typing it in. Here are some ways in which voice search has benefitted the e-commerce industry:
Voice Search Is Faster And Time-Efficient:
The biggest advantage of voice search is that it allows for a quick and efficient job of searching for whatever the user wants. The “hands-free” approach is incredibly handy when it comes to multitasking. If you have your hands full, you can just speak out your command and the voice search will transcribe it for you. The transcribed material is then traced using the product tag which gives you a faster and better result. Furthermore, it is much easier to add products to your cart using voice search technology rather than manually typing each product and adding it. This not only helps reduce the cart abandonment rate but it’s also extremely user-friendly for a diverse kind of audience.
Future Forward Technology:
Aside from being faster and convenient for the user, voice search technology is also future forward. Technology is changing the way we live our lives every day, we see new and intelligent features being introduced all the time, and that creates a curiosity in the user’s mind. They want to experience and experiment with these technologies and that puts a pressure on e-commerce companies to innovate and incorporate these features in their apps or websites.
When we talk about voice search, in particular, we’re also talking about one of the most advanced technologies that have come up in recent years, i.e., AI and Machine Learning. Not only are they growing in popularity among various industries, but they have also captured the attention of consumers all over the world. Now, because of the fact that voice search technology is based on AI and Machine Learning, it has a number of smart features that attract consumers. For example, when ordering groceries, the voice assistant can suggest a number of options for a particular product, or suggest the items that you’ve previously ordered on a regular basis.
Marketing Through Voice Search:
Marketing through voice search is a fairly new concept and has a number of differentiating aspects from traditional marketing. Some of the world’s biggest brands have been using voice search technology for marketing purposes, albeit through a non-traditional approach. When we talk about marketing through voice search in e-commerce, it has to be done in an indirect way. Unlike a traditional marketing campaign where companies would use paid advertisements, incorporating them in voice search software may end up irritating consumers and deter them from using it. There are two ways to solve this problem:
- The first approach would be to focus less on products and more on building brand reputation. For example, Johnnie Walker, the famous whisky brand, offers a voice assistant feature to help the customers understand different kinds of whiskeys and which specific one would suit them best. This way, they not only build a connection between the customer and the brand but also, indirectly promote their product.
- The other approach would be to use smarter SEO strategies. SEO-optimizing your website content is the key to ensure that your product is visible to the customer. This is even more relevant when it comes to voice search marketing since voice search assistants only show the top five or six results that come up during a search. So it’s definitely time to up your SEO game.
Offers The Customer A Personalized Experience:
One of the greatest advantages of using voice search for e-commerce businesses is that it’s based on AI and Machine Learning technology. This basically means that the software can learn about the customer’s personal preferences and make recommendations based on that information. This not only offers the customer a much more personalized and smoother shopping experience but also builds a connection between the customer and the brand. As a general example, let’s say you use voice search software to order groceries every month. Based on the information that the software has learned about you in the past, it can make recommendations tailored to your personal preferences to make your shopping experience even easier. You can even repeat your previous orders or add anything new that the software suggests.
Final Thoughts:
In conclusion, we can say that the technology of voice search for the e-commerce industry is here to stay. As more and more users are shifting to online shopping, the need to come up with innovative and smart technologies is increasing. According to a study by Gartner, by the year 2021, brands that had adopted voice and visual search technologies early on will increase their e-commerce sales by a whopping 30%. Safe to say, in the coming years, voice search will probably assimilate itself into every aspect of our lives.
