We scan at checkouts via loyalty cards; therefore, our online baskets, our shopping habits, are no longer a secret. More retailers are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and software systems to automatically try to predict and encourage our particular preferences and purchases.
Daniel Burke, the Retail consultant of Blick Rothenberg, says they can build up clients’ profiles and suggest a product before they realize it is what they needed.
Next time you run into your local shop to purchase certain things and a specific wine on a Friday night, you will remember Artificial Intelligence and a computer that knows everything about you for the decision.
Will Broome is the founder of Ubamarket, a UK firm that makes a shopping app that enables people to pay for items via their phones.
According to Will Broome, their artificial intelligence system tracks the client’s behaviour patterns rather than their shopping history. The more customer shops, the more the artificial intelligence knows about what kinds of products she likes. AI module also tries to know how likely people are to try different brands.
Therefore, AI can offer hyper-personalized offers, for example, cheaper wine on a Friday night.
Ubamarket has struggled to persuade the UK’s biggest supermarkets to use the app. Therefore, it has instead done deals with smaller convenience shop chains in the United Kingdom, such are Spar, Co-op, and Budgens.
Remarkably, the app’s is not popular, but as the coronavirus pandemic is getting much worse, it has made people more reluctant to stand in queues.
Clients with the app are three times more expected to return to the store
According to Mr. Broome, using the app, they found that the average contents of a basket are up 20% and clients with the app are three times more expected to return to the store.
Significantly, a Berlin start-up called SO1 is doing similar things with its Artificial Intelligence for retailers. It claims that nine times more customers purchase goods suggested by AI than those offered by traditional promotions, even when the discounts are 30% less.
Getting offers on goods is great for consumers. However, Jeni Tennison says that companies should stay cautious about the vast amounts of information on people that are being collected.
According to Jeni Tennison, people are happy when they are recommended; however, they feel more uncomfortable when they are being manipulated.
And she adds that there are more critical societal questions raised by the use of Artificial Intelligence in retail.
According to Ms. Tennison, organizations should ask how ethical the data collection is.
