by Aurangzeb Agha
Last week our Metrical Team attended ShopTalk 2018 in Las Vegas and were blown away by the number of companies and people participating. Apparently the conference had almost doubled in size to more than 8,500 retailers, brands, vendors and media representatives in attendance from last year.
As an early stage startup focused on using AI to improve conversion rates and reduce cart abandonment, our main objectives were to network and learn. And we definitely achieved those two objectives! Some of our key takeaways from ShopTalk:
- Retailers and brands want to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to improve customer experience and increase conversion rates, both online and in the physical store, but seem to know very little about how to go about it.
- Everyone is both in awe and fear of Amazon, as they should be.
- e-commerce solution providers must be able to easily integrate with “out of the box” platforms like Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce.
- The physical store is not going away. It is only going to get smarter and more connected to the shopper’s mobile devices.
- If we got a nickel for every time we heard someone say “Blockchain” but not explain to us how they are actually using it then we could have paid for our pricey ShopTalk tickets.
The bottom line is that retailers and brands have technological solutions at their fingertips to help overcome their biggest challenges. This could be the golden age for retailers and brands who are ready and willing to be early adopters in leveraging new technologies to enhance the way they interact with their customers.
Retailers and brands who boldly choose to utilize new solutions are the ones who will be the leaders of tomorrow’s e-commerce industry. They are the ones who are going to earn loyalty from their customers and continuously increase their conversion rates. They are the ones who are going to end up winning. When the costs of implementing new technologies are so low compared to the potential ROI, apathetic companies stand to fall behind the adopters of innovation.
