AI insights at Las Vegas Market could spark retail growth strategies
LAS VEGAS – Independent retailers learned tips about how to boost sales and customer engagement using artificial intelligence (AI) during the recent Las Vegas Market.
Founder of new company Pulse Capital Advisors, Jake Freedman, presented the information to a room of interested marketgoers. Freedman has a background in finance and technology and is also the founder of Dovr Media, which currently works with more than 1,000 brick-and-mortar storefronts, many in the home furnishings industry.
“AI is already here,” Freedman told attendees. “It is shaping customer expectations. 80% of customers are more likely to buy when brands offer personalized experiences that can be crafted by AI. Using it helps retailers to grow two to three times faster than those who don’t use it.”
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Freedman said top retailers often have a personalized homepage that is based on the location and behavior of the individual shopper. AI can also retarget ads with a 40% higher return on ad spending, and chatbots can handle more than 60% of the pre-sale inquiries from customers. He said it is possible for retailers to implement a new toolset using AI in less than one year and stop all forms of manual input.
“The access to data and information faster helps to make businesses more profitable,” he said. “For example, predictive AI can look for top search terms from customers and enter them into a metadata form to help retailers to boost traffic by 30%.”
The possibilities include automated email and text messages sent to current and prospective customers based on behavior, product quotes and showroom visits.
“These tools allow retailers to have personalized conversations with customers at scale in real time,” he added. “This reduces the amount of work and labor exponentially.”
Making use of AI tools for both data capture and customer personalization frees up time for salespeople to make the personal connections that they know will result in sales and even upsell opportunities.
AI can also be used post-sale, according to Freedman.
“We suggest retailers use the user interface tool to collect positive feedback from customers to share with others who visit the website as reviews,” he said. “We also recommend offering shoppers a personalized opportunity to buy the next thing.”
Freedman said the new language of profitability when using AI doesn’t rely on margins but instead talks about moving toward overall profitability.
He recommends retailers and others in the industry experiment with AI engines such as ChatGPT, Claude, You.com and Andi to become more familiar with how to use the technology.
