Cem has been the principal analyst at AIMultiple since 2017. AIMultiple informs hundreds of thousands of businesses (as per similarWeb) including 55% of Fortune 500 every month.
Cem's work has been cited by leading global publications including Business Insider, Forbes, Washington Post, global firms like Deloitte, HPE and NGOs like World Economic Forum and supranational organizations like European Commission. You can see more reputable companies and resources that referenced AIMultiple.
Throughout his career, Cem served as a tech consultant, tech buyer and tech entrepreneur. He advised enterprises on their technology decisions at McKinsey & Company and Altman Solon for more than a decade. He also published a McKinsey report on digitalization.
He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech company Hypatos that reached a 7 digit annual recurring revenue and a 9 digit valuation from 0 within 2 years. Cem's work in Hypatos was covered by leading technology publications like TechCrunch and Business Insider.
Cem regularly speaks at international technology conferences. He graduated from Bogazici University as a computer engineer and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Researched by Sıla ErmutSıla Ermut is an industry analyst at AIMultiple focused on email marketing and sales videos. She previously worked as a recruiter in project management and consulting firms. Sıla holds a Master of Science degree in Social Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations.
We follow ethical norms & our process for objectivity. Brands with links to their websites fund our research.
To help businesses to follow and adopt current eCommerce trends, we present the top 15 eCommerce technologies for:
With an expected revenue of $4 trillion and a growth rate of nearly 10% by 2029, the eCommerce market has significant growth potential. 1
However, a few businesses dominate the eCommerce sector. For other mid-market and enterprise companies to compete with these tech and retail giants, they should embrace digital transformation and smart investments to:
By leveraging natural language processing and machine learning, these tools can handle customer inquiries in real-time, providing personalized shopping experiences and improving customer service.
Sales chatbots and IVAs can carry out the same functions on websites, mobile applications, and messaging services like WhatsApp. This sales strategy is known as conversational commerce, and according to PwC, customers are willing to pay up to 16% extra for such engaging services. 3
Imagine making a purchase in a physical store. Salespeople inform customers about the advantages of the products, display alternatives and complementary items, and perhaps give advice to assist customers in making decisions.
If you need more information about conversational commerce use cases, check out conversational commerce use cases.
If you struggle to find a suitable chatbot vendor for your business, dive into chatbot companies to deploy conversational AI.
Email marketing tools for eCommerce enable online businesses to design, automate and deliver email campaigns directly to their consumers.
Email marketing for eCommerce involves sending customized messages, promotional content, and transactional information to targeted audiences with the aim of increasing customer engagement, driving sales, and building brand loyalty.
According to eCommerce email marketing statistics, more than 60% of online retailers choose email for their marketing campaigns, and they utilize email marketing as an effective strategy to contribute to the growth and success of their businesses.
Livrarias Curitiba, an online store in Brazil, utilized GetResponse’s customizable drag-and-drop editor to create personalized marketing emails, landing pages, and websites and boosted their revenue by 200%. Additionally, they leveraged A/B testing and email analytics tools from GetResponse to improve and optimize their email campaign performance.
Google image searches make up more than 22% of all queries, according to SemRush. 4
Customers can utilize Google Images to search for products by capturing images and using reverse image search to find related photos, a feature that enhances the online shopping experience.
eCommerce businesses can leverage this technology by uploading optimized images for each item in their online stores. By adding informative titles and alt texts to these photographs, businesses ensure Google search crawlers understand the image content, improving their Google rankings and increasing customer engagement.
Integrating this strategy into mobile commerce and mobile apps can further streamline operations and support the growing number of customers preferring to shop on mobile devices.
According to recent studies, around 60% of e-Commerce sales are conducted on mobile apps and having a custom mobile app can be highly beneficial for eCommerce technology. 5
As shown in Figure 1, the general trend suggests that mobile commerce will be even more present in the near future.
Customers can interact with your brand continuously through apps, and they can learn about fresh and useful purchasing opportunities. Additionally, mobile apps provide customers a simple check-out process.
Figure 1: Sales channels mobile vs desktop comparison. 6
Employing recommendation systems are an essential part of effective eCommerce strategies as approximately 30% of consumers are willing to pay more for things that are suggested to them. 7
The aim is to enhance customer engagement by offering personalized shopping experiences based on customer data. These systems utilize machine learning to analyze online purchases and browsing behavior, allowing e-commerce platforms to tailor marketing campaigns and increase customer satisfaction.
By integrating into mobile apps and progressive web apps, recommendation systems improve customer service and loyalty, driving business growth and e-commerce sales.
The overall benefit of recommendation systems is higher rates of engagement and boosted sales.
Recommendation systems can also integrate with pop-ups for alerting users about some discounts or unchecked-out carts. Thus, eCommerce businesses can reduce the site leakages and cart abandonment.
In this regard, AIMultiple suggests executives to deploy behavioral analytics to better predict their customers’ wants.
Social commerce is the integration of eCommerce processes directly within social media platforms by enabling users to discover, engage with, and purchase products without leaving the social media app or site. With almost 19% of total online sales, social commerce has become highly significant for eCommerce businesses. 8
This merging of social media and online shopping leverages the power of social networks to drive sales through social interactions, influencer collaborations, and user-generated content.
Another disadvantage of eCommerce vs. offline stores is that people cannot try or experience products before purchasing them. Virtual reality (VR) technology solves that issue by creating 3D artificial environments that users can explore and interact with. With VR technology, customers can virtually try out products, arrange furniture in their homes, and more.
The British shirt manufacturer Thomas Pink launched Fits.me, a VR online sales platform. By entering their body size, clients may use the VR platform to see how well the shirt fits them. Thomas Pink observed that the program led to an increase in sales.
The entire supply chain processes, from delivery to warehouses, can be managed using supply chain visibility tools. These systems automate the issuance of invoices and track inventory.
While automating supply chain operations, supply chain visibility software also helps to produce reports that can aid decision-making process. They generate financial reports and some supply chain management systems have ability to calculate corporate and product carbon footprint of the companies.
As a result, you may identify your present carbon emissions pain points and take steps to strengthen your environmental, social, and governance (ESG) posture and ultimately, you can increase your sales.
For instance, a PwC survey revealed that more than 75% of consumers think about firms’ ESG policies before making purchases (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Shoppers that concern ESG practices of businesses. 9
Sustainability solutions for eCommerce are designed to reduce the environmental impact of online retail operations.
These solutions aim to address issues such as carbon emissions, waste production, and resource depletion, while promoting eco-friendly practices throughout the supply chain.
Sustainability solutions for eCommerce companies include eco-friendly packaging, carbon neutral shipping, waste reduction initiatives, product take-back programs, and sustainable logistics such as electric and hybrid delivery vehicles.
Amazon has made significant improvements in sustainable packaging by reducing single-use plastics by 11.6% in 2022 and implementing paper-based and flexible packaging solutions.
The company has also expanded its electric delivery vehicle fleet and aims to power its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, as part of its commitment to reaching net-zero carbon by 2040.
These efforts have reduced material waste and carbon emissions and supported Amazon’s environmental efforts and customer engagement. 10
Warehouse automation provides following benefits:
eCommerce technology enables automation of warehouses with the following technologies:
Web scraping is the process of extracting data from websites using a scraping bot or web scraping API. The technique can be advantageous for eCommerce businesses since these companies produce:
Leveraging web scraping initiatives can be beneficial for companies since they:
Bright Data’s Data Collector scrapes public data from targeted websites (see Figure 3). It allows companies to choose scraping frequency, such as real-time or scheduled. Scraped data is delivered in the desired format.
Bright Data provides datasets that do not require any programming or technical expertise for those who would rather skip data scraping and obtain the data directly (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: Bright Data eCommerce services.
If you need more information regarding web scraping on eCommerce, check out Web Scraping in e-Commerce.
In highly competitive marketplaces, immediately changing pricing to match those employed by rivals can also significantly impact conversion rates and it helps you pounce on the small margins.
With the use of dynamic pricing tools, you can instantly evaluate your prices by comparing to those of your competitors’, as well as your stock levels and delivery policies.
With this knowledge, it is feasible to manually adjust the sales figures or, more frequently, set up the virtual store so that prices are adjusted based on changes in the competition. These strategies help your eCommerce company to remain in competition.
eCommerce technologies and data collected regarding customers is not only optimizing online sales experience but also in-store retail experience. Check-out free systems allow customers to make in-store purchases without queuing by utilizing following technologies:
Amazon Go is a network of stores created by Amazon that operate without traditional cash registers. The stores utilize sensors, cameras, and AI technology to monitor what customers pick up, automatically charging their Amazon account as they exit. This system helps eliminating the need for checkout lines and enables a easier shopping experience. 11
The video below demonstrates how Amazon Go (check-out free system of Amazon) works.
Amazon Go check-out free systemCryptocurrency payments involve the use of digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others, to make transactions. These payments leverage blockchain technology to provide a secure, decentralized, and often faster method of transferring value compared to traditional fiat currency systems.
Typically, cryptocurrency transactions have lower fees compared to traditional payment methods, especially for international transactions.
Since all transactions are recorded publicly (blockchain), cryptocurrency payments ensure transparency and traceability.
An “e-wallet,” or a digital wallet, is connected to a person’s bank account and utilized for online purchases on a computer or a smartphone.
The two major components of an e-wallet are software and data information:
E-wallets have three main benefits:
For more on successful pricing:
If you need more information regarding AI use cases in eCommerce, check out AI applications & use cases in eCommerce and the guide into digital shelf analytics.
Check out conversational commerce platforms benchmarking to find a suitable vendor you can cooperate with.
