In today’s retail landscape, convenience is a top priority for consumers. Subscription services automate regular buying decisions, while BOPIS and curbside pickup help customers save time on shopping trips. AI shopping agents help make product suggestions, and new platforms like TikTok Shop further tie social influence into the shopping experience. Each innovation in the way we shop is designed to remove friction in the customer journey.
Voice-assisted shopping is another new innovation changing buying habits, removing the need for screens or physical shopping altogether. With smart speakers like Amazon’s “Alexa” shoppers can simply speak their requests, ask clarifying questions, and even finalize purchases without lifting a finger. This year, total revenue from voice-assisted purchases is expected to reach $164 billion.
How Voice-Assisted Shopping Works
Using a “wake” word, customers can activate their mobile device or smart speaker to start the conversation. They can then begin asking for recommendations about certain products or categories. The voice assistant can ask follow-up questions in order to understand exactly what the customer is looking for and add the items to a virtual cart. Finally, the assistant will confirm details such as the delivery address and payment method, so it can finalize the purchase without any physical interaction whatsoever.
The Benefits of Implementing Voice Tech into Your Store
Removing Friction and Improving the Customer Experience
For customers who prioritize convenience, removing some of the steps that customers usually encounter when they shop gets them one step closer to converting. Most consumers already have a device that’s capable of voice-assisted shopping that they carry around with them everywhere they go, so this technology could allow them to shop wherever they are, no matter what they’re doing.
Brand Recognition
If you adopt a brand-specific “wake” word, customers will have to speak your brand out loud every time they shop using voice-assisted technology. This will strengthen your brand awareness and keep your brand identity top of mind for those customers. It can also strengthen your SEO strategy if you incorporate common phrases shoppers use when shopping with voice-assistance on your eCommerce site.
Accessibility
For many consumers, voice-assisted shopping could help to make finding products and finalizing purchases even easier. This technology is especially beneficial for shoppers who have certain disabilities that make using their devices more strenuous.
The Challenges
Cost
Implementing voice assisted technology will require a custom integration that you will ultimately have to pay for to integrate it into your eCommerce site. For smaller businesses that want to improve the customer experience but don’t have the budget for this technology, it may not be a good choice just yet, but growing retailers could benefit from the long-term results of making the shopping experience more efficient and seamless.
Security
Data privacy concerns continue to manifest as our personal data becomes an even more valuable asset as time goes on. As restrictions on data collection become tighter, that leaves data-driven marketers and retailers wondering how to connect with customers and improve the customer experience. Your unique voice is like a fingerprint, and customers may hesitate to speak their sensitive information into their devices if they don’t know for sure that they can trust what’s happening on the other end.
Complex Technology
If you have a large team of developers with lots of experience tackling more advanced integrations, you may be able to manage the challenge of integrating this technology on your own, but voice assisted technology requires natural language processing and voice recognition capabilities. For smaller retailers, it may be difficult and expensive to build an app that connects voice-assisted devices to your eCommerce store’s backend without the help of a third-party or agency.
How to Get Started
You will have to connect voice-assisted devices to your eCommerce platforms back-end using your platforms’ API to allow customers to access your site through voice-assisted technology. If your team is lacking experience with this type of integration, you may be looking for help. Luckily, our single-source commerce platform marketAgility 7.0 was designed with composability in mind.
marketAgility is an eCommerce platform built for scalability and performance. Even if voice-assisted shopping isn’t your focus right now, growing retailers will ultimately evolve and their needs will become more complex as a result. Many small retailers focus on getting to launch as quickly as possible, but our platform is designed for sustained revenue growth.
