Voice Commerce: How will it impact the future of e-commerce

Hello, Alexa – “Please Switch on the AC”.

OK Google – “What is the Capital of America?”

Hey Siri – “Find the best hotel near me!”

You might be much familiar with the words Alexa, Siri, and OK Google. As of today more than 4.2 billion voice assistants worldwide. And around 36% of surfer use voice assistance for their search.

Nevertheless, people do not just surf using voice assistance; they are also purchasing.

In the year 2021, e-commerce value via voice commerce assistance has registered a new record of US dollar 5 billion. And estimated that the figure would go up four times in the next 2 years.

Hence the future of e-commerce is much more reliable on voice assistance. In fact, with the advancement of voice assistance technology, e-commerce businesses were not surviving; they were thriving during the disruptive period of covid-19.

What is voice-based e-commerce?

Just imagine – You are tired coming from your workplace, and you sit back, putting your legs up on your futon, making yourself comfortable, and you just get to know that you need to go out and get some food from a restaurant as there is no food available at your place.

So instead of going out to have food, you just pick up your phone and take the assistance of Siri and speak – “Hey Siri, find the best food restaurant near me.” Siri will deliver the list of restaurants near you, and you will order food online with just some clicks.

This is how voice-based e-commerce crops up – If the customer is willing to buy any product, for example, an I-phone. So, the customer needs to open an application for eCommerce traders taking Amazon as an example. The user needs to open the Amazon application in the search bar instead of writing iPhone; the user just needs to speak “iPhone.”

With the help of AI and machine learning technology, the Amazon application will automatically search for iPhones available on their application and provide the complete list of all iPhones you can choose the best of one and order it online. Hence, using such voice assistance technology to buy products is known as voice-based e-commerce.

In simple words –

Voice-based e-commerce is the adoption of an innovative way of purchasing or buying a product online using your voice instead of your fingertips to type. Voice-based e-commerce is popular among people because it’s a fast, reliable, and seamless process that makes users a friendly experience while using mobile e-commerce applications.

Fact, surprisingly the voice commerce market size is predicted to expand at CARG of 24.34% by USD 55.68 billion in the duration period of 2021 to 2026.

How does the future of voice commerce look?

The answer to this question is simple and meek – The future of voice commerce looks bright, high, and aloft.

Customers are turning towards innovative technology of voice commerce as it provides the experience that users deserve. Eventually, after the hit of Covid-19, the number of online shoppers is growing every day. Hence innovation in purchasing online is a must for e-commerce companies. And the introduction of voice assistance has turned the tide exceptionally.

The voice assistance technology in e-commerce not only attracts modern-age individuals but also grabs the attention of elderly entities.

According to the survey, voice assistance technology called Siri and Alexa is the most popular product among citizens of the US. Around 40% of individuals over the age of 55 use voice assistance technology, and 60% of users are between the ages of 18 to 24 years.

Consequently, the use of voice assistance is increasing significantly. The integration of voice assistance across e-commerce applications has made purchasing easy and quick. The users are experiencing seamless aid as they can easily reach their desired products and goods by just speaking a few words.

Moreover, AI and machine learning technology are so smart that they provide accurate search results even if the user has not used the right words or phrases to search for desired products.

Hence, with innovation and seamless customer experience, voice commerce’s future seems very bright and vivid.

However, voice commerce has some challenges and questions to answer yet. With voice assistance technology, the user can find their product. Still, with limited language assistance, many customers cannot reach their desired product, which may end up losing the customer forever.

Secondly, voice commerce technology is not yet so smart it can figure out the exact brand or company the user is searching for. There is a case where customers are searching for a local brand, but due to the high demand for a particular brand in the market, the user does not get the brand he is searching for. Voice commerce needs to get more intelligent and robust to win customers for life.

Furthermore, e-commerce brands need convincing technology partners and services from compelling enterprises like Microsoft Azure consulting services to make voice commerce more profound, stronger, and accurate. They offer a wide range of powerful tools for e-commerce that can aid voice commerce with significant development without expensive technology investments.

Fact – 85% of fortune 100 companies are using Microsoft Azure consulting services.

The Role of Voice Commerce in Customer Experience

It is famously said that people will forget what you have done to them, but they will never forget what you make them feel.

Today, every e-commerce brand with a litany of technology to become more ubiquitous and decentralized computing power in the world of e-commerce.

Every e-commerce brand makes comprehensive efforts to make its customers feel at home. E-commerce brands are developing technology and strategy that win customers for life by delivering customer experience and making them feel like users are purchasing products from their own stores.

And to make them feel like their own store, technologies have played a vital role in that case. Technology like voice assistance for e-commerce has changed how products are purchased online.

With the introduction of voice assistance in e-commerce, customers can reach their products accurately, quickly, and most importantly, seamlessly.

Customers do not need to type a long list of their desired products and goods; instead, the user just needs to speak about what they are looking for. Moreover, the advantage behind voice commerce is that customers can complete their tasks from anywhere, anytime, and in any situation.

For example, if a user is working on their laptop or if their fingertips are busy completing other tasks, then also the user can order the product online by just taking voice commerce technology assistance.

We all know how the world is moving with the speed of technology, and to move forward with it, every individual needs agile, fast, and intuitive technology like voice assistance.

It reacts faster, provides a wide range of choice, and, importantly, give power the customers to purchase products from anywhere, anytime.

Moreover, the role of voice commerce has not only enhanced customer experience but aid businesses by delivering business value at a speed never achieved before.

Voice commerce has transformed e-commerce buying and navigates the realities of digital selling. It opens the doorway to new online purchasing methods and improves resiliency, agility, and scale businesses.

Moreover, voice commerce has made decision-making easy and delivers actionable outputs that allow e-commerce the development more ubiquitous technologies and reach customers wherever they are.

Voice commerce statistics – As per the survey on average, 80% of customers have used voice assistance to purchase products online and are satisfied with their experience.

Different Ways Ecommerce Business Using Voice Commerce

You have everything you want, your individuals, your consumers, and your technique for modernization; bring it all together with voice commerce. There are many ways for an eCommerce business to use the capabilities of voice commerce technology to by making an accurate recipe for a successful dish.

Here’s how e-commerce businesses use voice commerce in different ways.

Streamline the Purchasing Process —The success ratio of your e-commerce business lies in how your purchase process works. The more you streamline your process, the more you get success.

Customers are in need to complete the transaction as soon as possible without doing much on the application. Hence e-commerce businesses are moving smartly with AI capabilities and making searches easy for their customers by predicting previous searches.

Hence customers do not need to speak more, and they do have to repeat the phrase again and again. With autocomplete features, the Customer reaches their destination quickly and seamlessly without speaking much.

Work on SEO Accurately —Optimizing how people will speak is the ingredient of your success. E-commerce businesses today are working intensely on SEO to increase their chance of people finding their business efficiently. Hence, eCommerce businesses today are using local languages to tag their product so that local people who use local languages to search for products can find the product quickly. Doing proper research and keeping local languages at the core can help e-commerce websites with more footsteps and increase productivity.

For example, red chili powder in India is known as laal Mirchi powder. Hence tagging the product with the local language, “laal Mirchi powder,” enhance footstep as it is spoken commonly by almost every individual to buy red chili powder.

Make your Customer Educate –This is one of the best ways that today’s e-commerce businesses are using to make their appearance more on the internet and other search sites.

The intention behind educating customers is to enhance Customer about products and services and aid them in achieving value faster and with better scale user experience.

Sometimes customers do not search with a particular product or brand name; instead, they search for the features and services the product delivers.

For example, customers ask Siri – Hey, Siri, buy orange flavor coke for me. Here Customer is unaware of the brand and product, but he knows that it is the product manufactured by the company that makes Coca-Cola. So instead of ordering Fanta, he asks for orange flavor coke.

Here Customer is well educated about the feature of the product but unaware of the brand name; hence making customers educate help them to search for products.

Test and Trail –Many organizations try to pronounce the word differently to make AI catch the accurate word properly. They try to make people speak about the product differently outside the organization, assuming they will probably say things differently.

Asking for help from outside the organization to speak in different ways is factual as different people will speak in different ways, languages, different jargon, without technical words, and in different voices.

Such practice makes AI smart and intelligent, and hence in case if the user speaks in different ways, it delivers the right result that the user desires.

Fact – 44% of voice assistance device owners use their device for shopping once a week and almost 20% search query begins from a set of 25 keywords.

Wrapping Up

So, the world is moving forward with space speed; all individuals, sectors, and industries must embark on innovative technology to stay ahead.

To thrive in such an unstable market environment, every e-commerce organization need robust technology tools, strategies, and data to keep the organization up with the constant need and requirement of customers.

Moreover, data is the most strategic asset of every organization. And shifting to the cloud is the safest way to align your e-commerce IT infrastructure, data, and reports.

No other cloud offers Microsoft Azure’s breadth or depth. Migrating to Azure enables cost and functioning competencies and helps your organization leverage these savings to accelerate your organizational innovation.

E-commerce businesses can thrive and drive their business smoothly with the assistance of Azure Cloud computing companies who aid e-commerce brands with inclusive services like Azure IaaS services, Microsoft Azure migration services, and power apps consulting services.

Microsoft Azure is the only cloud that supports all organizations and all workloads that aid e-commerce organizations with data management, organization, and storage.

Writer Bio:

Austin. H. Joy is an Enthusiastic Sr. IT Consultant at Bitscape is providing Power Apps Consulting Services. He loves to write and read about latest Microsoft tech trends. He likes to travel to natural places.