DEV Community: AnnaGreenice

6 Ways to Improve eCommerce Services with Machine Learning

AnnaGreenice — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 10:00:33 +0000

eCommerce is a highly competitive area and to win customer loyalty, platforms should constantly enhance the user experience and increase customers' satisfaction.

Contemporary buyers value speed of the service, personalized recommendations, comfortable and effective search, quick and safe payments, excellent customer support, among others.

However, it becomes more and more difficult to satisfy all these needs as the volumes of data are growing.

Here are the areas where using Machine Learning for eCommerce websites can improve the customer experience and boost sales.

1. Better recommendations. Now is the era of personalization 2.0 or hyper-personalization. Unlike simple personalization based on preferences in the customer account, hyper-personalization means more advanced recommendations that take into account location, reviews, seasoning, weather, purchase history, and many other factors related to the product. ML allows analyzing and segmenting the data by each customer group and showing them hyper-personalized messages and promotions to hit precisely their interests.

2. Smart search. Large marketplaces experience difficulties with inaccurate goods descriptions and large amounts of similar goods. So customers simply cannot find exactly what they need.

To improve the situation, ML can help sellers of marketplaces by suggesting the descriptions and categories for their products based on historical data.

Another good application of artificial intelligence visual search. Users can upload a picture or photo of the product they want, and the system searches for the similarities in the database.

3. Real-time price optimization. AI algorithms are able to predict the time of peaks or drops of purchase activity and slightly change the prices to spur up the buyers’ interest with discounts.

4. Optimized inventory. ML allows you to keep under control all the products in stock. For example, the system is able to forecast the periods of increased purchase activity (like winter holidays) to calculate the number of goods necessary to have in stock in advance to satisfy the demand when the time comes.

5. Fraud prevention. ML can effectively identify suspicious user behavior and prevent malicious actions like listing counterfeit goods, posting fake reviews, using stolen credit cards, copy-pasting listings, and many others. Ordinary rule-based programming algorithms are not able to discover complex and non-trivial scenarios, as well as ML, can.

6. Automating sales routine. Developing eCommerce website, create a web portal for sales managers. AI-driven CRM can automatically collect and categorize valuable information about buyers from emails, messages, and calls and add it to their profiles. Then, the system will be able to suggest to sales managers the further steps for interaction with customers.

All these and many other improvements to your eCommerce website or marketplace will lead to a visible increase in customer satisfaction and sales growth.

6 Technical Challenges in SaaS Development You Should Know

AnnaGreenice — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 16:04:06 +0000

Most of the businesses use SaaS applications in their daily work for emailing, customer management, coding, task scheduling, accounting, among others. It is expected that by 2022, SaaS apps will substitute for 80% of all apps used by companies.

No wonder that there is a boom of SaaS startups now. Unlike custom web apps built specifically for the needs of one company, SaaS is created for many different organizations. The development of SaaS applications has its peculiarities and challenges that you should consider before starting the development. Let’s revise some of them!

1. Multi-Tenancy

The notion of multi-tenancy is important for SaaS creation as it allows to drastically cut the expenses for development. Before SaaS architecture was single-tenant, i.e. divided into separate instances and databases for different organizations (tenants). Today, developers use multi-tenant SaaS approaches in which each organization has separate databases but use one common application that can be easily updated.

2. Data Security

Modern SaaS uses cloud services like AWS for data storage as the most reliable and secure way. Each organization is authorized to access their data only even if the data of all SaaS users are stored on the same server.

3. Customization for Different Users

The SaaS concept implies that the app features should be equally valuable for different users or companies. But, in reality, everyone has their unique needs and SaaS should be flexible to fit as many users' needs as possible.

4. API Integration

A small organization uses on average 70 different apps, while large companies may use up to 200 apps. Without automatic data synchronization, it can be a nightmare. So, make sure that your SaaS provides an API for integration with third-party software and web portals.

5. Easy Updates

Luckily, the times when we needed to buy each new version of the software on a CD have gone. One of the advantages of today’s SaaS is that it can be easily updated online. It's cheap and easy for users.

6. Various Payment Methods

Giving users a selection of payment methods and a variety of tariffs makes them more eager to try the app. It's a good practice to give users a free trial period or propose to use a freemium way of payment.

Though there are many ways to build a SaaS application depending on each team's individual processes, the above-mentioned challenges are similar for all and should be well-thought-out in the requirements in advance.

The Best Features of a B2B Marketplace

AnnaGreenice — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 08:04:36 +0000

The number of B2B platforms is growing rapidly in recent years. Moreover, the value of the B2B marketplaces 6 times exceeds the value of B2C platforms. No wonder, as they process large volume deals.

And this is despite the fact that business-to-customer platforms are more famous (who doesn't know Amazon or Aliexpress?) and as a rule are more advanced in features and design.

Still, customers become more demanding and require a better user experience, same as they got used to at B2C marketplaces where deals are completed in one click.

In our article, we collected all the features that a modern B2B platform should have to exceed the customers' expectations and bring its owners profit. And here you can reach the ultimate guide on how to create an online marketplace of any type.