For many e-commerce store owners, the move to an AI based approach to merchandising is something of a leap of faith.
That AI can remove the heavy lifting of online merchandising by carrying out millions of calculations and make decisions in near real time whilst constantly learning is a big claim.
What’s needed is evidence that letting go of manual intervention and allowing the computer to ‘get on with it’ is going to make the customer journey smoother and increase conversion and sales. And the evidence is in...
The challenge
But first the method: In an A/B test conducted by leading Nordic beauty retailer Kicks, a home page was manually produced by merchandisers using their experience and knowledge. This page was pitched against an automated page completely delivered by Elevate using AI and machine learning.
The solution
The results are that the automated version received an eight times higher click-through rate than the manual version, eight times more add to baskets and where the manual version generated one sale transaction, the automated version succeeded in generating 101 sales transactions. Wow! According to Jenny Vesterlund at Kicks:
It was not long before the results unambiguously spoke for the Elevate version, we saw a strong increase in all indicators; click through rate, percentage added to the shopping cart, number of purchases, conversion rate and average order value.
After a few days Kicks decided to completely abandon the manual approach and hand sales generation over to Elevate. “We’re looking forward to doing even more testing and use of automation in the future, especially now that we’ve seen how well it can work,” concludes Jenny.
So there you have it, AI in online merchandising really can make a difference compared to a manual approach, and a quite amazing difference too. No need to take a leap of faith, just a step in the right direction.
The Results: Automated version vs Manual version
8
times higher click-through rate
8
times more add to baskets
1
This is the number of sales transactions made on the manual version compared to...
101
...which is the number of completed sales transactions on the automated version!
The results unambiguously spoke for the Elevate version, with a strong increase in all indicators; click through rate, percentage added to the shopping cart, number of purchases, conversion rate and average order value. - Jenny Vesterlund
