A global study from the IBM Institute for Business Value reveals a widening gap between shopper demands and the current retail offerings and a growing interest in AI shopping.
The study named “Revolutionize retail with AI everywhere: Customers won't wait,” found three key issues for retailers when it came to shopping. First, despite a preference for physical stores by 73% of those surveyed, only 9% are satisfied with the in-store experience. Consumers surveyed want a greater variety of products available (37%), more information about products (26%), and faster checkout (26%) in stores.
Most consumers surveyed (65%) are supplementing their in-store experience by using mobile apps while shopping -- demonstrating a trend toward a digitally integrated in-store experience.
Online retail also was not immune to criticism. Two-thirds of consumers surveyed discover new products via the web, but they expressed dissatisfaction with their online shopping experience. Challenges finding the products they want (36%), not enough information about products (33%), and a cumbersome return process (33%) were their key issues.
One interesting finding was about consumers and AI technology. Consumers surveyed showed a strong interest in using AI technology to enhance various aspects of their shopping. Most consumers (59%) said they would like to use AI applications as they shop and 4 in 5 consumers who have not used the technology reported an interest in trying it.
As of now, consumers seem underwhelmed by AI as the report showed less consumer satisfaction in using current AI assistants. Only about one-third of the respondents who used a virtual assistant were satisfied with the experience. Nearly 20 percent were so disappointed that they didn't want to use AI virtual assistants again.
Despite this, IBM believes AI technology is still in its infancy and investment by retailers into improving the system could provide great benefits.
“Leveraging advances in AI technologies, retailers can forge ahead into a new era of commerce and fulfilment, leading with innovation to create shopping experiences that are intuitive, unified, personalized and efficient," Luq Niazi, the Global Managing Director at IBM said about the findings.