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The world is changing at a much faster pace than ever and especially in technology. Online marketing trends are changing every day, and keeping pace with them have become a challenge and necessity for all businesses. Among all the recent trends in the e-commerce industry, one trend that has topped the charts is the voice-based search. With Apple’s “Hey Siri!” and Google’s “Ok Google”, voice-based search has become one of the most popular trends of the present time. The users give inputs in the form of verbal commands instead of typing which are analysed by the technological advanced software. After the analysis of the command, relevant answers are shown to the users. Voice assistants are no more limited to just answering the basic queries of the people. They are now used for more complex tasks like helping people do their online shopping, leading to Voice Commerce. According to the reports by Statista, by the year 2023, 8 billion people will be using digital assistants, and purchases will be increased using voice assistants.
Let us take a look at some Voice Commerce Trends in the e-commerce industry for the year 2021:
1. Expansion in Reaching the Target Audience
Every brand/ company/ organisation keeps on coming up with new ways, campaigns etc., to reach out to the maximum target audience and increase their customer base. One of the proven ways to achieve this is by exploring new sales channels. With Voice search becoming popular rapidly, it is highly recommended to optimise the e-commerce stores with the voice-enabled search. With Siri, Alexa, and Ok Google, customers interact much more with the brands.
People are using these echo devices to find products online without even touching their smart devices’ screens. Millennials have already accepted these voice devices as a part of their life, and even the retired seniors are loving this technology. It is easier for people of every age group to just speak into their smart devices and find the products they want. People have happily accepted to speak to their smartphones and look for the things they are searching. So, integrating voice search technology with the e-commerce store is the best way to reach the target audience and increase sales.
2. AI-Enabled Improved Voice Search Results
The role of Artificial Intelligence in empowering and enhancing technology in every field is significant. AI has contributed significantly even in improving the voice search results for the e-commerce industry as well. Voice technology is a bit complicated technology when it comes to making sense of the query raised by the user.
Earlier, the engineers were using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Deep Neural Networks (DNN) to improve the voice search’s understanding capabilities. After trying several models to train neural networks, Google is now using the BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) model since its introduction in the year 2018 into its search algorithm. It allowed individuals to train state-of-the-art- answering systems. The BERT model works by analysing words (in a search query) and their relationship with all other search queries. This holistic approach helps the algorithm comprehend better and provide users with the most accurate and relevant results. Google’s speech recognition technology has a 95% accuracy rate when the spoken language is English.
3. Increased Competition in the Voice Commerce Space
Voice-enabled searches are becoming popular, but voice-enabled product searches provide users with limited options, unlike traditional search methods. And, due to these limited search results, there is tough competition among the brands to show their products in the top results. Therefore, the companies have to spend a lot of money and time optimising their e-commerce stores for voice-related search queries.
4. A Boon for Local Businesses
With the majority of people using voice search these days, the most common things that people search are the local businesses like grocery stores, medical shops, spa, restaurants, clinics etc. When put in the form of queries, these local searches give rise to high-ranked keywords or question phrases. Near Me, local, where, nearby are some of the common phrases that are used to do searches, while the most common actions used are book a table, make reservations, make appointments etc.
So, all the local businesses can take advantage of this technology by claiming their “Google My Business” (GMB) profile and ensuring that all the details like Name, Place, and Address information are accurate in all the business listings created across various sites. Therefore, it is imperative to optimise the e-commerce stores for voice search to increase sales.
Voice search is still a rising trend and one of the most popular emerging trends in the e-commerce industry. From mobile phones to smart speakers and devices, voice search technology has become the preferred option for the users to search for the products and connect with the brands. Keeping all these e-commerce trends and their prospects in the near future, it is safe and wise to say that optimising the e-commerce stores for voice search is the best way to outrun the competitors.
Sigma InfoSolutions’ expert team is up to date with the latest voice-enabled search technology to give that much-needed boost to increase the overall sales.
Contact Us today to discuss the growth strategy for your e-commerce store.
