eCommerce Expo 2024 review: Embracing artificial intelligence in post-purchase and the four Cs

“A revolution is coming and it’s called AI,” said Benjamin Lang, Head of Northern Europe, Partnerships, Shopify, at eCommerce Expo 2024, held on 18th September at London’s ExCel venue.

A fellow panellist in the Post-Purchase: Optimising the Delivery Experience conference stream was Stacey van den Aardweg, Director, UK Fulfilment at Amazon, who discussed the four Cs – of Consumers, Cost, Complementary technology, and Cyber security – as essential elements in delivering an effective post-purchasing service.

“I support sellers at Amazon, ensuring they get fast delivery, help with pricing, marketing and so on,” explained van den Aardweg, adding that she also runs a team that helps UK sellers export into Europe and globally.

“Amazon has invested a lot of time in setting up partnerships with UPS and others to aid cross-border delivery services and in education about how best to navigate Brexit paperwork, customs, tax and so on.”

Complementary technology

Complementary tech, of the aforementioned four Cs, can help sellers navigate the messy export waters.

AI is capable of suggesting answers, and indeed pre-populating forms from an e-commerce provider’s user profiles into templates. SMEs can then check them prior to submitting export documentation. 

According to Shopify’s Lang, AI will play an important role. But it needs to be properly integrated into systems to be effective and safe and aligned with complementary technology.

“A unified commerce approach that spans to all of a retailers’ channels - whether that is B2C, B2B, DTC or whatever - is still needed,” he said, during the panel debate in London. “AI that connects to all channels and into all systems will be much more powerful than that without.”  

Otherwise, it’s merely a case of garbage in, garbage out if data mastery, integration and control systems aren’t properly established in the first place to support AI before it is deployed.  

Consumers

“What matters is offering choice to consumers,” said van den Aardweg, as the panellists examined this element of the four Cs. She advised retailers using Amazon’s platform to “train your AI to make it relevant for your brand”.  

Amazon has a range of AI tools designed to help the consumers, in this case their users and ultimately their end clients.

“We are very excited for example about the Rufus conversational shopping experience tool that has just launched in the UK,” said van den Aardweg.

“It can help customers explore their options on a granular level, so if you want to buy a new pair of trainers it can look at off-road options, running shoes or whatever your particular interest is. Rufus and its personalisation abilities will get more powerful as it learns.”   

There is also a new Amazon tool to enhance customer profile data and the Eye Gaze AI powered tool can aid accessibility. “Specifically, it’s targeted at those with speech impediments. It can track eye movements instead.”

“Simplification is the key thing we want in all our tools,” added van den Aardweg, while explaining that Amazon has been using AI for a long time now anyway in its back-end to optimise logistics and so forth.

Coming to the consumer-facing front-end – and not just in chatbot form – is just another application.   

Cost

The conference session moderator at eCommerce Expo 2024 was Grace Thompson, UK Public Affairs Lead at the Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade.

She works with government and others to encourage UK exporting and arranged for Amazon and Shopify to discuss their efforts in this area at the trade show.

“One of the top barriers to growing businesses online and abroad is the cost of technology,” said Thompson, while pointing to a survey the Institute has recently carried out that showed 37% of the 525 SMEs polled believed tech cost to be a barrier.

“However, AI should have a positive impact on this soon.”

AI can drive down costs, as well as improve personalisation, logistics and so forth. it does need to be properly aligned, as cautioned earlier on in the panel. But if people, process and technology are aligned well then the power of AI will be amplified and much safer in its deployment.

“AI will accelerate the technological transformation we are already seeing in the industry, for sure,” said Shopify’s Lang. “Our job is to give entrepreneur’s the right tools – whether that is machine learning, generative AI or whatever. The technology can also of course help Shopify itself become more efficient.”

Amazon has 100,000 SMEs selling on its platform, 15% of them exporting from the UK. “Our job is to improve that figure,” said van den Aardweg, citing a new tool called Export Central they launched last week that allows sellers to export to 39 countries in Europe with just three clicks.

“If you’re VAT registered it can pull relevant data from your profile.” 

For Lang TCO is the key thing. “Total cost of ownership has become way more important as the micro economy [of small sellers –Ed.] has expanded. Low TCO and high conversion rates will be two key elements in any successful business of the future,” he said.

“The next decade is going to be so fast-paced and tech heavy that you will need a partner,” he added. Naturally, Shopify and Amazon presented themselves as that partner at the trade show but many others are available as well. The competitive space in the post-purchase arena is only hotting up. 

Cybersecurity      

The fourth and final C debated during the eCommerce Expo panel was cybersecurity, which of course underpins all of the previous points made because if you don’t have safe and secure technology, then you don’t have anything.

“Don’t’ underestimate the adverse impact of a hack or breach. You could be offline for days or weeks,” said Thompson, adding that she advises everyone to visit the UK National Cyber Security Centre and other such bodies to learn more about what preventive measures that can be taken. 

The session finished with Amazon and Shopify respectively adding a fifth and six C to the mix that attendees at eCommerce Expo 2024 should consider - namely, Compliance, which can add cost and complexity, and the Collective, which essentially means work with partners to achieve success.  

2024 RTIH INNOVATION AWARDS

AI is a key focus area for the sixth edition of the RTIH Innovation Awards, which is now open for entries.

The awards, sponsored by CADS, 3D Cloud, Retail Technology Show 2025, and Business France, celebrate global tech innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

It’s free to enter and you can do so across multiple categories.

Key 2024 dates

Friday, 25th October: Award entry deadline 

Tuesday, 29th October: 2024 shortlist revealed

30th October-6th November: Judging days

Thursday, 21st November: Winners announced at the 2024 RTIH Innovation Awards ceremony, to be held at RIBA’s 66 Portland Place HQ in Central London.