AI Can Help Boost Holiday Shopping, Cut Fraud, Says Analytics Firm

Retailers are under “enormous pressure” to deliver a seamless shopping experience this holiday season amid widespread concerns of supply chain disruptions affecting inventory, said a Tuesday report from business analytics firm Anodot. About 85% of 106 retailer survey respondents last month expected a year-on-year sales bump for holiday shopping, but 42% worried that supply chain disruptions would negatively affect product inventory and on-time delivery. A mid-September consumer survey of 1,057 U.S.-based respondents said a negative experience with an online retailer is somewhat, very or completely likely to turn them away from a merchant, and most likely to Amazon, it said. “Supply chain disruptions have caused inventory issues that have shoppers nervous and retailers feeling unprepared,” said Anodot CEO David Drai, saying AI can help prevent customer experience and supply chain problems. AI has improved the online shopping for dealers using AI for fraud detection (81%), customer retention (55%), targeted campaigns (22%), dynamic pricing (20%), server monitoring (19%) marketing automation (19%) and identifying sales trends in different geographies (18%), said the report. Among priorities for consumers when shopping: easy-to-use websites (53%), in-stock inventory (50%), competitive pricing (57%) and a fast checkout and payment process (46%).