Cyber Week: almost one in five euros spent was influenced by AI

The figures for Cyber Week 2023, based on the analysis of the purchase data of more than 1.5 billion buyers – captured and analyzed by Salesforce – show a 6% increase in global sales from one year to the next, reaching 273 billion euros.

The analysis of online sales has shown that the attractive discount rates have led to strong sales growth during the two biggest online shopping days of the year: Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Here are some of the most interesting trends:

1. Buyers have been strongly influenced by artificial intelligence (AI)

Personalized purchases, made possible by AI, have helped fuel online sales growth and profitability. Up to 47 billion euros of online sales have been influenced by AI in areas such as targeted offers, product recommendations and chat services powered by generative AI.

2. Merchants rely on automation to increase efficiency, scalability, and offer faster services to customers

Merchants relied on automation during some of the biggest online shopping days of the year. Chatbot messages during the cyber weekend increased by 79% year-on-year globally.

Customer service interactions by case volume increased by 7% during Cyber Week. Call volumes increased by 46% over the same period.

3. Shoppers are using mobile devices to make their purchases

A record was broken with 79% of the e-commerce traffic of the Cyber Week via mobile phones, against 76% in 2022. Consumers are both mobile and social. Social traffic on mobile accounts for 10% of all referrals to merchant websites, which makes social an important channel for customer acquisition.

4. Digital marketing channels are growing with higher levels of engagement

Email volumes increased by 9% year-on-year during Cyber Week. The emails recorded an open rate of 18%, a click-through rate of 0.7% and an unsubscribe rate of 0.02% during Cyber Week. Facebook Instagram Push/SMS/OTT increased by 37% year-on-year, including messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Business Messages and Instagram to help merchants connect and chat with their customers.

We can predict that future digital sales will be even more impacted by AI. The ACE, the evolution of the AI assistant, will mature in the near future in three phases:

• Phase I : Assistant — The AI assistant listens to what you want and provides it to you exactly.
  
• Phase II : Concierge — The AI concierge listens to your orders and provides you with what you want plus useful additional information.
  
• Phase III : Agent — The AI agent can do the same things as an assistant or a janitor, but he can also perform actions without being asked. Imagine this third phase as an executive assistant to whom you would have ceded control of your email, your calendar and your expenses.

AI-powered assistants and agents on consumers’ mobile devices will continue to have an increasing influence on shopping experiences. The use of generative AI on social networks will also create a community influence on the brands of merchants and buyers.

Source: “ZDNet.com “