Should E-Commerce Businesses Utilize ChatGPT This Quarter? [Updated 2024]

If you follow any marketing, customer service or small business advice, you’ve probably heard the current buzz about ChatGPT. The chatbot is making waves for its artificial intelligence (AI) based methods that seem to be some of the smartest thus far. However, what are the applications of the new program when it comes to e-commerce businesses and how they should implement the software this quarter?

Can I Use ChatGPT for My Business?

According to the United States Small Business Administration, approximately 33.3 million small businesses exist in the country. Although not all are e-commerce stores, you are still competing for customer attention from the ones in the same industry as you. People are often distracted by marketing ploys from brands that might not even be direct competitors, too. 

Anything you can do to streamline the customer experience (CX) helps give you a positive brand image. ChatGPT takes over some tasks so you have more time for the creative side of running your company. Here are the ways you can use ChatGPT to improve your e-commerce business this quarter. 

1. Automated Customer Service

Automate repetitive tasks so you have more time to build your business. For example, if you find yourself answering the same questions repeatedly, you can program them into the chatbot and let it interact with people in natural language. As AI interacts with customers, it also learns better ways to respond. 

Customers could use ChatGPT to go through a set of instructions for installing, building or figuring out how to use a new product or service. Your customer service will become more streamlined for users. You’ll have fewer wasted moments trying to figure out the right answer. Plus, your responses will be more consistent.

Consistency across channels can build trust. Around 59% of customers prefer to buy from brands they have faith in.

2. Amplify Creativity

ChatGPT and software like it isn’t meant to replace human efforts but to come alongside and free people up to focus more on the creative side of their work. ChatGPT is bound by rules set out by around 10% of the internet. Big concepts sometimes come out a bit skewed and need the human touch to make sense.

Creative types must learn how to best use AI to improve their productivity and tap into the unique mental faculties only humans have. The program is excellent at scouring existing information and spitting out some details. What it isn’t as good at is generating fresh ideas not yet thought of. Humans, however, are more than able to come up with new concepts. 

3. Conduct Research Faster

One of the biggest benefits of using this software for your e-commerce business comes in the marketing strategies you employ. You can use it to conduct faster research and learn more about your target audience. You can pull information from public databases to see how your demographic behaves under various scenarios.

Your marketing campaigns will become much more intuitive and your buyer personas more specific. You can run several queries to see what kind of content and promotional ideas the program generates, pulling from each one to find the perfect mix. Since ChatGPT and similar bots pull from existing data, you can also use the lists to see what hasn’t been done and come up with something unique. 

4. Optimize Content

Use ChatGPT to figure out the best keywords for your content. Improve results such as better audience targeting and segmentation. ChatGPT could also give you some related secondary keywords. 

The program can analyze search trends across different search platforms and find the most commonly used phrases. Knowing the popular keywords allows you to figure out user intent and create content aimed at answering people’s most likely questions. 

As always with generative AI, do your own research to be sure the results are accurate. AI isn’t infallible. Use it as a tool but always verify details to prevent false responses. 

5. Generate New Ideas

E-commerce stores should utilize AI chatbots to come up with lists of new ideas. One example might be a T-shirt retailer. The machine can look at all the options out there and spit out some ideas about which ones are most popular. 

The system will even offer a list of topics for consideration. However, humans must come in and generate something completely new. You can use the lists to find a twist on an old idea or brainstorm expanded concepts. 

ChatGPT Is a Tool

Don’t think of ChatGPT as taking over the work of any of your employees but as a tool to make them more productive and ensure you don’t miss any steps. Just as a calendar ensures you don’t miss important meetings and social media allows you to engage users, this program helps come up with fresh ideas, engage customers and refine your processes. The uses for it seem limitless.