Voice-enabled retail technologies—powered by interfaces such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google’s Assistant and found on smart devices such as TVs, phones, tablets, speakers, and cars— are completely transforming the e-commerce landscape.
At the center of this evolutionary leap forward in online sales technology is the rise of smart speakers. All voice-enabled retail technologies are made possible thanks to the ability of smart speakers to interpret questions and commands that consumers speak out loud.
This has allowed for the development of highly interactive voice-powered retail opportunities that would not have been possible even just a few short years ago. These technologies are improving all the time, creating immense opportunities for e-commerce brands to cultivate new user bases by capitalizing on these new and previously untapped sales channels.
In this article, learn more about how voice-powered retail technologies are transforming the world of e-commerce and creating potent new sales avenues for the world’s most successful online retailers.
We Can Hear You Clearly Now: The Rise of Smart Speakers
In 2020, the global smart speaker market was worth $134.5 million, though by the end of 2021 is expected to grow to $152.5 million. By 2023, smart speaker penetration rates are likely to have tripled, and there are expected to be more than 8 billion smart speaker-powered devices in operation worldwide.
As soon as 2025, smart speakers are expected to become the number one consumer product globally, and global sales revenues are projected to exceed $35.5 billion. By that time, voice-powered retail technologies will be a ubiquitous part of daily life, and consumers around the world will be fully acclimated to using voice assistants to complete complex sales-focused tasks.
Smart speakers are being used to complete an ever-growing number of voice-command powered shopping activities:
- 44.4% of users use voice technology to browse for new products
- 34.1% of users use voice technology to search for products they already use
- 30.3% of users use voice technology to create shopping lists
- 28.2% of users use voice technology to search for customer reviews
Voice Technology is the Future of Online Business
It’s taken a few years for these technologies to find a place in the hearts and minds of consumers. Still, as the research continues to demonstrate, once customers make the shift to voice, they are unlikely to ever live without the utility and functionality of these platforms at the center of their lives ever again.
Voice-powered retail technology is here, getting more intuitive every day, and customers are becoming more and more comfortable with it all the time. Global online sales revenues are projected to top $4.89 trillion in 2021 though are targeted to exceed $6.38 trillion by 2024.
Interestingly, customers who complete sales using voice-powered retail technologies spend $136 more than customers who do not. As these technologies continue to gain traction in people’s lives, it is easy to understand why voice-powered retail technologies are driving the next giant leap forward in e-commerce.
Voice Shopping Creates a More Engaging Online Retail Experience
Voice-enabled retail holds immense potential for creating highly specialized interactive shopping experiences that completely transform what online shopping can be for your customers. Consumers worldwide gravitate towards online shopping because they appreciate the immense convenience, speed, and utility this sales channel offers compared to traditional physical shopping opportunities.
People love that they can access online shops wherever it is convenient. They do not have to pay for parking, battle traffic, or worry about if public health concerns will make it impossible for shopping to occur, as was recently the case during global lockdowns for the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the world of online business, improving engagement in the single digits can lead to astronomical sales improvements. According to Gartner, implementing a voice-powered retail experience on your e-commerce site is enough to grow your business by 30%.
Imagine what your online brand could achieve simply by rolling out a new innovative sales channel that people all around the world are already using and are expected to use much more across the coming decades. It’s time to stop waiting and take action to capitalize on the evolutionary leap taking place across the e-commerce landscape.
It’s time to develop the perfect voice-powered retail interface for your customers.
