AI tools and eCommerce/digital best practices are a powerful duo when it comes to creating exceptional online experiences. Despite the recent surge in AI popularity, the fusion of AI tools with online retail best practices has a longstanding history and research confirms the need for these two digital disciplines to work in harmony together.
And when they do, eCommerce conversion rate performances reach new heights.
However, this does not stop the business community from asking the following question...
If we are focused on leveraging AI tools to produce online engagement, why do we need eCommerce/Digital best practices as a method to create intuitive user experiences in online retail and B2B?
To understand the value and importance of how and why AI tools and best practices must work together, there needs to be a better understanding of the types of effort people endure when engaging online and the length of typical consumer digital journeys: they are getting longer.
Understanding a Consumer's Physical and Mental Effort:
When people have a need or a want that needs to be fulfilled, they embark on a journey that comprises many phases. An example of typical phases are listed here...
- From awareness or need identification (I have a need to be fulfilled)
- To information gathering
- To consideration
- To selection
- To purchase
- To post-purchase
Three things to know about the above phases...
- Every phase comprises multiple micro-steps.
- Every micro-step requires physical effort (a click, a swipe, a scroll)
- Every decision a consumer needs to make to get closer to meeting a need is mental effort.
This combination of mental and physical effort is known as "Interaction Cost", which is the total cost of effort a consumer must undertake to complete an online purchase.
A retailer can never eliminate interaction cost, but with AI and best practices, it can be dramatically reduced.
Research proves consumers are exerting more effort now than ever before.
Consumer Journeys are longer = effort is higher:
2025 research proves that consumers are now undertaking a higher volume of digital micro-steps and making decisions than ever before. The average number of micro-steps in a typical consumer journey is 28, which is a mix of physical and mental effort.
Interaction costs remain high, and continue to get higher!
Why are journeys and interaction costs growing?
Below is a quick summary of the top four reasons why journeys are getting longer...
1. Increase in information available. People have more content available to consider during the information gathering and consideration phases.
2. Higher customer expectations. Consumers expect more relevant offers, which requires more discovery during selection phases.
3. FOMO. The fear of missing out causes people to worry about missing a deal or overspending on a product or service. This makes their research process longer and more involved.
4. Greater product variety and product options. If you visit ASOS right now and browse the Women's Jeans category, you will be presented with thousands of products to sift through. Imagine the effort needed to find a relevant pair of jeans on this site on a mobile device!
Now that there is an appreciation for the consumer and what he/she face, it's time to understand AI tools and eCommerce/digital best practices.
Defining "AI Tools":
AI tools used to enrich online buying experiences are technologies designed to personalise experiences by leveraging machine learning, generative AI, natural language processing, and data integration. These systems produce personalisation via sophisticated logic and dynamic thinking to deliver a high standard of relevance.
This relevance is presented in the form of information that assists consumers in making informed decisions, moving them closer to making a purchase.
Defining "eCommerce/Digital Best Practices":
There are behavioural psychological sciences that are proven to reduce interaction costs. And these sciences have morphed into eCommerce/digital best practices.
These best practices are a culmination of decades of eCommerce/digital behavioural data, which verify the reduction of interaction costs if applied in the right way.
AI Tools and eCommerce/Digital Best Practices Working Together:
eCommerce/digital best practices increase conversion rates regardless of AI adoption and it plays a pivotal role in reducing interaction costs that AI tools cannot fully overcome.
Leveraging best practices as the framework for customer journeys is a prerequisite for deciding where AI tools should be embedded to personalise and automate micro-experiences within an overall journey.
Success is the symbiosis of AI tools and best practices.
There are three ways AI tools and best practices work together to complement each other.
#1. AI Tools Can Own Critical Micro-steps:
AI tools can add value in multiple steps throughout a journey; however, it's the eCommerce/digital best practices that elegantly stitch these AI interactions together.
Examples of how AI can be embedded into an online retail experience:
1. Stimulate or create new needs: Personalised notifications help the consumer realise a new need or desire for a product.
2. Direct AI Engagement: AI assistants, chatbots, and recommendation engines guide users through researching/information gathering, supplying relevant answers, displaying pros and cons, and even summarising reviews automatically.
3. Site Search in Site: AI-powered site search systems produce highly relevant product and/or category suggestions and recommendations based on search queries. This ability to instantly refine product and category selections is a known method of engagement success.
4. Evaluation of alternatives: AI-driven curation can produce product comparison tables and/or highly relevant alternative product options that prompt online buying.
#2. AI tools perform better on best practice foundations:
AI impacts are magnified when built on a best practice foundation, as they enhance simplified and intuitive journeys rather than trying to repair or compensate for clunky ones.
Research shows that AI performs best when deployed on already optimised journeys. This is because the consumer’s intent becomes cleaner and more precise, which can amplify the quality of relevance that comes from AI tools.
#3. Best Practices leverage Heuristics to empower the consumer's subconscious mind - Heuristics can be powered by AI:
Forbes cited research that proves...
90% to 95% of decision-making which leads to online purchasing behaviours, takes place in the subconscious mind
The activation of the subconscious mind is a natural survival instinct that has been embedded in the human brain for thousands of years. An average day requires 35k decisions to be made. The subconscious mind is designed to minimise the effort and energy needed to survive and get you through the day.
This principle also applies when people engage online.
If digital journeys can remain seamless, intuitive, and frictionless, the subconscious mind remains in control. And because journeys are becoming longer and more complex, the ability to empower the subconscious mind is now more challenging than ever before! But if it can be achieved, it means more online buying for businesses.
This scientific principle, which empowers the subconscious mind to reduce interaction costs, is the foundation of strategic UX Design planning.
Heuristics:
Google has released research proving that one of the most potent methods to empower the subconscious mind is through the use of heuristics, cognitive decision-making shortcuts, to simplify decision-making throughout a journey.
While heuristics were developed in the 1970s, a new layer of cognitive shortcut application can be facilitated via AI tools. But this must work "hand in glove" with best practices. Two examples of this...
1. The "Familiarity Heuristic" is where the subconscious mind favours options that are familiar or known to a person, vs unfamiliar ones. Best practices can leverage this by producing familiar buying journeys.
2. The "Social Proof Heuristic" is where people trust the opinion of others when considering a product. AI can be used to present relevant customer reviews at critical stages of a journey.
Example - AI and Best Practice Working Together:
AI-powered product recommendations can reduce decision fatigue and encourage purchases; however, the power and influence of these recommendations are amplified when they are...
- Set in perfectly structured product listing pages and product detail page layouts
- Alongside the perfect positioning of customer review content
- Near clearly labelled calls-to-action
- Alongside the proper presentation of "In stock" assurances
All the above are known best practices.
Conclusion:
It's common to think AI tools and eCommerce/digital best practices do not play well together. And it's also common for retailers and B2B's to spend less effort in getting best practices right because they think AI is going to solve all problems.
This weaving together of these two disciplines is no longer a luxury; it is now the norm for any business wanting to drive its eCommerce channel to new levels of success.
The first step is to engage with an AI eCommerce Consultant who can collaborate with you to strategically assess your position and safely weave AI tools alongside eCommerce best practices.
This article was as tagged as AI eCommerce , Best Practice , Digital Strategy , eCommerce Consulting , UX Design