Holotropic Approach in the era of Artificial Intelligence with special reference to online retail

marketing.
(The Mind of Market)

Harleen Kaur M.Premsankar

Research Scholar Assistant Professor
School Of Management Studies University School of Business
Punjabi University Chandigarh University
Patiala Mohali Punjab
E-Mail id: harleenkaur1315@gmail.com mpremindia@gmail.com
Contact Number: 9888891315 +91 8675950800
Abstract:

In uncertain extraordinary times, the technological mirror appears in front named as Artificial
Intelligence (AI). The Artificial Intelligence (AI) portraits to see ourselves in an unusual way that
exist between us and with the real world. Consumers use this digital technology as a guide to the
physical world, as it places the users in 360 degree direction of the digitally designed space. As
stated in Marketing Manager Magazine the consumers prefer 73% AI as search engine and 57%
as great travel guides.

Holotropic term refers to moving towards wholeness or moving towards the direction of
something in the way of improving customer engagement with online retail marketing. The
interface of man and machine concepts has been long before while the implementation of AI the
real world interface seems to be done not like a machine but like a real human interaction.

In online retail marketing the customer buys the product going with the description and with
reviews but using AI, the customer has real voice experience interacting with a human. The FAQ
questions or the decision making process or the promotion of the product can be interacted
easily.

Implementation of AI for online marketing gains the ability to integrate both the outbound and
inbound strategies. The AI activates the consumers subconsciously the product they wish to buy.

This research paper inputs the scope and implementation of future technology understanding the
human brain and using the knowledge in advertising and marketing, getting better results by
spending less money.

Keywords:Artificial Intelligence, Consumers,Retail, Customer Engagement, Implementation,

Interaction. Decision.
INTRODUCTION:
The advent of online retail happened in 1984 when a consumer purchased the CD of sting in
official online purchase from a US website. Nowadays many of physical products are replaced
by the online purchases. This has increasingly posed opportunities as well as challenges to the
companies that are in online retail. There is an increasing need to ensure consumer experiences
are more personalized and seamless. Artificial intelligence coined by John McCarthy, an
American computer scientist, in 1956 at The Dartmouth Conference where the discipline was
born. According to the recent Forrester report, Predictions 2017: Artificial Intelligence Will
Drive The Insights Revolution, AI will grow 300% in 2017, and “will steal $1.2 trillion per
annum from their less informed peers by 2020.” Numbers like these are behind the surge in
retailers betting big on AI

INDIAN RETAIL INDUSTRY

Increased Digitalization , rising incomes and

purchasing power along with lifestyle changes
by middle class is driving India’s retail market.
It is expected to rise to US$ 1.1 trillion by
2020, an increase of 60%.The growth in the
overall retail market is expected to be at 12 %
per annum .Indian retail market in segmented
in to organized and unorganized retail. SOURCE: Indian Brand Equity foundation,Feb 2018
The Organized Retail is valued at $60
billion which is only 9 per cent of the total sector and Unorganized Retail constitutes
the rest 91 per cent of the sector.
E-Commerce market in India is booming with Business to business (B2B) estimated to touch
US$ 700 billion by 2020. India’s total potential of Business to Consumer (B2C) is estimated to
be US$ 26 billion, according to a study by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and
Industry (FICCI) and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT).
Online retail is expected to be at par with the physical stores in the next five years and has grown
23 per cent to $17.8 billion in 2017.
India has replaced China as the most promising markets for retail expansion, supported by
expanding economy, coupled with booming consumption rates, urbanizing population and
growing middle class.
E-commerce is expanding steadily in the country. Customers have the ever increasing choice of
products at the lowest rates. E-commerce is probably creating the biggest revolution in the retail
industry, and this trend would continue in the years to come. Retailers should leverage the digital
retail channels (e-commerce), which would enable them to spend less money on real estate while
reaching out to more customers in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.
Both organized and unorganized retail companies have to work together to ensure better
prospects for the overall retail industry, while generating new benefits for their customers.
In case of retail the transformative trend of role of technology has expanded the understanding
of buyer attitudes and sentiments. There is rising preference for mobile and web and access to
online information has disrupted the dynamics of traditional retail. Amazon for example employs
data mining and analysis to make invaluable suggestions arising from company s
recommendations engines. This has skyrocketed the sales of Amazon on one hand but on the
other hand they have placed the challenge before the traditional retailers to employ their own
data to increase conversion rates and revenue. Consumer behavior is increasingly delved into by
the use of big data analytics, machine learning to offer choices that boost sales and profits.
Mobile, web, social media and advertising technology rae being employed to reach out to
consumer.
Internet of Things from RFID tages, smart hangers, smart Location sensing WIfi, mobile apps,
shelf beacons are leading to explosion of data. Innovative mobile technologies such as
personalized digital assistants, visual search, are some of the innovations that are driving the
digital revolution.
AI and deep learning are beinfg increasingly applied to managinf inventory,tracking buyer
preference,integrating supply chain partners,keeping inventory stock.
Business analytics arebeing improved to quickly process data to offer predictive price and
forecast simulations based on competitors andpublic marktdata to up the revenues for large
retailers.
On one hand while startups like Revionics are using predictive analysis to help busineses
develop strategies,apps like GoFins.AI ,Third Love and Volumental make shopping easier for
customers of clothers, shoes and eyewear.

OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE

The prime objectives of this paper are following:

1. To analyze the role of artificial intelligence in retail with special reference to marketing

2. To know how AI can contribute to customer engagement and retention.

3. To highlight probable future applications ofAI inretail.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN RETAIL

Artififical Intelligncee Consists of three spheres namely: Nachine learining that refers to systems
that understand human language,Natural Language processing refers to systems that understand
human language eg Chatboxes.,Deep learning.which means learning by igensting huge amount
of dataeg Image recognition.As per
GSMA,evolution of ai is divided into three
phases.Artificial Narrow Intelligence or
weak AI where machines are programmed
to perform singular taskslike playng
chess.Artificial General Intelligence where
AI matches the capabilities of a Human.
Finally superintelligence where machines
can supersede humans in
Intelligence.Artificial Intelligence in Retail
Market will be worth 5,034.0 Million USD
by 2022 (Research and Markets,
2017).There is asudden upsurge of powerful new digital technologiesin retail
APPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN RETAIL

Consumers behaviors are changing as the conventional shopping experience gets greatly
enhanced with the advent of gesture walls, where consumers can search for products they are
seeking with wave of hand rather than searching through racks of clothes.This offers as digital
catalogue which helps shoppers make informed personalized decisions with suitable
recommendations from AI.Consumers are able to create look books of outfits they create and
marketers can used them to build brand awareness and make shopping a lively and interactive
experience. Gesture walls can also provide data like top product views,most popular products
and purchase history of a consumer at the store.

In warehouse management of giant retailers like amazon robotics is much in use. Robots are
cleaning floor stacking shelves, retrieving items from warehouse and operating forklifts.Japan
softbank developed human robot Pepper which displays human emotions and has replaced
information kiosks in retail and is powered by IBM ‘s Watson,The consumer.can receive buying
suggestions with the help of matching algorithms based on real time analysis of purchase
history, age group, demography, ethnicity, season and many more such variables. Further 90% of
call centres are predicted to be replaced by the robots which are expected to reach human
intelligence by 2029.

The concept of visual listening has been introduced in retail Visual Listening - AI algorithms are
being used to analyze pictures on platforms like Instagram to understand what is it that the
consumers are sharing about a brand.

Virtual mirrors are rave in the stores in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles are they
alLow consumers to visit virtual racks try on and record potential looks in different colours and
share with friends and make a final purchase decision.

Employments of Chatbots and AI have been successfully employed by the retailers the
customers to helping them to solve problems, find рrоduсtѕ, and answer ԛuеѕtіоnѕ.don’t take up
space on the consumer’s smartphone. They also speed interactions, enabling consumers to
соmрlеtе a рurсhаѕе in a minute or two. Similarly, chatbots can deliver рrоmрt answers tо retail
сuѕtоmеrѕ’ ԛuеrіеѕ bу соmрlеtеlу еlіmіnаtіng the wait time needed to reach a live аgеnt.
Chatbots can also contribute to higher support resolutions; if a chatbot fаіlѕ to resolve an issue, it
trаnѕfеrѕ thе іѕѕuе to a lіvе agent, thеrе bу ensuring сuѕtоmеrѕ never lеаvе an interaction wіthоut
а rеѕоlutіоn.

AI is taking more sophisticated roles in business and also in the minds of tackling the consumers.
The future digital spokesperson of the company will be AI. The AI is making every interface
both simple and smart. The platform for digital era revolution of AI in retail online sector is not
just shopping needs, but meeting the daily demands of busy lives. The voice recognition of the
customer and rescaling the webpage on the physiological behaviour of the customer makes to
think globally.

Using the AI, the Echo smart speakers installed in homes helps in interacting with the humans
connected through the home network connections helps to build an interrelationship between the
customer and e commerce industry. The voice assistants are not just responding but proactively
predicting the needs and taking care of the business on your behalf.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN RETAIL :APPLICATIONS IN

MARKETING

Technology is being revamped to take over the intelligence of the human being in the current
society. The major players like Amazon, MakeMyTrip, Flipkart, many competitors involving in
the war of Artificial Intelligence to differentiate the ways of satisfying the customer needs. The
virtual interface is one of the best marketing application. A customer wants to buy a life dream
home in a developing location eg GOA the customer can have the virtual video in 360 degree the
real feel of the house with interior decoration virtually and plan accordingly. By 2021 the
number of worldwide consumers using AI assistants will reach 1.83 billion. As legendary
computer scientist John McCarthy once said “As Soon as it works, no one calls it AI anymore”.
AI will lead smarter by enabling people to extract more value from brand management. The
future is near that AI will largely determine the following:

AI can be employed in marketing to increase growth in revenue

AI can aid in customer retention

AI can help target customer segments more effectively

Personalization is a key word when it comes to improving the shopping experience, and
marketers are becoming much more savvy about using AI to collect data to create a more
complete view of each customer. AgilOne is an example of how AI can help marketers optimize
their communications as it continually learns from user behavior.

The technology is designed to integrate a wide range of customer data derived from multiple
digital and physical channels. It uses the data to analyze and predict customer behavior, allowing
marketers to fully understand their customers and engage with them in an authentic way.

Other companies expanding this technology include SiteZeus — technology which collects big
data to make location-specific predictions, forecasts and decisions — and Sentient, which
encourages users to have real-time conversations with virtual salespersons who adapt their
products and inventory in real time to match customers’ changing preferences and needs.

AI solutions for customer segmentation will continue to become more and more sophisticated,
allowing marketers to integrate vast amounts of data to make the customer journey more
personalized, and more efficient. I’ve written in greater depth about the importance of
personalization and segmentation in the future of AI and marketing in this previous
MarTechToday article.

AI CAN CONTRIBUTE TO CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT AND

RETENTION

AI can help to take real time action on any insights related to customers. Security can be
tightened in terms of customer information using AI; this gives a hope for the customers to
register online with their personnel data’s. AI has the ability to track the customer information
without breaching. The confidence level of the customers increases to make the payment online
through debit/credit card.

The customer engagement is more important for the business growth.

FUTURE RESEARCH
A question arises whether Artificial Intelligence will be a boon or a curse for humanity. “AI will
go where AI will go; it is difficult to predict where,” as stated in Financial Newspaper. Internet
giants have been investing heavily in creating software to help machines think more like people,
boosted by superfast computer processing power and access to mountains of data to analyze. The
rise of Artificial Intelligence brings mighty new challenges too. Less attention has historically
been paid to the ways in which artificial intelligence can be used maliciously. The electronic
frontier foundation which expressed concern that “increasingly sophisticated AI will usher in a
world that is strange and different from the one we’re used to, and there are serious risk if this
technology is used for the wrong ends.

REFERENCES
http://www.digitalistmag.com/cio-knowledge/2018/02/26/which-industries-see-benefits-of-ai-first-
05864125

http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/How-artificial-intelligence-is-powering-retail-customer-
experience

https://www.techemergence.com/artificial-intelligence-retail/

www.financialexpress.com

https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/v9x73h/artificial

https://martechtoday.com/future-ai-marketing-applications-retail-202081