Top 5 Things ChatGPT Can Do for Your eCommerce Business

In 5 days after release, the number of ChatGPT users crossed the point of 1 million. Monthly, the ChatGPT site is visited by more than 100 million active users. And the number keeps growing. Almost everyone has tried to use ChatGPT for personal or business purposes; for example, using ChatGPT in ecommerce. Some people are even afraid that ML-based technology of this kind will likely replace humans in many roles soon, which will mean that many employees will lose their jobs and many tasks will be fully automated.

However, we believe that is not the case. Our team decided to practically test how ChatGPT can help ecommerce businesses to save time on their daily tasks. We concluded that chatbots like ChatGPT are not competitors to humans. They are the assistants that will help us surf the net comprising zettabytes of data. In the digital world where people produce 3.5 quintillion bytes of data daily, it becomes harder to find exactly what you are looking for. ChatGPT is the technology that will go through millions of pages for you and provide the exact answer to your request. In ecommerce, ChatGPT can be used for insight generation, creative brainstorming, creation of engaging content, and more.

If you are interested in our findings and the conclusions we made, welcome to our new blog post on the practical implications of using ChatGPT in ecommerce.

What Is ChatGPT and How Does It Work?

ChatGPT stands for Chat Generative Pretrained Transformer. Let’s explain this abbreviation step-by-step. Generative means that the model can generate text data. Pretrained means that the model was trained using some volume of data before it went live. Transformer refers to the type of architecture used for this model. Thanks to these characteristics, ChatGPT can be involved in human-like conversations and produce human-like outputs, mimicking the way the biological brain works.

ChatGPT is an AI-powered chatbot that is capable of generating human-like responses to user requests. The chat was built and released by the company OpenAI in November 2022. OpenAI is a research laboratory focusing on artificial intelligence development founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman in 2015.

Today, web users access ChatGPT Version 3. It’s the largest ML model that has ever been developed, containing nearly 175 billion parameters. The model was trained on more than 45 terabytes of data. This included web pages, books, forums, articles, etc. in the areas of fintech, healthcare, ecommerce, manufacturing, education, and others. To generate human-like text, the chat goes through terabytes of text data that was used for training. The chatbot works under the deep training model called LLM (Large Language Model).

ChatGPT is open-source and free to use by the public. It is used to find the needed information, write texts, give tips and recommendations, translate texts, write code, solve math questions, and a plethora of other things.

Here is how the chatbot works. You click here and register using a convenient method. Then, the chat becomes available for you. Your task is to type your request in as if you were chatting with a human. Then, you should wait for a response (usually it takes less than a minute).

Chatbots interact with users based on the prompts they enter. A prompt is a piece of information that you type in to ask the chatbot to do something for you. For the chatbot to correctly understand your question, you should provide precise and clear prompts. You can use this tool to automatically generate prompts for using ChatGPT in ecommerce.

As its full name indicates, ChatGPT works based on transformed architecture. Thanks to its essence, the chatbot is capable of understanding the context and providing accurate responses that sound pretty natural. Below, you can see 2 pieces of text describing the start of sales at the shoes & accessories store. Try to guess which piece was human-written and which one was generated by AI.

Drumroll… The second piece was written by ChatGTP. As you see, it’s as engaging as the first piece, and some people may even say that it’s better than the first version! This is one of the examples of how ChatGPT can generate human-like text that sounds natural and looks smooth. But there always are two sides to the coin, so let’s discuss the other one.

Does the Model Work Perfectly?

Although the chatbot made a great impression on the audience, ChatGPT is not the source of ultimate truth — and ecommerce businesses should keep this in mind. Recently, the co-founder of ChatGPT Sam Altman was invited to the podcast by Guy Raz. In the podcast, the guest talked about his career journey and his view on the future of AI. Besides, Altman revealed many interesting facts about his company and ChatGPT in particular.

In the podcast, they discussed the drawbacks of ChatGPT as well. Among these, Altman mentioned an important fact to keep in mind about the chatbot. ChatGPT is aimed to sound convincedly by being trained on the terabytes of data containing words. Yet, the chatbot is not trained to verify the data. As a result, the model can generate responses that are not true. Therefore, while using ChatGPT in ecommerce or delegating this task to your team, do not forget about the importance of human intervention in this process.

When talking from our personal experience, believing ChatGPT at 100% is a risky decision. For many of our requests, the chatbot generated responses and provided statistics that had never existed. When being asked to provide the link that ChatGPT took information from, the technology seemed to generate fake links and present them as a source of facts. Our specialists conducted Google research to find the sources that ChatGPT referred to. But we failed. And here is why:

“This is called “hallucination” and I find it to be the biggest flaw with GPT-3 interfaces like ChatGPT. The system will start convincingly BSing at any point and as a user, you’re never sure if any particular detail it outputs is correct. The problem, is these large language models are inherently kind of a black box […]”

This is what users say about this problem on the Y Combinator’s blog. Other people claim that the reason for ChatGPT making up facts lies in “stochastic parroting.” This is not only the case with ChatGPT — other large language models work in the same way. It does not mean that you should stop using ChatGPT in ecommerce. However, this fact should surely be kept in mind by ecommerce retailers. Although using AI tools in ecommerce can streamline processes and save time, human involvement in their work is a real must — at least today.

5 Ways to Use ChatGPT in eCommerce

Now, let’s move to the practical part of our discussion. How can ChatGPT be used in ecommerce to improve the online shopping process? Here are 5 suggestions:

Content Ideas Generation and Proofreading

Many ecommerce companies create engaging content to attract the target audience, produce more value, and optimize their ecommerce websites for SEO. However it becomes harder to engage customers with content as lots of the same discussions are published daily by the competitors. ChatGPT can be helpful in this matter — you can use it to brainstorm ideas for your new articles for the blog about hot ecommerce trends and SEO-friendly topics.

Here are the ecommerce copywriting ideas provided by ChatGPT as per my request:

With ChatGPT, you get high chances to streamline your marketing efforts and craft engaging and relevant marketing campaigns. Also, the model can help you organize email marketing campaigns, write cold email drafts, make up engaging and SEO-friendly titles, and even conduct keyword research. You will provide the chatbot with the main keyword, and the machine will help you complete your keyword cluster by finding the related keywords as well as synonyms.

Besides, you can enter the text written by you into the chat box and ask the model to proofread it for you. As an AI tool, ChatGPT will help you avoid typos or grammar mistakes, which is very important if your retail business is represented in several countries and you localize the content for the target users.

Product Descriptions

ChatGPT can also help you with writing product descriptions. When looking through dozens of similar product pages, your team may lose the inspiration to create unique and compelling product descriptions. Hopefully, you can ask the chatbot to do it for you. The more details you provide to the model, the better it will describe the product. This solution will help you keep your customers engaged.

In the example below, we asked the model to describe the male jacket in 50 words. Look at the results we got:

Social Media Campaigns

You can use ChatGPT when creating captions for your social media posts. Suppose that you are an ecommerce business that is represented on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Instead of duplicating the same message on the four social media platforms, you can ask the chatbot to paraphrase it in four different ways. You will be able to test what variant performs better and use the insights in your work. Also, the assistance of ChatGPT will help you keep your audience engaged with unique content on all channels, including social media.

When asking the model to create a social media caption, do not forget to mention the network where the post will be published. It will help the model choose the right tone and the right word count for the post. Here is an example of how it performs:

Response Generation and FAQs

Responding to emails can take a lot of time. Even if your response to the question or request is “yes/no,” you cannot reply in a way like that if you are a trusted ecommerce entrepreneur. Formal letters are written according to certain rules. If you want to save time, just provide ChatGPT with the key points to cover in the email, and the technology will write a reply instead of you. The machine can also be used to generate responses to client comments or reviews.

What’s more, you can program the chatbot to predict the FAQs based on the topic or content and ask the machine to provide user-friendly responses to common requests. This can be a source of valuable data for your audience on topics like return policy, shipping options, payment options, etc.

Client Service

You can involve the chatbot in direct interaction with your customers. For this, you will need to integrate the chatbot into your ecommerce site via API. ChatGPT can be used to answer customer queries and inform your clients about their order status, sales, limited products, stock levels, etc. The AI-powered chatbot will analyze customer data, process their browsing and purchase history, and provide personalized responses to their inquiries. This, in turn, will lead to improved customer satisfaction and higher customer engagement.

For instance, there is a customer who wants to buy a particular product and doesn’t want to spend time searching for it. In that case, the client can ask the chatbot about the availability of the given product and the approximate date of delivery. Your audience can also use the chat to request the exchange or return. In total, there are numerous ways to use the chatbot in your daily work and make it assist customers in solving their minor challenges.

3 Major Benefits of Using ChatGPT in eCommerce

Here are the main benefits of using ecommerce ChatGPT:

Personalization

You should keep in mind: that the more context you provide, the more personalized output ChatGPT will generate. Therefore, providing the machine with data on your ecommerce business will help the technology create personalized responses.

For instance, ChatGPT can use customer data to help you create buyer persona profiles. What types of data will it need for the precise analysis? The chatbot will use data on user feedback, ecommerce metrics, chat logs, social media interactions, and other touchpoints that can help the model reveal client pain points. Based on this data, the chatbot can generate personalized product recommendations for different audience segments or trace patterns and tendencies.

However, you should be careful while sharing the data with this technology. Mind that the data generated in your conversations with ChatGPT will further be used to train and improve the model. Here is what the company’s representatives say about data confidentiality in the FAQ section:

So, do not share the information you are not ready to disclose to third parties. There is an option of deleting all the data that you shared in conversations with the chatbot. But for this, you will have to delete your account completely.

Efficiency

Using digital solutions like ChatGPT will save a lot of time, money, and effort for your business. Instead of performing a large volume of tasks manually, you will delegate them to the machine. This will increase the efficiency of your business and enable you to focus on value-added activities.

Automation

You can use the machine to automate time-consuming manual tasks and achieve optimal cost savings. AI tools can help you streamline manual tasks in the customer support section, supply chain management, inventory management, and other areas. A great part of customer interactions can be automated with the help of an AI-powered solution like ChatGPT. Besides, you can integrate the chatbot into the process of suggesting product recommendations. The algorithm will study the client journey on your ecommerce store and suggest the right products that will correspond to their interests and needs.

In Summary

Integrating ChatGPT into your ecommerce processes can be a beneficial decision. By using it, you can add more personalization to the customer experience, increase customer loyalty, save money, and stand out from the competition. The tasks that ChatGPT can do vary from content creation for your ecommerce website to answering specific requests of your potential customers. The more context you provide to the model, the better it will perform. You can also use the machine to manage data, turn unstructured data into structured, trace tendencies or patterns, and more.

The greatest thing about the model is that you are not obliged to do anything while using the chatbot. If you have time and desire to try new things and keep up with the latest ecommerce trends, try using ChatGPT.

Contact us if you need help with integrating AI-powered technology into your business. We have more than 12 years of experience in ecommerce development and have worked with companies that lead the retail market in several regions. Forbytes’ team of tech experts and ecommerce software engineers will be happy to listen to your request and come up with a creative and win-win digital solution.