Co-Founder & CEO of Agara, driving autonomous conversations and helping top brands connect with customers using voice AI to improve CX. Over the last decade, it has become hard to imagine retail without e-commerce, thanks to the endless digitalization of everyday activities and the unprecedented use of mobile devices. More than 2 billion people made online purchases in 2020, and e-retail sales totaled over $4.2 trillion globally. Close to 70% of all retail website visits in 2020 were made from smartphones. Mobile integration is shaping the shopping experience of the world.

The last few years saw customers shift their preference from buying clothes at retail outlets to conveniently buying online on their gadgets. This change in customer behavior was further accelerated by COVID-19 as customers had to depend on buying online for most of their shopping needs. Despite COVID-19 beginning to ease off slowly, customers believe that shopping online is a lot more convenient than having to go from store to store to get what they’re looking for. E-commerce brands are thus doing their best to keep their hard-earned customers engaged on their platform by delivering personalized user experiences. We caught up with Mohit Panjwani, Associate Director- Revenue Growth at Myntra to understand how e-commerce fashion brands like Myntra are leveraging the power of customer data and marketing analytics to craft memorable and personalized shopping experiences. Myntra is India’s leading e-commerce company committed to making fashion and lifestyle products accessible to everyone. From its birth as a customization company in 2007 to being technology and fashion pioneers today, Myntra has grown to become the ultimate destination for fashion and lifestyle, being host to a wide array of merchandise including clothing, footwear, accessories, jewellery, personal care products, etc. Mohit shares his thoughts on: * Major customer engagement and retention challenges faced by e-commerce brands * Importance of adopting an omnichannel approach to effectively engage with customers across all touchpoints of the user journey * Need to have a consistent messaging across channels beyond website and app- thoughts on product recommendations, personalized emails, and app push notifications * How predicting customer churn through ML is critical to increasing retention * Innovative campaigns and ideas used to increase customer engagement and repeat purchase behavior * 3 biggest e-commerce trends that can pick up steam in 2021 Tune in to gain insights on how the best in the business caters to customer needs and requirements by delivering customer experiences at scale.

While Canadian capital markets slowed this week after a very busy previous week, in the week ahead, we're looking forward to the trading debut of Sophic client, Luckbox (LUCK-TSXV). Emerge Ecommerce (ECOM-TSXV) is also expected to start trading this coming week. Meanwhile, in the USA, AirBnB, DoorDash and C3.AI, all had very strong trading debuts as expected by most. At the same time, IPOs of Roblox and Affirm seem delayed to 2021, with speculation that these companies may try a different approach than the traditional IPO in order to avoid massive IPO pops, which do not benefit companies issuing new stock. Some alternatives could include direct listing, auction IPOs or going public via a SPAC. At the same time, there seems to be increasing chatter about unsustainable valuations.

Not long ago, artificial intelligence was viewed as promising technology but a solution that only hi-tech companies or industry giants like Google or Tesla could invest in and benefit from. That presumption is fading fast. Today, the biggest hurdle facing AI marketing is understanding its true value amidst so many lofty promises and pervasive misconceptions. The history of AI dates back further than most realize, but for all intents and purposes, the development of modern AI was really catalyzed in the 1950s with The Turing Test -- a measure which quantified a machine's intelligence. Fast-forward to 2010: Microsoft begins tracking human body movement using a 3D camera and infrared detection.

So, you are into e-commerce & struggle to keep up with Amazon (which boasts the #1 app among Millennials and Centennials and made over $ 43 billion in Q3 2017)? Don't worry, your competitors face exactly the same problems – and turn to Artificial Intelligence to solve them. Discover how using e-commerce AI solutions can help you deliver the ultimate shopping experience, reduce operating and staffing costs and boost revenue. IBM Watson commerce, Facebook/WeChat chatbots, Amazon recommendation engines and other "cognitive commerce" solutions are powered by artificial neural networks – that is, algorithms modelled on biological neural networks that process data, learn from it and make smarter decisions. The types of data you can feed to a neural network range from CRM records to your website usage stats; the intelligent algorithms classify data patterns and predict consumer behavior and KPIs based on past events.

I'm going to uncover the three biggest reasons why your e-commerce brand needs to start investing in chatbot technology ASAP…and the tools required to build them. E-commerce is a booming, constantly-transforming industry. Mobile shopping is steadily but surely gaining pace in terms of global online sales. In alignment, the leaders of digital retail are continuously innovating their service offerings with the freshest groundbreaking tech -- and chatbots are the latest "must-have." It is much, much more than merely hype.

E-commerce remains a highly competitive field, but don't fret, you can make it big amongst the giants thanks to artificial intelligence and machine-learning tools. Artificial intelligence and machine learning have far surpassed the "eye roll" reaction they once sparked… They have become essential tools for many large e-commerce brands to operate at such scale -- and both, while also becoming more advanced, are increasing in prominence with each year that goes by (in a multitude of sectors). The marketing revolution is here, and CMOs can't escape it. From operational optimization to marketing, personalization and enhanced search…right through to automated inventory planning and dynamic pricing -- AI is shaping the future of shopping, at pace. Is your e-commerce brand ahead of the curve, or rapidly falling behind the times?