••• shopper insights
Don’t wait for AI to rescue online shopping
According to a survey by Capterra of over 5,500 global consumers, the abundance of choices – including fake reviews and too many sponsored results – makes shopping online difficult and time-consuming. And while emerging AI agents are poised to revolutionize the online experience by acting as virtual personal shoppers, there are a plethora of issues holding the tech back, like AI hallucination, concerns over data privacy and AI-washing.
Over half of global consumers expressed frustration with how frequently search engines return inaccurate and irrelevant results, while nearly a quarter (23%) struggled to determine the appropriate search terms or keywords to use in the first place. Additionally, 84% encountered difficulties when using online search filters, including incorrectly applied filters, a lack of specificity or having too few filters to meaningfully narrow results.
The keyword problem is exacerbated for shoppers influenced by social media trends, as they struggle to translate viral trends into retailer-friendly terms to generate relevant results, both on search results and individual retailers’ websites. For instance, making the jump from the “quiet luxury trousers” you saw on Instagram to the “off-white linen blend pleated high-waist trousers” listed on a retailer’s website isn’t exactly intuitive.
Retailers waiting for an AI solution to improve the customer experience are missing out on the opportunity to better serve their audiences now through existing technology like software for review management, social media monitoring or enterprise search, says Capterra’s Senior Retail Analyst Molly Burke.
••• the business of research
Start small with diversity efforts
When companies are assessing their diversity efforts, it’s important to consider the size of the groups they are looking at, according to findings presented in a recent Organization Science article, “Group size and its impact on diversity-related perceptions and hiring decisions in homogeneous groups.”
Studies conducted for the article confirmed that people are more likely to notice when everyone looks the same in a large group than a small one and flag it as a problem, prompting them to take action to diversify it. “Bigger groups that lack diversity raise more speculation,” says article co-author Aneesh Rai. “People assume they are more likely to have resulted from an unfair selection process, see them as less diverse and more likely to face diversity-related reputational concerns.”
For managers and decision makers, the key takeaway from the research is to not ignore smaller teams that lack diversity. Those are the teams where diversity is more likely to be neglected and managers must recognize that potential blind spot and take action accordingly. “If you fix it now, you’re less likely to face reputational consequences later,” says Rai. “We’re highlighting this problem for small teams so organizations can nip it in the bud now and not run into issues down the line when those groups grow.”