How Big Data and IoT in E-commerce is helping users? |
Posted: June 15, 2018 |
What is IoT?Left home in hurry and forgot to turn off the lights? You can do it from your office too. How about your car coming at your doorstep to pick you up for work that too without a driver? All these fascinating things might sound impossible are going to be real. IoT is the internet of things. It is basically a connection between different devices with help of data, apps, and network. According to a report generated by Gartner, it is estimated that 20 billion devices will be connected to each other through the internet of things solutions. Objects interact with each other with the help of embedded technology. This affects the decision taken.
The devices have sensors that collect various information and data. Later this data is sent to the cloud using certain connectivity medium such as satellite, internet, Bluetooth or wi-fi. Then this data is processed in the cloud using the software. For instance, if an intruder enters the house, the software uses the senses and analyzes that person is unknown and might be an intruder. This software then notifies the user about the result through connectivity with other devices such as a smartphone. In this example, camera and smartphone are the two devices connected to each other. What is big data?Big Data is nothing but a large volume of data. It can be structured or unstructured. Organizations use big data to analyze insights that help in decision making and strategizing. When database cannot analyze huge data, big data is required to process it. Many organizations have data of their own consumers. The data is so huge that it cannot be processed in the traditional way. Also, some companies store data such as market trends, news, etc to keep a track of industry updates and consider this data in strategy making. Big data analytics & consulting can be used in various ways such as detecting fraudulent behavior within or outside the organization, strategizing, decision making, determining causes of failure, analyzing risk.
What is e-commerce?E-commerce became popular around a decade ago. Online shopping has made things very easier and time friendly. End users find e-commerce quiet convenient to use. There are various sites that offer e-commerce service such as Amazon, Alibaba, Flipkart, Jabong, Myntra, etc. Did you know, E-commerce sites are customized too? There are few e-commerce sites that deal into particular product line only. For instance, iodParts, evelta, Digikey, etc. are the e-commerce sites that deal in electronic components only. The evolution of e-commerce sites has contributes a lot to users in term of services and employment too. E-commerce reduces the time spent on buying certain stuff. In traditional shopping, buyers do not get a chance of comparing much with other companies or brands or retailers. But in e-commerce, there is a huge amount of variety available for a particular product line. Users need not spend much money since they get to compare prices online and buy from the vendor who is offering the product in lowest price. The small-scale manufacturers have got a huge platform to showcase their products.
Now how do IoT and Big data help users in E-commerce?The global retail e-commerce sales are estimated to reach $4.48 trillion in the year 2021. This figure was released by Statista in a research report. As per one more report, the internet of things revenue is expected to reach $2.5 billion by the year 2020. 70% of the retailers are ready to adopt the internet of things solutions to optimize their business and reach more consumers. Internet of things can offer personalization! Imagine you have a fitness device such as Fitbit. It can be connected to online shopping sites and can enable discount on other fitness related stuff such as protein shakes, etc.
Another example is an e-commerce company getting connected with your car and get information about your driving habits and can display some offer for you according to your data. Also, self-driving cars and robots can be used to deliver the shipment that you ordered from an e-commerce site. Let us learn how e-commerce users can benefit from Big Data?E-commerce sites have always been using big data to process the huge information they have. In recent years, targeted marketing, remarketing are some famous concepts in the e-commerce industry. Have you experienced seeing an ad of a product that you checked out some time ago on an e-commerce site? For instance, if you check out the product description and price of a rucksack on an e-commerce site but you did not buy it. After some time, while surfing on the internet, you will see ad displaying the same bag or other bags in the offer. Now, why did this happen? Whenever a buyer or user checks out something online and leave that page without buying, the data and information are stored. Information such as which type of bag, what is the price of that bag, color, etc. This data is used in remarketing where the user sees the ad. It is done with the help of Big Data analytics & consulting. Big data processes the information and analyses the buying behavior. It not only just analyses but forms a strategy and displays ad related to the same bag or other bags to help user recall what he needs to buy.
Another good example is here:A person looking to lose weight has searched on Google “How to lose 5 kg in 10 days?” E-commerce sites collect such information and immediately notifies a user with ads of stuff that helps in weight reduction. It displays ads for exercise kits, green tea, etc.
Many times, the buyer does not know what to do and looks out for solutions online. In such cases, what he is surfing, which sites he is visiting, what keywords is he applying, etc is stored by e-commerce companies and the Big Data processes it.
Conclusion: As the technology is going ahead very fast, E-commerce industry has a huge scope of development. The concept of e-commerce is generated to help and facilitate users. Hence, IoT and Big Data are putting their contribution to benefit the user in their E-commerce experience.
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