AI product replacement with intelligent recommendations
When a product is out of stock or unavailable, artificial intelligence immediately offers similar items in terms of price, style, or functionality. The system analyses product characteristics and user behaviour to offer the most relevant alternatives. This keeps customers interested and helps to avoid losing sales.
Out-of-stock is one of the most common reasons for losing customers in e-commerce. According to research, 70% of customers who do not find the desired product leave the site without buying and 91% of them do not return. At the same time, 45% of such customers are ready to consider an alternative product if it really meets their needs. For an average online retailer, this means losing 15-25% of potential sales due to the lack of relevant offers to replace out-of-stock products.
Our AI product substitution service implements an intelligent system that automatically offers customers relevant alternatives when the product they are looking for is not available. Unlike standard solutions that only offer products from the same category, our system analyses the in-depth characteristics of products, the context of the query, and user behaviour to offer truly relevant substitutes.
The solution is technologically based on:
- GPT - a powerful language model that understands the context of queries and semantic relationships between products
- Product database - a system integrated with your catalogue that is constantly updated and contains detailed information about each product
How the system works:
- When a customer opens the page of a product that is out of stock or expired, the system is activated automatically
- AI algorithm analyses the characteristics of the unavailable product (price, brand, functionality, style, materials)
- The system takes into account previous user behaviour, browsing history, and search queries
- Based on this analysis, a personalised list of alternatives is generated, ranked by relevance
- The results are displayed with an explanation of how each proposed product is similar to the one searched for
The system also works in cases where a customer is looking for a specific product through the search, but it is not in the catalogue. In this case, instead of the "nothing found" message, the customer receives a set of the most relevant alternatives.
The solution is ideal for:
- Online stores with a large and frequently changing assortment
- E-commerce platforms with seasonal products
- Marketplaces with goods from different sellers
- Businesses with high competition where it is important to retain every customer
- Stores with products that often run out of stock due to limited batches or high demand
Key benefits of automatic product replacement
The implementation of AI product replacement provides significant benefits for both businesses and customers:
Saving up to 65% of potentially lost sales. According to the statistics of our clients, intelligent product replacement allows converting up to 65% of situations when the desired product is not available into a purchase, instead of the standard 10-15% when using simple recommendation systems.
Improving the user experience. Instead of being disappointed by the lack of the desired product, the customer receives useful alternatives that really meet their needs. This significantly increases the overall satisfaction with the service.
Personalisation of offers. The system takes into account not only the characteristics of the product, but also the individual preferences of a particular customer, generating truly personalised recommendations.
Optimisation of inventory management. The system helps to distribute demand between products more efficiently, reducing unnecessary stocks and accelerating the turnover of slow-selling products that are well suited as alternatives to popular items.
Intelligent cross-category substitution. Unlike simple systems, our solution is able to offer relevant products from different categories. For example, if a certain model of blender is not available, the system can suggest not only other blenders, but also food processors with similar functions.
Automatic improvement of recommendations. The system constantly analyses which substitutes customers choose most often and improves algorithms based on this data, becoming more efficient every day.
Minimising the "disappointment effect". When a customer doesn't find the product they want, it creates a negative experience that can affect the perception of the brand as a whole. Intelligent product replacement reduces this effect by 70%, according to surveys.
Why choose digiants.agency to implement AI product replacement
The team at digiants.agency combines deep expertise in AI and machine learning with years of experience in e-commerce. Our approach to implementing an AI product replacement system has the following advantages:
Deep integration with your catalogue. We don't just install a standard solution, we develop a system that takes into account the peculiarities of your assortment, unique product attributes and category specifics. The system works with any CMS and PIM systems via API.
Training the model on your data. We train AI algorithms on your historical sales data and customer behaviour to ensure that recommendations are as relevant as possible to your audience.
Omnichannel. Our solution works across all platforms: website, mobile app, self-service terminals, chatbots, providing a unified approach to product replacement across all sales channels.
Scalability and speed. The system processes requests in real time with a delay of less than 200 ms, regardless of the size of the catalogue and the number of simultaneous users.
Analytics and dashboards. We provide detailed analytics of the system's effectiveness: which products most often need to be replaced, which alternatives are the most successful, how conversion and average check change.
Proven effectiveness. Our clients record a 25-35% increase in conversion rates and a 15-20% increase in the average check after implementing the AI product replacement system. The average payback period of the project is 2-3 months.
Ready to turn "out of stock" into new sales opportunities? Contact us to demonstrate the capabilities of the AI product substitution system using your assortment as an example. We offer a free 14-day trial period so that you can evaluate the solution's effectiveness on real data.
