VTEX aims to unlock the potential of AI beyond just chat assistants: Yashdeep Vaishnav

VTEX enables brands and retailers to achieve faster time to market, reach their customers across any channel, and uncover new growth areas.

Brands deserve the freedom to realize their unique vision, and deliver that vision to customers through remarkable experiences. VTEX's modern commerce platform and deep expertise in commerce unshackle brands from the constraints imposed on them by legacy systems. Major global brands including Sony, Walmart, Whirlpool, Coca-Cola, Stanley Black & Decker and Nestlé, plus 3,400 active online stores in 38 countries, trust VTEX to accelerate and transform their commerce business.

Yashdeep Vaishnav, country head, VTEX India, tells us more. Excerpts from an interview:

DQ: How are you leveraging AI and data analytics to offer personalized customer experiences at VTEX?

Yashdeep Vaishnav: The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) has brought about a significant transformation in how brands and customers interact. By harnessing the power of machine learning algorithms, AI can unearth intricate patterns, trends, and valuable insights from data, enabling companies to gain a deep understanding of their customers' preferences, behaviors, and detailed purchase histories.

This data-driven comprehension empowers enterprises' digital commerce to craft personalized recommendations, suggest relevant products, and orchestrate precisely targeted marketing campaigns, all finely tuned to meet the unique needs and interests of individual customers.

VTEX aims to unlock the potential of AI beyond just chat assistants. Our vision is to create a future with commerce on auto-pilot, in which AI is transparent and seamlessly integrated into the daily routines of the marketing, development, and the operations teams.

To realize this vision, we have launched a beta program and introduced beta developments, incorporating machine learning and generative models into our Live Shopping App, Pick and Pack feature, along with the Search modules, with the following objectives:

AI in Live Shopping: VTEX employs automatic image detection algorithms to identify products featured in live-streaming events and offer them to visitors for easy addition to their shopping carts. This innovation allows the focus to shift towards content creation, as the system efficiently promotes products. This means that Live Shopping events can become a reality without the need for an extensive behind-the-scenes team.

AI in Pick and Pack: Fulfilling orders from stores represents a cost-effective and efficient approach to order fulfillment. Therefore, VTEX has incorporated AI into its Pick and Pack product to further enhance the reliability and efficiency of the fulfillment process. AI introduces dynamic advantages by adapting to fluctuations in demand and ensuring precise resource allocation. It enhances reliability and efficiency throughout the day, seamlessly accommodating different order peaks.

With the integration of AI into Pick and Pack, VTEX is ushering in a new era of accuracy and customer satisfaction in order fulfillment.

Intelligent Search: VTEX integrates AI into its search product to tailor search results to individual customers based on their behavior. AI analyzes customer interactions, search history, and preferences to deliver highly relevant search results. This personalization enhances the user experience and significantly impacts purchasing decisions.

By understanding and adapting to customer behavior, AI ensures that users quickly find what they are looking for, resulting in higher satisfaction and conversion rates.

DQ:: How are technologies such as IoT, 5G, reshaping the ecommerce sector?

Yashdeep Vaishnav: IoT and 5G are reshaping the ecommerce sector by introducing new capabilities and enhancing various aspects of the industry. Between 2018 and 2022, the ecommerce sector grew by 1.6 times, propelled by increasing internet penetration and the explosive growth of online purchasing.

The next wave of ecommerce innovation is now powered by 5G, which enables seamless buffering and faster downloading and is likely to change online. Below are a few ways IoT and 5G are reshaping the ecommerce sector.

• Faster and More Reliable Connectivity: 5G networks provide ultra-fast, low-latency connectivity. This means that ecommerce platforms can deliver content and services more quickly and reliably to customers. Faster load times for websites and apps enhance the overall shopping experience and convertion rates.
• Enhanced Mobile Shopping: With 5G, mobile shopping becomes even more convenient and seamless. Customers can shop on their smartphones with virtually no lag, making it easier to browse products, view high-quality images and videos, and complete transactions on the go.
• Personalized Shopping Experiences: IoT devices, such as smart speakers and wearables, can collect data on customer preferences and behavior. This data can be analyzed to provide highly personalized product recommendations and targeted promotions, increasing conversion rates and customer loyalty.
• Automated Customer Support: IoT-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can provide immediate customer support, answering questions and resolving issues in real-time, which is particularly valuable in the ecommerce sector, where customer inquiries are frequent.
• Inventory and Supply Chain Management: IoT devices and sensors can be used to track inventory in real-time. This data can be shared across the supply chain, helping ecommerce companies optimize their inventory management, reduce stockouts, and improve order fulfillment efficiency.

DQ: How is the adoption of cloud technologies by ecommerce players in India to enhance operational efficiencies?

Yashdeep Vaishnav: According to Allied Market Research, the ecommerce sector is projected to rise to $17.53 trillion by 2030, in India. Hence, cloud computing plays a crucial and transformative role in the ecommerce industry, offering numerous benefits that have become essential for businesses operating in this sector.

Traditional brands and retailers have undergone significant change, and it is now clear that, in terms of unified commerce, the user experience comes first. Here is how it will play an important role:

• Cost Efficiency: Cloud services follow a pay-as-you-go model, allowing companies to reduce upfront infrastructure costs with their ecommerce. They can also optimize costs by using auto-scaling to match server capacity with actual demand, which helps in cost control.
• Flexibility and Agility: Cloud computing enables ecommerce businesses to quickly adapt to changing market conditions and customer demands. They can launch new services, test new features, and enter new markets without significant delays or capital investments.
• Supply Chain Optimization: Ecommerce players can collaborate with their supply chain partners through cloud-based platforms, improving visibility, coordination, and efficiency across the entire supply chain.
• Disaster Recovery and Data Security: Cloud platforms offer robust disaster protection and recovery solutions, ensuring business continuity in case of unexpected events. They also provide security features such as encryption, identity management, and compliance certifications to protect customer data.
• Customer Personalization: Cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) and personalization tools allow ecommerce companies to offer tailored recommendations and marketing campaigns based on customer behavior and preferences.
• Inventory Optimization: Cloud-based inventory management systems enable real-time tracking of stock levels, helping ecommerce companies optimize inventory turnover and reduce the risk of overstock or understock situations.

DQ: How are blockchain and NFTs disrupting the digital commerce domain?

Yashdeep Vaishnav: Blockchain and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are set to revolutionize digital commerce. It will help companies to overcome all sorts of challenges. Here are some key points on how these two technologies can impact digital commerce:

• Cost Reduction: By consolidating services such as payment processing, inventory management, and product descriptions, blockchain lowers operational costs. Ecommerce players can rely on blockchain-based cryptocurrencies for payments, eliminating middlemen and associated transaction fees.
• Tokenization and NFTs: NFTs, as unique digital assets, represent ownership and origin of items like digital art, collectibles, and virtual real estate. This introduces a novel way to monetize digital goods within digital commerce, revolutionizing the sale of these assets.
• Enhanced Transparency: Blockchain technology provides an unalterable and transparent ledger, bolstering trust between digital commerce participants. It records every transaction securely, making it immune to unauthorized alterations.
• Decentralized Marketplaces: The decentralized nature of blockchain fosters peer-to-peer trading, minimizing intermediaries in digital commerce. This simplifies processes like payment handling, order fulfillment, and dispute resolution while reducing the susceptibility to corruption and fraud.
• Supply Chain Enhancement: Blockchain's potential in supply chain management lies in its ability to augment transparency, efficiency, and security. It spans all supply chain participants, from manufacturers to end consumers, by recording every transaction and movement. This guarantees product authenticity, combats fraud, and elevates overall visibility in the supply chain.

DQ: This has been tried before. How is VTEX different from the others?

Yashdeep Vaishnav: VTEX is a 23-year-old global enterprise digital commerce platform for enterprise brands and retailers. VTEX enables merchants to deploy, optimize, test and scale advanced B2C and B2B commerce experiences through a composable and complete commerce. Our platform helps brands and retailers modernize their stack and reduce maintenance costs by rapidly migrating from legacy systems, connecting their entire value chain, and making inventory and fulfillment their strength.

The services that we offer are:

• Digital Commerce Platform
• Marketplace & Seller Management
• Order Management System
• VTEX IO Development Platform.

Our USP is that we are truly cloud-based, and we can bring our extensive experience from the global market to the Indian market. We work with many global brands across 38 countries, and have developed a composable and complete digital commerce platform that has helped brands expand internationally while also improving their business profitability.

We also offer some interesting logistical tools. Learning from our global experiences, we have built-in logistics models that can handle inventory, omnichannel sales, and multiple distribution centres in a simple and integrated way. We can also deliver, deploy and scale up rapidly, typically within three months and we have done so for many clients.

As a leader in digital commerce, VTEX is trusted by more than 2,600 B2C and B2B customers, including Carrefour, Colgate, Motorola, Sony, Stanley Black & Decker, and Whirlpool, having over 3,400 active online stores across 38 countries.

As part of the MACH Alliance, VTEX uses Micro Services, API First, Cloud Native SaaS and Headless technology to provide a highly flexible and scalable architecture, which helps enterprise brands and retailers build modern digital commerce experiences.

VTEX also counts on a specialized team of solution engineers and architects to help customers define the best commerce architecture and leverage microservices and commerce functionalities to enhance flexibility and customization as much as needed but in a pragmatic way. With an API-first approach, it provides seamless integration and interoperability. Built on a cloud-native infrastructure, it guarantees elasticity and security.