Why it matters:
- Use of AI chatbots and AI search is surging, with 87% of U.S. shoppers saying they trust AI recommendations.
- More than half of consumers using AI assistants say they plan to use them for gift ideas this holiday season.
- One of the new AI tools available to small businesses, Google’s AI Max, for example, is driving 26% more conversions (shoppers who make a purchase).
This year, holiday shopping and selling is being dramatically changed by the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence-powered chatbots, search engines, and content creation tools.
“The way consumers are interacting with the internet, the way they’re discovering new brands and products is changing at a very fundamental level, and that is going to have a profound impact on this holiday season but also in the years to come,” Caila Schwartz, Director of Strategy and Consumer Insights at tech company Salesforce, said in a holiday briefing attended by CO—.
Shoppers increasingly are looking to ChatGPT and other AI platforms for product recommendations, price comparisons, and gift ideas.
The number of consumers who start their shopping searches with AI chat assistants jumped 38% between May and August of this year, and 87% of U.S. shoppers trust AI recommendations, according to Salesforce.
Big retailers also are creating their own AI tools to steer those shopping decisions to their stores. Walmart, the country’s largest retailer, announced recently that it has partnered with tech company OpenAI to allow its customers to make Walmart purchases through ChatGPT. The partnership, Walmart said, will allow it to know what customers need to buy “before they do.”
But even the smallest businesses can compete in the age of AI by leveraging free AI tools and by understanding how to increase their odds of being discovered by AI search, tech and marketing experts told CO—.
Here are ways small businesses can use AI to their advantage this Small Business Saturday on November 29 and throughout the holiday season.
Know why—and how—your customers are using AI
Salesforce discovered in its consumer research that shoppers are using AI search tools on their phones while shopping in physical stores.
More than half of AI users—57%—said they conduct AI searches while in stores.
A big reason for the surge in AI searches, Schwartz said, is because “it’s giving them the best personalized product recommendations.”
More than half of consumers using AI assistants say they plan to use them for gift ideas this holiday season.
Small businesses can respond to this shift by becoming aware of the questions their customers are likely to be asking, and by making sure they have answers—both in the form of content that will appear in search engines, and with in-person answers in their stores in the form of displays of suggested gifts, lists of gift ideas, and knowledgeable employees who can make suggestions.
The way consumers are interacting with the internet, the way they’re discovering new brands and products is changing at a very fundamental level, and that is going to have a profound impact on this holiday season but also in the years to come.Caila Schwartz, Director of Strategy and Consumer Insights at Salesforce
Use free AI tools to work smarter, not harder: ‘It’s like having a business coach on call’
Bob Phibbs, CEO of The Retail Doctor, a retail consultancy, is seeing a growing number of his clients solve problems and improve their performance with free, easily available AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity.
A hockey retailer asked an AI chatbot to “give me a little-known fact that a mom whose child was just starting hockey would be interested in,” and it replied with a perfect article for the store’s newsletter.
A floral shop that was having trouble hiring asked Perplexity to look at its Indeed job posting and explain why it wasn’t drawing candidates. It instantly received 25 suggestions on how to improve the job listing.
Phibbs himself has seen the open rate for his emails go from 45% to 60% after asking AI platform Claude to rate his messages and help him improve them.
Phibbs suggests small businesses prepare for Small Business Saturday and the holiday season by putting their Google reviews on a spreadsheet, feeding it into ChatGPT, and asking “Are there any patterns that you see?”
“It’s like having a business coach on call,” he told CO—.
Learn about and leverage the AI tools your marketing and messaging platforms offer
Constant Contact, the online marketing platform used by 600,000 customers, most of them small businesses, has AI features that help users create and schedule messages for sales and events like Small Business Saturday.
Businesses can tell the AI tool the date of a planned sale or event “and it will start to populate all of those messages for you across social, across email, across text,” Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, told CO—.
The business owner will see the planned messages and posts and can change or edit them, but the AI suggestions make it easier to get started.
“Now you’ve got something to react to that’s pretty close to done versus you didn’t have anything started to begin with,” Charest said.
[Read more: Digital Strategies Small Businesses Can Use to Boost Sales on Small Business Saturday and Beyond]
“It’s all designed to save people time because we know people are wearing so many hats, particularly during what’s one of the busiest times for small business owners,” he said.
“There’s a huge opportunity to get ahead of the game with these types of tools,” Charest said. “The folks that are embracing the technology and the AI are seeing better results across the board.”
Google Ads, the online advertising platform used by millions of small businesses, has added new ways for businesses to show up in AI-driven searches with its AI Max tool.
“It’s as easy as checking a box in your Google ads account that you want to use AI Max,” Courtney Rose, Vice President, Retail, at Google, told CO—. “That’s why it’s amazing for small businesses who don’t have hundreds of people in their marketing departments.”
Google has seen that businesses using the AI Max feature, which connects their advertising content with a broader range of searches, have 26% more conversions per ad dollar spent compared to last year, Rose said.
CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.
CO—is committed to helping you start, run and grow your small business. Learn more about the benefits of small business membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, here.
