As AI continually infuses the e-commerce sector with fresh vitality, digital retail is undergoing a significant transformation. To keep pace with these changes, a growing number of digital retail players are now re-evaluating their strategies through an AI lens, seeking new avenues for development. If digital retail is seen as an unmissable opportunity for SaaS providers, then AI retail represents the next frontier for digital retailers in the AI age.

The focus on AI retail by digital retailers stems not only from the expansion and refinement of AI application scenarios but also from AI's proven ability to reduce costs and enhance efficiency for brand merchants. Today, we observe digital retail pioneers like Weimob and Youzan fully embracing AI, offering brand merchants a variety of AI tools to facilitate their transition and upgrade from the digital to the AI era.

It is anticipated that with the increasing participation of players and the proliferation of AI tools, AI will become a standard feature for brand merchants, aiding them in a comprehensive AI transition and upgrade. For brand merchants, this AI transition and upgrade signify a profound self-reshaping and reconstruction, marking the start of a new cycle in their AI transformation journey.

AI Retail: More Comprehensive and Thorough

AI's immense potential lies in its foundation on AI technology rather than being a mere modification of existing internet technologies. While SaaS and digital retail can bring about certain changes for brand merchants, these changes are often constrained by existing elements, traditional processes, and assets. Although these changes can foster growth, they do not fundamentally transform the intrinsic elements, processes, and links within brand merchants.

With the rapid deployment of AI, particularly in its comprehensive transformation of the retail industry, AI retail has emerged as a frontrunner. Unlike digital retail, which merely tweaks the operational logic of the retail industry, AI retail takes a more holistic and thorough approach. By transforming the intrinsic elements and operational links of the retail industry, it achieves a complete reshaping of retail. This process not only brings changes at the product tool level but also reshapes and reinvents the retail industry, demonstrating even greater potential.

From the current vantage point, the magic of AI retail may primarily manifest in cost reduction and efficiency enhancement. However, as AI retail matures and evolves, it will reshape and reinvent the retail industry. When this transformation is complete, the retail landscape will no longer be based on traditional elements, patterns, and logic but will evolve into a decentralized entity that blends virtuality and reality, numbers and actuality.

AI Retail: Smarter and More Comprehensive

In the SaaS and digital retail eras, retail's significance primarily revolved around product display, promotion, and marketing. From an industrial chain perspective, retail's functions and significance were limited to the latter half of the process. While these functions ensured a seamless connection between industrial-end products and downstream consumers, retail's potential was significantly diminished if it only served the latter half of sales without supporting upstream research and development, design, and production.

With the advent of the AI era, particularly as AI retail becomes standard, its functions extend beyond traditional marketing and sales to encompass the upstream industrial end. By deeply empowering the industrial end, AI retail influences product research and development, design, and production, thereby providing comprehensive empowerment to the industry from its source. At this juncture, AI retail's functions and roles are more comprehensive.

In addition to its comprehensive influence on the entire industrial end, AI retail is also smarter. In the SaaS and digital retail eras, marketing plans were based solely on existing information. With the advent of AI tools, they can not only devise marketing plans based on existing information but also predict unforeseen circumstances using their data, thereby helping players achieve cost reduction and efficiency enhancement from the outset.

As AI retail becomes increasingly intelligent and comprehensive, its functions and roles will transcend traditional product sales to include the collection, analysis, and organization of first-line data. By doing so, AI retail not only becomes a "propagandist" for C-end consumers but also serves as a "strategist" and "advisor" for B-end producers.

AI Retail: More Decentralized and Diversified

As AI is implemented across an increasing number of industries and scenarios, our most intuitive observation is the growing decentralization and diversification of industries and scenarios. The retail sector is no exception. As AI retail expands and connects with more brand merchants, it brings about increased decentralization and diversification.

From a decentralization perspective, AI retail fosters a deeper and more comprehensive connection between retail, C-end, and B-end. Previously, retail was confined to the end of the industrial chain, merely at the level of product sales. With the advent of the AI retail era, retail not only penetrates to the forefront of product-consumer connection but also delves into the forefront of product production.

From a diversification perspective, AI retail enables a transformation of retail formats. Traditional retail was limited to traditional elements, processes, and links, failing to achieve diversified operations in terms of retail manifestations and formats. With industrial and consumption upgrades, the single format and operational model of traditional retail have faced increasing difficulties. With the arrival of the AI retail era, retail formats begin to transform from traditional single forms into diversified formats in the AI era.

As AI retail becomes more decentralized and diversified, it will not only achieve cost reduction and efficiency enhancement for brand merchants but also uncover new development breakthroughs for the upstream and downstream of the industry. At this juncture, AI retail will transcend its current business model and market size, embracing new business models and opening up new development opportunities.

As AI is increasingly implemented and applied across industries and scenarios, it is demonstrating ever-greater imagination. Unlike the SaaS and digital retail eras, AI retail offers an even more expansive imaginative space. When we envision AI retail, we should not confine ourselves to the level of product sales but should explore higher dimensions, newer functions, and roles to truly unlock greater development opportunities for AI retail.