There is something interesting I have noticed about online shopping recently, and it became clearer because of how much I have bought online in the past six months. Just from Jumia alone, I have bought two solar power banks, a pair of shoes, two phone holders for content video recording, one studio microphone for voice recording on my phone, handbags for my wife, and even the phone I am using currently was bought online. When I think about all these purchases it makes me realize how much online shopping has changed without me paying attention to it.
But what truly opened my eyes happened today. I made an order and as I was navigating it, it dawned on me why AI has been assisting me under the covers all of this time without me even realizing it! That simple realization pushed me to write about it in this post.
One thing I now value is how AI saves me from ordering errors. Before now, I used to pick wrong sizes, choose the wrong model, or forget to check something important. These days, any time I’m about to place an order, the app pops up these suggestions and reminders that make me pause and take another look. Sometimes it shows “others bought this instead” or “this works better with your device,” and those small things have saved me from wasting money more times than I can count.
I was also very impressed with the way the app appears to know my purchasing habits. It is not that I look for the same things every day, but when I come back to the app, the products that appears first are always related to the things I have bought or the things I am thinking of buying. After I purchased the microphone, it quickly showed me more attractive holders and easy lighting alternatives for recording. It was not forcing anything on me, just making the decision clearer.
Even the search itself has become easier. Basically when I put in one or two words, AI does the rest of the work and shows the results in such a way that I don't have to scroll for a very long time like I used to. All of these makes it look like the app already knew what I wanted.
None of these small things by themselves may seem like much, but if you combine them, they make online shopping so much easier than it used to be. This is not to say that AI is taking your choices away, it's simply acting like a guidance making sure you do not make mistakes in your shopping.
Shopping online used to be like gambling but these days it is like you have a little helper working behind the scenes to make your experience smoother and better. So, from all these experience I would say my online shopping today is far better and less stressful than it used to be.