How Artificial Intelligence's (AI) Effect On Retail Sales Is Increasing

PALM BEACH, Fla., April 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Nowadays, almost everybody is aware of the effect Artificial Intelligence (AI) has on our every day lives.  AI is already a part of many people's lives and maybe already a part of your life too — whether you realize it or not. Amazon's Echo (a.k.a. Alexa), Google Home, and Apple's HomePod (with Siri) are perhaps the three most popular products in the thriving field of AI assistants. It's estimated that Amazon has sold about 25 million Echo devices up to now, and they expect that number to go double or more by 2020.  These AI assistants products understand spoken commands and speak in humanlike voices using natural language. They are able to improve the lives of consumers by can offering help for a wide range of things from providing weather forecasts to taking on time-consuming tasks like comparing options and making suggestions. If you're busy and overwhelmed by all the choices available in the market, AI assistants definitely can come to help, like ordering frequently bought groceries when they run low, or suggesting local restaurants based on your preferences with the best deals for you. In short, it's very likely that AI will be of great importance in the lives of consumers in the soon future.   Active Companies in the merchant industry include The OLB Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OLB), GreenBox POS (NASDAQ: GBOX), Shift4 Payments (NYSE: FOUR), Bill.com (NYSE: BILL), Square, Inc. (NYSE: SQ).

The rise of AI and machine learning is causing changes in marketing. Traditionally, consumers purchase the brands that they remember and prefer. Now they can ask the devices to purchase specific brands – the brands they remember and prefer as usual, but also can ask the devices to compare and make suggestions. The devices will compare data like quality, price, and value to make data-driven decisions.  All of this means more competition. Machine learning will help AI assistants shape a consumer's preferences, so these devices will become even more discerning when choosing products. Big companies will have to be more active, keep up with trends and innovate to continue staying ahead of the game instead of just enjoying their market portion or past reputation. Marketers will have to target the devices instead of consumers: they need to be tech-savvy to understand and influence AI algorithms in order for the device to purchase it. Marketing will also become even more personalized as companies totally focused on targeting the right consumers for their products.

The OLB Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OLB) BREAKING NEWS:  OLB Group to Provide AI-Based Analytics to Small- and Medium-Sized Merchants - Company is implementing AI and ML analytics through its ShopFast dashboard, enabling merchants to assess and respond to customer behavior and propensities - The OLB Group, Inc., a provider of cloud-based omnicommerce and payment acceptance solutions for small- and mid-sized merchants, announced that customers using its ShopFast service will have access to new customer analytic capabilities which can improve competitive positioning. ShopFast is the point-of-sale solution within OLB's OmniSoft™ cloud-based business management platform, which provides merchants with seamless integration across all aspects of business operations.

The analytics features will work as an extension to the ShopFast merchant dashboard by offering data-driven insights on customer buying and browsing patterns, inventory and business processes, and predictive analytics regarding additional consumer propensities and behaviors. Employing specialized artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms and processes, this extension of ShopFast can put merchants on a more competitive footing with large retailers while helping them achieve a deeper and more comprehensive view of their own business.

"Most large e-Commerce and brick-and-mortar merchants use advanced customer and sales analytics tools to increase customer engagement and sales, but the cost and complexity associated with these features have kept many small- and medium-sized merchants from following suit," said Ronny Yakov, Chief Executive Officer of The OLB Group. "Empowering merchants with solutions to better understand their customers' behaviors can lead to operational efficiencies, improvements to loyalty and incentive programs, and provide data which can inform product selection decisions. OLB is keenly focused on empowering its merchants to effectively compete through efficient solutions which are easy to implement and use. We anticipate that this new capability will offer substantial benefits to our customers."

The new analytics features will be available to all ShopFast merchants in the third quarter of 2021 at no additional cost.  Merchants interested in implementing omnicommerce services can set up a ShopFast or OmniSoft account at https://cardaccept.com/#contact.   For more information about The OLB Group, please visit https://olb.com/ or http://olb.com/investors-data/.

Other recent developments in the eCommerce/Merchant industry include:

Square, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) recently announced the availability of new inventory management features for Square for Retail sellers, to help automate and improve one of the most challenging, but critical, processes businesses of all sizes face. New features like Easy Item Create, Quick Inventory Counting, and Smart Stock Alerts provide sellers greater control over their inventory management, and improve efficiency with better ways to create, count, and reorder inventory.

"Before we started using Square's new inventory management features, keeping track of our stock could have been a full time job," said Kamala Allison, owner of Fybr Bamboo, a clothing and homegoods store in Santa Cruz, California. "Taking stock used to be an all-night affair, but with Quick Inventory Counting we can just use a barcode scanner to quickly and easily get an accurate view of our inventory. Up-to-date inventory means no more accidental sales of out-of-stock items, which is disappointing to our customers, and Smart Stock Alerts enable us to improve cash flow and replenish our best-sellers before we miss a sale."

Shift4 Payments (NYSE: FOUR), the leader in integrated payment processing solutions, recently marked the one-year anniversary of its launch of Shift4Cares.com, a website that the company created to raise funds and increase awareness for U.S. merchants facing the economic brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since its launch, the site has served as a resource for news outlets, businesses, and government agencies, providing valuable transaction volume data to assess the ongoing economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the data on Shift4Cares.com has revealed, merchants in the hospitality sector experienced a severe decline one year ago at the pandemic's start, with restaurant and hotel transactions plummeting nearly 75% during March of 2020. The data has shown transaction volume recovered somewhat steadily from May through October of 2020 but experienced declines throughout the holiday months of November and December 2020 as cases spread and increased restrictions were put in place. Since January 2021 there has been an accelerated recovery in transaction volumes with March 2021 representing a 215% increase from the pandemic "trough" level in April 2020.

GreenBox POS (NASDAQ: GBOX), an emerging financial technology company leveraging proprietary blockchain security to build customized payment solutions, recently announced it has partnered with Elliptic, a leading provider of cryptoasset risk management and blockchain analytics solutions, to implement anti-money laundering (AML) monitoring systems for cryptoassets.

Elliptic's products Navigator and Lens help financial institutions and businesses detect and prevent financial crime in the cryptocurrency world. Their monitoring systems will allow GreenBox to quickly scale up their AML and sanctions compliance. Elliptic's crypto transaction monitoring capability detects high-risk crypto transactions and identifies high-risk customers based on activity, source of funds and destination tracing, and an audit trail of accurate crypto transaction records.

Bill.com (NYSE: BILL), a leading provider of cloud-based software that simplifies, digitizes and automates complex back-office financial operations for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) recently announced an expansion of the company's partner ecosystem with Microsoft Dynamics 365, including Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Microsoft Dynamics GP. Mutual customers will now be able to take control of their financial processes, save time and scale with confidence through the power of the integrations' accounts payables (AP) and accounts receivables (AR) intelligent automation workflows and payments.

"The Bill.com and Dynamics 365 sync streamlines our entire AP process - from coding invoices, collecting approvals, to making digital payments - enabling us to have real-time visibility and understanding of our company's cash position both with the accounting team and at the asset management level," said Collin Casper, CFO of JMA Ventures LLC. "This integration eliminates duplication of work efforts and saves us tremendous time across the entire company."

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