Optimizing the usage of voice assistants for shopping

Abstract

Objectives: To measure the awareness of voice assistants among the consumers and to understand the reasons for consumers minimal voice shopping. To measure the challenges faced by voice shopping in spite of voice assistants' upward trend and also to understand the attitude behavior and personality of the consumers for adopting and for ignoring voice shopping. Methods / Statistical Analysis: The design used for this study is descriptive and the population that was considered for the study belongs to Chennai, India. The sample taken for the study is 65 respondents and sampling technique used is convenient sampling. Statistical tools namely percentage analysis, correlation, and chi-square analysis is applied. Findings: Most (86%) of the respondents are aware of the voice assistant, but still they were not trained to use it for shopping. Female respondents are hesitant to use the voice assistant for shopping and the reason for ignorance was user voice was not identified and respondents get error message. Respondents feel unsecured in using payment options in voice assistant. Attitude and technology usage plays a major role. From the study, it is evident that the awareness of the existing voice assistants is low and consumer's behavior is not consistent. Applications / Improvements: Thus to increase the usage of voice assistants for shopping, customer awareness and engagement should be increased and the user can be motivated about discounts and offers and providing secured payment system. Even if people can't afford voice assistants speakers (like Alexa, Google home), facilities are available in smart phones, even for which the awareness is less. Attitude and technology has to improve a lot so that after creating awareness and after providing modalities of safety measures to the respondents, usage might improve in future.