Voice Commerce: What It Is and How Online Stores Can Use It

What is voice commerce?

Voice commerce (also called v-commerce or voice shopping) is any part of the shopping journey done by voice: searching, comparing, asking about a product, reordering or tracking a delivery. The shopper speaks, software understands the request, and the answer comes back as speech, text or both.

How does voice commerce work?

Three technologies sit behind every voice shopping experience:

• Speech recognition turns what the shopper says into text.
• An AI model works out what they want and finds the answer in the store's data: products, stock, orders, policies.
• Text-to-speech reads the answer aloud. On a talking avatar, the face's lips move with the words.

Types of voice commerce

• Smart speakers and phone assistants: the shopper asks a general assistant, which decides which store or product to suggest.
• Voice search on the store: a microphone in the search bar that turns speech into a search query.
• Voice assistants on the store: an assistant on the product page that the shopper can talk to and hear back from, using only that store's catalog.

For a store owner, the difference matters. On a general assistant you compete for one suggestion. On your own storefront the conversation is yours, and so are the answers.

Where voice helps an online store

• Mobile shoppers, for whom typing a long question on a small keyboard is the slowest part.
• Product questions that are easier to say than to type: "Will this fit a small balcony?"
• Shoppers who prefer not to type, or find it hard to.
• Shoppers in other languages: they can ask in their own language and hear the answer in it.
• Hesitation on the product page, where a quick spoken answer keeps the shopper from leaving.

That last point connects directly to abandoned carts; see how to reduce cart abandonment.

Limits of voice commerce

Voice is not always better. It is awkward in public places and offices, it can mishear brand names and model numbers, and a long list of options is hard to follow by ear. Products are still chosen with the eyes.

That is why the best voice experiences are mixed: the shopper speaks, hears a short answer, and sees product cards and captions on the screen. They can switch to typing at any moment.

Voice commerce and privacy

A voice is personal data, and shoppers know it. Before adding voice to a store, ask your vendor:

• Is the audio stored, or only the text of what was said?
• Does the microphone switch on only when the shopper taps it?
• Is the shopper told how their data is used, in their language?

We cover the legal side in voice assistants and personal data. agenola, for example, turns speech into text and keeps only the transcript; audio recordings are not stored.

How to add voice commerce to your store

• Start with the questions shoppers ask most: size, stock, delivery, returns.
• Use an assistant that answers from your own catalog and policies, and hands off to your team when it doesn't know.
• Keep both options: voice and text, with captions.
• Launch on your best-selling product pages and watch which questions come in.
• Measure sales from conversations in your own analytics, not only in the vendor's dashboard.

For the wider picture of AI on the storefront, read our guide to conversational AI for ecommerce or see what an AI shopping assistant does.