How voice commerce changes online shopping

 

The emergence of voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant and Apple’s Siri provides people with the convenience of giving simple commands without lifting a finger. Lights are dimmed, music is started, the statistics of the latest football game are read out, and so on. Thanks to this rapidly developing technology, voice assistants can help out in more areas of life.

 

Including shopping online.

 

 

What is voice commerce

Voice commerce, also known as V-Commerce or simply VC, is online shopping facilitated by a voice assistant. The concept is as easy as it sounds: people tell their voice assistant what they want to buy. The assistant then searches the internet, reads out the options, and once it receives a command, purchases the chosen article.

 

| Voice commerce is online shopping facilitated by a voice assistant

 

Most voice assistants can conduct considerable research when prompted, including reading out customer reviews, comparing deals, and tailoring the product selection to the personal preferences of its user.

 

 

The most popular voice assistants

Usage of voice assistants is on the rise. The size of the market is projected to reach $7.26 billion in 2025, up from $5.61 billion in the previous year.

 

Currently, around 20.5% of the global population has at least one voice assistant, but many people use more than one. This results in a projection of 8.4 billion voice assistants being in use in 2025 (in comparison, the world’s current population is 8.2 billion).

 

 

Illustration of a person interacting with a smart speaker

 

 

In the US, 48.2% of the population is using voice assistants. Google’s Assistant and Apple’s Siri are the most popular, each attracting 36% of all users. However, several other tech giants provide their own assistants. The best known are Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, Samsung’s Bixby, IBM’s Watson and LG’s ThinQ.

 

 

Voice commerce in numbers

A recent report revealed that 17.9% of people use voice commerce at least once a week. Unsurprisingly, this form of shopping is most popular with the youngest economically active generation, Gen Z^[a]. 30.4% of Gen Z consumers use voice commerce, as opposed to 27.6% of Millenials, 14.9% of Generation X and a mere 6.8% of Baby Boomers.

 

| 17.9% of people use voice commerce at least once a week

 

And what is purchased? According to data collected by KPMG, consumer electronics are the most often VC-shopped product category (60%). Groceries come in second with 54%, while hobby products are third (51%), followed by household items (49%), fashion (47%), furniture (40%), garden equipment (40%) and finally, beauty products (39%).

 

Consumers who shop online via voice command tend to do so because of its convenience (really, how easier can it get than ordering a voice assistant around to do stuff for us), speed, accessibility and personalisation features.

 

Find out why ensuring a seamless online shopping experience matters!

 

 

Voice commerce - implication and dangers for brands

If you want to tap into the potential of VC, you may have to make a few adjustments to your online outlets.

 

First of all, you need to optimise your site for voice assistants. For example, information conveyed in pictures may be lost for customers visiting your webshop/website via voice assistants. Therefore, it’s best to have all important information written out in simple, easy-to-understand text for the voice assistants to read aloud.

 

This also includes voice SEO. Spoken questions are usually formulated differently than keywords typed into a search bar, like “Which is the best sushi restaurant in the neighbourhood” instead of “sushi near me”. Make sure to have your site accommodate both, if possible.

 

 

Illustration of a woman giving voice commands to a smartphone

 

 

If your target audience is really into voice commerce and your product is also in the top VC-shopped categories, you may even consider developing your own voice application. If that’s not viable, you can also work with an existing platform offering VC options like Amazon or Google as an alternative solution.

 

Related topics

Gen Z and e-Commerce

 

Improved accessibility requirements for online platforms in the EU

 

Top 7 e-Commerce trends for 2025

 

 

Dangers of voice commerce

Unfortunately, voice commerce also comes with very specific dangers affecting both brands and consumers.

 

Words fly away, writings remain, as the Romans said, and that’s also true for online shopping. While it’s great to have Siri read out and compare product listings, it may not be easy for consumers to keep all information in mind while making their purchase decisions. This could lead to mistaken purchases where consumers believe they’re buying a product from your brand but are actually buying a lookalike, or even worse, a counterfeit product.

 

| Words fly away, writings remain, as the Romans said, and that’s also true for online shopping

 

This is exactly why fraudsters may be counting on VC to make consumers fall for their fake listings. Yes, it’s true that recognising a fraudulent product listing is hard even if consumers can see the listings. But it’s next to impossible when they’re only listening to the text read out by Google Assistant.

 

Read our guide on how to recognise fake product listings!

 

But even without fraud or consumer error, your brand can lose out on a lot of revenue if you fail to optimise for voice commerce. Your listings will literally become invisible for consumers surfing e-Commerce platforms via Alexa & Co.

 

 

How globaleyez supports your brand in voice commerce

The opportunities and dangers presented by VC highlight the importance of clean marketplaces. When your product listings appear amongst those of fakes, lookalikes and generic products, there’s quite a high chance that consumers simply won’t notice it. This is especially true if they don’t even see the listings, only hear them read out by a voice assistant.

 

globaleyez’s clean marketplaces solution ensures that all that clutter disappears from around your listings, allowing them to shine. As an integral part of our solution, our marketplace monitoring service detects IP-infringing product listings on 150+ marketplaces all over the world. We combine intuitive human expertise with powerful software solutions, including traxster, our in-house software tool that picks out potentially harmful listings in the blink of an eye.

 

| Our clean marketplaces solution eliminates clutter around your listings, making them shine

 

Outside of marketplaces, you need to ensure that no fake shops using your brand or product name can trap would-be customers and dupe them into purchasing fake goods.

 

Our domain monitoring service detects websites, including webshops that feature your product names, brand name, or any misspelled variations of them. We check all domain levels, as well as meta descriptions and HTML text, catching fraudsters who try to infringe on your IP rights.

 

With voice commerce, the danger of grey markets also becomes more prominent. Consumers looking for a great deal may go for the cheapest option, ignoring the fact that they may be buying from an unlicensed vendor and thus exclude themselves from most of your brand’s customer service features and product guarantees.

 

globaleyez’s grey market solution ensures the detection of these unauthorised offers and dismantles grey market structures, ending the unfair competition between your own genuine products.

 

In all of the above cases, our enforcement service seals the deal and ensures the removal of the infringing content from the internet.

 

 

Conclusion

Voice commerce is an exciting branch of e-Commerce, providing comfort and accessibility to consumers, and great opportunities for brands. Make sure you maximise your chances by eliminating fraudulent sellers infringing on your IP rights!

 

Contact us and let’s start creating your personalised online brand protection strategy.