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Chatbots

The 5 Best Ecommerce Chatbots for Your Online Store

Jacquelyn Dunham

10 min read

Jan 26, 2024

More than 2 billion people shop online. Ecommerce stores have more opportunities than ever to grow their businesses, but with increasing demand, it can be challenging to keep up with customer support needs. Other issues, like cart abandonment and poor customer experience, only add fuel to the fire.

Ecommerce chatbots address these pain points by providing customers with immediate support, answering queries, and automating the sales process.

Let’s take a closer look at how chatbots work, how to use them with your shop, and five of the best chatbots out there.

What is an ecommerce chatbot?

A chatbot is a software program that’s designed to simulate human conversations and interactions. Chatbots for ecommerce are specially designed to:

• answer customer questions,
• assist with ordering,
• automate sales,
• provide post-purchase support,
• connect customers to agents.

Customers’ conversations with chatbots are based on predefined conditions, events, or triggers centered on the customer journey.

Ecommerce chatbots can assist customers immediately and automatically, allowing your support team to focus on more complicated issues.

Let’s say you purchased a pair of jeans from an online clothing store but you want to return them. You’re not sure how to start the return process, so you open the site’s ecommerce chatbot to get help. 

Immediately, the bot presents several options, including one for returning your items. You tap the “start a return” option, and the ecommerce chatbot walks you through the whole process.

This example is just one of the many ways you can use an AI chatbot for ecommerce customer support. 

How to use an ecommerce chatbot

Chatbots in ecommerce help online retailers improve customer service and sales. Long customer service wait times turn away would-be buyers who seek answers before clicking on the “buy” button.

Ecommerce chatbots relieve consumer friction, leading to higher sales and satisfaction.

According to our clients, the best ecommerce chatbot examples show the potential to:

1. Increase online ordering by 300%
2. Drive 30% more leads

Utilizing a chatbot for ecommerce offers crucial benefits, starting with the most obvious.

Answer customer questions

Research shows that 81% of customers want to solve problems on their own before dealing with support. An ecommerce chatbot hits on this need without impacting budgets.

Ecommerce chatbots offer:

• an employee-like experience,
• easy solution for answering common questions,
• money-saving opportunity for brands.

Omni-channel support is crucial in today’s ecommerce landscape. Some leads prefer talking to a person on the phone, while others will leave your store for a competitor’s site if you don’t have live chat or an ecommerce chatbot.

You can customize your bot to:

• assist with order tracking,
• recommend products,
• offer discount codes,
• log feedback,
• so much more.

Ecommerce chatbots can revitalize a store’s customer experience and make it more interactive too.

Create a more interactive customer experience

Creating a positive customer experience is a top priority for brands in 2024. A laggy site or checkout mistakes lead to higher levels of cart abandonment (more on that soon) and failure to meet consumer expectations.

Chatbots engage customers during key parts of the customer journey to alleviate buyer friction and guide them to the right products or services.

Ecommerce chatbots can ask customers if they need help if they’ve been on a page for a long time with little activity.

Chatbots can also work behind the scenes to gather information about a customer and use this zero-party data to:

• make suggestions based on the consumer’s needs or interests,
• guide the consumer to products or services that will best fit their needs,
• assist during the sales process to increase conversion rates.

Ecommerce chatbots offer customizable solutions to reach new customers and provide a cost-effective way to increase conversions automatically.

Prevent cart abandonment

Cart abandonment rates are near 70%, costing ecommerce stores billions of dollars per year in lost sales. Consumers who abandoned their carts spent time on your site and were ready to buy, but something went wrong along the way.

The price point may have been an issue, or it could have been a lack of free shipping or any number of other issues.

Chatbots influence conversion rates by intervening during key purchasing times to build trust, answer questions, and address concerns in real time.

Custom chatbots can nudge consumers to finish the checkout process. You can even customize your bot to work in multilingual environments for seamless conversations across language barriers.

Reducing cart abandonment increases revenue from leads who are already browsing your store and products.

Provide post-sale support

The best chatbots offer post-sales support that drives customer loyalty and satisfaction. They answer questions about:

• returns, 
• refunds,
• shipping and order issues.

Bots can even provide customers with useful product tips and how-tos to help them make the most of their purchases. 

Because chatbots are always on and available, customers can get the help they need when it’s most convenient for them.

Monitor and improve your chatbots

One advantage of chatbots is that they can provide you with data on how customers interact with and use them. You can analyze that data to improve your bot and the customer experience.

The truth is that 40% of web users don’t care if they’re being helped by a human or a bot as long as they get the support they need.

So, make it a point to monitor your bot and its performance to ensure you’re providing the support customers need.

I recommend experimenting with different ecommerce templates to see which ones work best for your customers.

Gather customer data

Chatbots gather data from the customer and can build an entire customer profile. Leveraging big data allows customer service and bots to:

• learn more about customers,
• provide a better experience,
• recommend products or services that touch on pain points.

Selecting the right chatbot for your store takes time and effort. I’ve done most of the research for you to provide a list of the best bots to consider in 2024.

5 best ecommerce chatbots to supercharge your business in 2024

Customer queries take up a lot of support time and resources. Resolving questions fast with the help of an ecommerce chatbot will drive more leads, reduce costs, and free up support agents to focus on higher-value tasks.

I’m going to review the best ecommerce chatbots, which help businesses:

• reduce support costs by 30%,
• resolve 35% of customer queries or complaints,
• offer 24/7 support to customers.

Add an AI chatbot to your ecommerce platform, and you can resolve up to 80% of questions. Businesses that want to reduce costs, improve customer experience, and provide 24/7 support can use the bots below to help.

1. ChatBot

ChatBot redefines the customer journey by reducing response times, improving customer experience, and reducing costs without relying on the likes of:

• OpenAI
• Google Bard
• Bing AI

Businesses benefit from an in-house ecommerce chatbot platform that requires no coding to set up, no third-party dependencies, and quick and accurate answers.

ChatBot integrates seamlessly into Shopify to showcase offerings, reduce product search time, and show order status – among many other features.

Main features

• Drag-and-drop visual building for your ecommerce chatbot to create your stories with zero coding required.
• In-platform testing tool to test your ecommerce chatbot before pushing it live on your store.
• Launch an ecommerce AI chatbot that follows your brand’s style in a few clicks using the free chat widget.
• Prebuilt chatbot templates enable brands to launch, customize, and reuse stories.
• Real-time analytics and reports empower stakeholders to monitor the customer experience and learn which stories are more popular.
• Collect data through the bot to create and personalize experiences.
• Integrate ChatBot into the messaging platforms that are part of the customer journey already, such as Messenger, LiveChat, Slack, Shopify, and more.
• Open API to create custom solutions for ecommerce businesses, powered by ChatBot.

ChatBot hits all customer touchpoints, and AI resolves 80% of queries.

2. Chatfuel

Chatfuel focuses on ecommerce bots for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Brands can connect the platform to their websites if they integrate Messenger into it. Features

As one of the best ecommerce chatbot options for customer queries on social media, Chatfuel’s features include:

• Drag-and-drop builder and no coding required to create your own chatbot.
• 30+ ready-made templates that you can use for free.
• Funnel customers from direct messages or ads into your communication channels automatically.
• Built-in CRM to segment and qualify leads.
• Integration with Shopify, Google Sheets, Zapier, and more.

Pros

• 99.99% uptime guarantee.
• 24/7 support with 5-minute response times.
• Integration with ChatGPT, Google Sheets, Stripe, and Zapier.
• Re-engage with customers using chat history.

Cons

• Third-party integration with ChatGPT makes the chatbot for ecommerce reliant on another service provider for its WhatsApp features.
• Slow-to-release features and integrations that other ecommerce chatbot platforms offer years prior.

3. Tidio

Tidio is an AI chatbot that integrates human support to solve customer problems. This AI chatbot for ecommerce uses Lyro AI for more natural and human-like conversations.

Tidio can answer customer questions and solve problems, but it can also track visitors across your site, allowing you to create personalized offers based on their activities.

Features

• Dozens of pre-made templates.
• Create custom greetings for new and returning customers.
• Manage all live chat, Messenger, WhatsApp, email, and Instagram chats in Tidio Multichannel.
• Visual chat builder. 
• Use ecommerce chatbots to send data to your other platforms.
• Analytics keeps track of key metrics.
• Handle order management and ticketing.

Pros

• Simple installation.
• Visual builder eliminates the need for coding knowledge.
• Bot-to-human feature.

Cons

• Lacks arithmetic support.
• Limited options for assigning chats. 
• Templates can be tricky to navigate.

4. ManyChat

ManyChat is a rules-based ecommerce chatbot with robust features and pre-made templates to streamline the setup process. 

Ecommerce businesses use ManyChat to redirect leads from ads to messenger bots. You can also use your bot to automate comment replies on Facebook.

ManyChat’s ecommerce chatbots move leads through the customer journey by sharing sales and promotions, helping leads browse products and more. You can also offer post-sale support by helping with returns or providing shipping information.

The bot-to-human feature ensures that users can reach out to your team for support. There’s also an AI Assistant to help with flow creation and messaging.

ManyChat works with Instagram, WhatsApp, SMS, and Facebook Messenger, but it also offers several integrations, including HubSpot, MailChimp, Google Sheets, and more.

Features

• Launch new products, upsell customers, and get reviews directly on Messenger.
• Run limited-time giveaways, quizzes, and challenges.
• Allow customers to browse products or learn about sales.
• Offer post-sale support to assist with returns.
• Bot-to-human function. 
• ManyChat Analytics allows you to track key metrics.

Pros

• Respond to buyers instantly on social media platforms.
• Chatbot users can purchase right from Messenger or your own site.
• Provide personalized experiences and offers.

Cons

• Missing some top features of ecommerce chatbots. 
• Limited integrations.
• Customer segmentation is lacking.

5. Snatchbot

Snatchbot is different from other ecommerce chatbots on this list. The platform helps you build an ecommerce chatbot using voice recognition, machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP). 

The omni-channel platform supports the entire lifecycle, from development to hosting, tracking, and monitoring. In the Bot Store, you’ll find a large collection of chatbot templates you can use to help build your bot, including customer support, FAQs, hotel room reservations, and more. Templates save time and allow you to create your bot even without much technical knowledge.

Features

• Premium interactions, with geo-localization and translation.
• Extract interactions to gather data from leads (email address, phone number, etc.).
• Bot-to-human function for more complicated conversations.
• Text-to-speech and speech-to-text options.
• Conversation history.

Pros

• Create a custom bot that meets your needs.
• Chatbot templates make it easy to get your bot up and running.
• Plugins enhance the bot’s capabilities.

Cons

• User segmentation is absent.
• Some chatbot elements are missing, like the option to display product lists.
• A/B testing may be challenging.

Solving customer queries for ecommerce businesses

Online stores must provide a top-tier customer experience because 49% of consumers stopped shopping at brands in the past year due to a bad experience. Resolving consumer queries and providing better service is easier with ecommerce chatbots than expanding internal teams.

An AI chatbot reduces response times and allows customer service agents to work on higher-priority issues.

You can integrate the ecommerce chatbots above into your website, social media channels, and even Shopify store to improve the customer experience your brand offers.