Chatbot for Ecommerce

Not all visitors on an ecommerce website are alike. Online shoppers may be coming to your site from different places and at different stages of the purchase process. Some of them are in the early stages of general product research, some are looking to choose a product, and some may be ready to make a purchase. As an ecommerce store owner, you need ways to keep shoppers on your website and get them into your sales funnel. The main purpose of your ecommerce site is to help visitors at different stages, remove obstacles in their way and ultimately close the sale.

An ecommerce chatbot is designed to take care of these functions. It engages visitors on your website 24/7, gets their attention and keeps them from leaving your website without performing an action. Such a chatbot is good at starting a conversation, removing obstacles by answering visitors' questions, and guiding them while they complete their purchase online.

What is an Ecommerce Chatbot?

An ecommerce chatbot acts as an automated 24/7 sales representative for your online shop. It greets your visitors, finds potential customers by answering their questions, improves customer retention rate, simplifies the customers’ choices, and gives out additional information about your products – all with the ultimate aim of leading customers within your sales funnel to complete their purchases online.

Visitors on your online store can use their own words to ask your chatbot a question and instantly get the answer without the need for a human operator. By effectively answering visitors' questions, the chatbot is in a great position to find new customers. It removes obstacles, highlights the advantages of your product or service, and gives out crucial information that they may need in order to complete their purchase. In case a visitor has a specific question about a product or wants to talk to a human representative, the chatbot connects them with your sales team through a built-in form or LiveChat intervention.

Why are Ecommerce Chatbots So Good at Converting?

New visitors tend to stay on your website only for a short period of time, and this short window is the only opportunity you have to convert them into customers. Here lies the problem: your website may be great for browsing and presenting information, but it’s not nearly as good at facilitating purchases. Your product pages are full of information and CTAs that tend to distract your shoppers. When a shopper hesitates or needs a push for conversion, they have no place to go. Pop-ups and promotional banners are no longer effective at keeping visitors on your website as most visitors tend to ignore them.

This is where an ecommerce chatbot stands out. Visitors who come to your website and landing pages are interested in the products you sell. But once they are on your website, they may have questions about your offers or policies that prevent them from completing the purchase. At this point, your chatbot can engage your website's visitors and answer their questions while focusing only on the conversion goal: sales. This in turn can remove the visitors’ doubts and apprehensions and encourage them to make a decision.

As a floating element on top of your website, the ecommerce chatbot gets your visitors' attention within the first few seconds of their arrival on your website. Once it has a shopper’s attention, the chatbot offers help and suggestions related to the product the shopper is looking at. Once the shopper understands that the chatbot is there to help, the chatbot can progress to answering questions, removing obstacles, and increasing motivation to complete the online purchase.

Here are a couple examples of real conversations between online shoppers and an ecommerce chatbot:

Example 1: Ecommerce chatbot for an online coffee machine store
Chatbot: "Hello! Welcome to our Coffee Store!
I can see that you are interested in the Gaggia Espresso Machine. How may I help you?"
Visitor: "Do you provide warranty for your coffee machines?"
Chatbot: "All products offered on our website have a manufacturer warranty of 1-3 years. You can see the warranty period for each product listed in the product description."
Visitor: "Do you ship to all regions?"
Chatbot: "We ensure delivery of our products to your doorstep within 5 business days from your purchase date. Shipping to remote areas might take another 3 business days. You can read about our shipping and delivery terms here."
Visitors: "I want to order"
Chatbot: "I will be happy to help you place an order. How would you like to buy: purchase online, or complete purchase by phone?"
Visitor: "I want to buy online"
Chatbot: "To purchase online simply add the items you wish to buy to your shopping cart. Then visit the shopping cart and click on "checkout" to go to the billing page.
Note that you can buy as a guest or open an account and get a 5% discount on all products.
If you have questions or need help with completing your order, I am here to assist you."
Visitor: "Thanks a lot!"
Chatbot: "I am glad I could help!"


Example 2: Ecommerce chatbot for a jewelry store
Chatbot: “Hello, and welcome to ABC Jewelry. What can I help you with?”
Visitor: “I don’t know what ring size I should buy.”
Chatbot: “To find out your ring size, take a thin strip of paper and wrap it around your finger. Mark the point where the two sides of the paper meet. Now unwrap the paper and measure the length between the two marks. This will be the ‘circumference’ of the ring. Use the table below to find the size that matches the measured circumference (in mm).”
Visitor: “I’m buying the ring as a gift for my girlfriend. How do I find her ring size?”
Chatbot: “If measuring the finger is not an option, you will need an existing ring that fits well. Use a ruler to measure the inner diameter (the largest distance between the inner faces) of the ring. Then use the table below to find the ring size that matches the measured diameter (in mm).
Would you like to get more help with choosing a ring for your partner?"
Visitor: "Yes"
Chatbot: "I recommend that you to speak with one of our representatives who can help you choose the perfect ring.
Please type your phone number and an advisor will get back to you."
Visitor: “123-456-789”
Chatbot: "Thank you. What is your name?"
Visitor: "Tom Thompson"

An ecommerce chatbot is highly popular among all types of ecommerce websites, SaaS (software-as-a-service) companies, travel agencies, cinemas, and more. If designed well, an ecommerce chatbot can increase your online sales from existing traffic by as much as 300%!

Top 5 Features of a Successful Ecommerce Chatbot

Even though there are many factors that affect number of sales conversions on your website, a basic understanding of some important features can make your numbers look a lot better. Here, we’ll focus on the top 5 features in your ecommerce chatbot that can lead to a 300% increase in online sales from the existing traffic on your website!

1. Chatbot Triggers and Introduction
The first few sentences that your chatbot uses to start a conversation are termed as the chatbot introduction. This introduction helps your chatbot engage with your website visitors, welcome them, and reflect their need for a given product or offer.

The chatbot introduction separates your chatbot from other pop-ups or advertisement banners on your website that we already know don't work. These few sentences capture your visitors' attention and get them to understand that the chatbot is a tool that can help them while using your website. A good introduction that welcomes visitors and reflects their needs is key to achieving your chatbot's goals for online sales conversion.

2. Mobile Chatbot
Most internet users access ecommerce stores from their mobile phones. It is quite likely that your first interaction with a new potential customer will be on your mobile website. Chatbots are the ideal tools for interacting with mobile users, and offer the added benefit of making your website mobile-friendly.

3. Chatbot Answers and NLP
An ecommerce chatbot can be loaded with hundreds of questions and answers to cover any questions asked during the chat. You can edit or customize these questions & answers according to your shop needs. Chatbot answers can include videos, images, and even external links to great content that will help you convert more.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a feature that enables your chatbot to understand what people are asking in their own words. Using free text gives your shoppers the freedom to have an intuitive conversation, and anyone who has worked in sales and marketing knows the importance of a friendly conversation in the sales process.

Visitors who come to your website are often looking for real information about a product or offer. You’ve probably paid a lot of money to bring these visitors to your website and it’s possible that a simple question is preventing them from converting. Providing real answers to your visitors’ questions gets them into your sales funnel and turns them into paying customers.

4. AI Self Learning
While talking with visitors, your chatbot AI scans hundreds of conversations in order to learn new questions and recommended optimizations. Once it’s online and interacting with your visitors, the chatbot starts sending you email notifications about new questions it has picked up. All you need to do is add answers for these questions and the chatbot will be able to address them going forward.

The chatbot's AI self learning allows you to keep discovering questions or information gaps that are preventing your visitors from completing a purchase. You no longer have to keep guessing why people are not buying your products. Instead of constantly looking for new and creative ways to promote your site, you can get right down to addressing the real needs of your customers.

5. Sending Leads to Your CRM
If you integrate your ecommerce chatbot with your CRM, all sales leads collected by the chatbot will make their way straight to your sales team. This is an important tool for managing incoming sales leads, as it allows your sales reps to make effective follow-up calls.

CRM integration ensures that the leads your chatbot picks up go directly into the sales funnel, after which your sales team can follow up with promotional emails or phone calls. During its conversation with your visitors the chatbot collects valuable information about the potential customer and what they’re looking for. Equipped with this information, your sales rep can make a follow-up call as soon as possible. Getting back to leads within the first few hours dramatically increases the chances of a productive sales call.


Ready to take your ecommerce site to the next level with the help of an ecommerce chatbot? VirtualSpirits has ready-to-use ecommerce chatbot templates to get you started. To talk more about your specific chatbot requirements, get in touch with us.