E-commerce chatbot: all you need to know in one place

Online trade is growing with each day. Its popularity and development have rapidly grown, especially in the last year. Statistics show that online trade-in 2020 has made up for even 18% of the total world commerce, and that percentage grows daily. The number of online customers from 2014 until today has almost doubled and is now about 2,14 billion people.

Alongside the growth of the number of webshops, so is the need for constant business growth. Numerous employers and companies are optimizing their websites so they can provide their clients with the best possible user experience and encourage sales. One of the useful tools that they use is an e-commerce chatbot.

Chatbot is a computer system used for automating and speeding up communication, and an e-commerce chatbot is a more specific subtype. As its name states, an e-commerce (i.e., electronic trade) chatbot’s task is to offer products, finalise clients’ purchases or simply offer support when a customer is looking for a certain product. In simpler terms, we can say that a chatbot on the web is like a shop assistant in a shop.

An e-commerce chatbot can offer, and sell various products or services. The best-known e-commerce chatbots are the ones that sell physical products (such as the LEGO chatbot Ralf). But an e-commerce chatbot can have a different role.

For example, the Snaptravel chatbot offers ideal travel accommodation based on wishes, needs, and the user’s budget. Domino’s pizza has one of the best-known world’s chatbots for ordering food. Considering that more and more people (especially new generations) order using smartphones and type rather than call, it leads to increased sales. Countless possibilities and only one solution.

One of the most famous platforms for e-commerce chatbots is Facebook Messenger where there are more than 300 000 of them! Other numbers, statistics, and interesting chatbot facts also highlight its importance in the online world. Besides Facebook messenger, it is also possible to implement it on other platforms (Viber, Google, web). There are numerous sites today describing how you can simply make your own chatbot. But if it was that simple, everyone would already have it.

If you plan to implement chatbot into your business, consider the creation cost. If you plan to make it yourself using platforms for creating chatbots, plans and amounts are mostly monthly. Furthermore, be honest about your knowledge and possibilities. Even if you have enough computer knowledge, creating a chatbot can be very complex and demand more time. Learn all you can about the tools and the e-commerce platform you wish to connect your chatbot with. The best known are BigCommerce, Magento, Shopify and WooCommerce. Be careful when integrating your chatbot, depending on your web shop and the website.

Another option is to contact the software firm that implements and creates a chatbot specifically for your needs. Sometimes it’s better to leave things to the experts. Besides getting a team that takes care of you, eventually, you will save time and money.

In a widespread market, it is important to find a way to stand out from your competition. Although the number of companies that use chatbot is constantly growing, only you have a chatbot that has the design, stickers and copywriting created for your brand specifically. Research has shown that even 88% of users will never return to a web page because of a bad user experience. Also, even 86% is ready to pay more if they encounter a good user experience.

Chatbot is proactive. Greeting messages and providing help when getting around a webshop. Suggesting products based on users’ answers or even based on collected data that a chatbot has, can significantly increase conversion. The company’s ROI is growing and so is the clients’ satisfaction.

It is not necessary to emphasize that an e-commerce chatbot works 24/7, just like a webshop. An E-commerce chatbot is the right hand to the electronic trade and can hide all its shortcomings. If you are aware that you should optimize your webshop, that your site is slow and that the user has difficulty getting certain information which causes an increase of bounce rate or giving up the purchase (cart abandon rate), then chatbot is an ideal solution for you. While working on improving your online trade, chatbot keeps your users, creates new ones, and strengthens the positive image of the brand through fun, multimedia, and innovative content.

The disadvantage of an e-commerce chatbot is the lack of ‘face to face’ communication, but that is a disadvantage of any online business. Still, although two-way live communication isn’t entirely possible because of the distance, the administrator can, upon the client’s request, intervene during the conversation by manually typing messages offering a personalized user service.

An E-commerce chatbot offers support for your buyer in browsing through offers, the availability of information, and eventually, finalizing the purchase. Besides engaging users, it collects data and offers a better insight into things as they really are. It doesn’t hurt to know the behaviors of web visitors. On the contrary, it’s very useful in marketing, but also in sales.

With the help of a combination of chatbots and an integrated e-commerce system, you can significantly improve your webshop. It’s a known fact that business process automation increases efficiency and decreases cost on the level of the whole company, so we advise you not to shy away from software solutions of this age. For more information, feel free to contact us.