TOPICS: Chatbot for Ecommerce    Chatbot Trends   

Ecommerce Chatbots - Online Research Minus the Hassle

Ecommerce chatbots have obvious advantages for your business, but it also helps shoppers by taking their online research process all the way through to a purchase.

Attractive prices and doorstep deliveries are big reasons why people preferto shop online. But ecommerce has an equally important selling point – the freedom to research a hundred different products before buying one. All from the convenience of your own laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

But that’s easier said than done.

Online research can get tiring. And cost you customers.

For a lot of online shoppers, the hassle of actually conducting online research outweighs the convenience that it offers.They need to consider brands, sizes, tech specs, and prices, factor in promotional offers and customer reviews, and repeat the process for a bunch of websites.

So what happens if this research process gets too cumbersome?

The shopper might just prefer to walk into their nearest brick-and-mortar store and be done with it. Or they could head to an ecommerce site they’ve already used before, and find the cheapest or best rated option available there. In either case, your website could end up losing a potential customer.

As an ecommerce business, your website needs to be able to help visitors with online research. So how about assigning them their very own research assistant?

Facilitating online research through conversational bots:

The past couple of years have seen a high demand for ecommerce online research chatbot development. It began with Facebook Messenger AI bots that would help users make purchase decisions, and a number of brands quickly warmed up to the idea. Soon enough, online chatbots had become a popular feature of ecommerce websites as well.

Let’s understand the role of ecommerce online research chatbots through the example of a potential customer. Let’s call her Amy. Amywants to buy a refrigerator, and she wants to find the best product that her budget will allow. What are her options?

Of course, Amy can do the legwork herself. Look at refrigerator brand websites, read through forums and blogs to find out what other people like, and spend hours browsing through online stores to shortlist options. In the process, she can pore over tech sheets and manually compare product features. And so on and so forth.

But what if Amy’s buying process could be much quicker and easier, while remaining thorough at the same time?

That’s what ecommerce chatbots can offer. Imagine that Amy has finally come to your site after browsing through several others. She expects to find the same kind of product inventory to filter through. But instead, she’s pleasantly surprised when a chat window opens up and a friendly greeting pops up.

“Hi there! I’m Jill, your store assistant."

“Can I help you with a specific category of products? Please choose one from the list, or type your requirement below.”

Amy chooses the ‘home appliances’ category, is guided to your ‘refrigerator’ collection, and can proceed to choose a price range, capacity, color option, or feature. Or, you can create a chatbot for ecommerce online research that is programmed to answer simple questions like, “Does Refrigerator A have a higher capacity than Refrigerator B?”

The idea behind building chatbots for ecommerce online research is to help shoppers like Amy get to their purchase decisions quicker, without feeling like they missed out on important information. In this example, your online chatbot sifts through refrigerator information for Amy, and presents her with a shorter list of products that meet her requirements.

Closing sales with ecommerce online research chatbots

When Amy is already in conversation with your chatbot, she can enquire about the payment options that your website supports, the shipping timeframes you offer, or the current promotions you have going on.You can even program your chatbot to pitch her a custom discount that she can use to make her purchase right away.

In other words, ecommerce online research chatbots can actually take a visitor through the sales funnel and get them to buy something from your site.

Have a question about chatbot development for ecommerce online research? Contact us here and we’ll be happy to help!