AI chatbot for ecommerce, from sizing to shipping

An AI chatbot for an online store can do three jobs. It can answer what shoppers ask before they buy, such as which size to pick, what delivery costs and whether a sale item can go back, from your store’s own pages. It can deal with orders once they’ve bought, such as tracking a parcel or changing an address, which only works when it’s connected to your store’s admin. And it can try to sell, by recommending products or chasing abandoned carts. No tool is best at all three, so this guide sorts ecommerce chatbots by the job they do. We read each tool’s prices and docs on 23 September 2026.

Deacon is an AI customer support agent for the first job. It answers shoppers in seconds from your shipping, returns and product pages, tells them plainly when it doesn’t know, and shows you which questions come up most. It never touches an order. Its free plan gives you 50 answers a month, with no card and no end date.

The three jobs, and what a chatbot needs for each

What a chatbot can do for your store depends on where the answer lives.

The first job needs nothing but pages a store should have anyway, so any chatbot that reads your site can do it. The other two need your store’s data, which is why the tools that do them are usually built for one platform or sold as part of an ecommerce helpdesk.

Why the questions before checkout matter most

Many of the reasons shoppers give up at the checkout come down to questions your store already answers. Baymard Institute puts the average documented cart abandonment rate at 70.22%, across 50 studies, and it asks US online shoppers why they abandoned a cart. Leaving aside the ones who were just browsing, the most common reason was extra costs such as shipping, tax and fees, at 40%, and delivery that was too slow came second at 20%. Further down the list, 13% named a returns policy they weren’t happy with and 12% couldn’t see the total cost up front. Baymard last updated the list on 22 September 2025.

A chatbot can’t lower your delivery price or speed up the courier. What it can do is tell a shopper on a product page what delivery to their country costs, when it will arrive and how returns work, before they reach the checkout and find out there. Those answers are usually already on your shipping and returns pages. The shopper just hasn’t found them.

The questions your pages can answer, and what to write on them

A chatbot that answers from your pages is only as good as those pages. If your returns window isn’t written down anywhere, no chatbot can give it, and one that tries is making it up. These are the questions shoppers ask most before they buy, and what each page needs to say.

Sizing and fit

Shoppers ask which size to pick and whether something runs small. A size chart in centimetres and inches answers the first. A line of fit notes on each product page, such as “runs small, size up” or “relaxed fit”, answers the second.

Delivery cost and time

Shoppers ask what delivery costs to their country, how long it takes and whether there’s free delivery over a certain spend. Put all three on one shipping page, by country or region, with any cut-off time for same-day dispatch.

Returns and exchanges

Shoppers ask how long they have, whether sale items count, who pays for the return postage and when the refund arrives. Your returns policy should answer each of those in a sentence.

Product details

Shoppers ask what a product is made of, how big it is, how to wash it, what’s in the box and whether it works with something they already own. The product description is where those answers belong, and a chatbot can only give the ones it finds there.

Stock, restocks and pre-orders

Shoppers ask whether something is in stock and when a sold-out item comes back. Stock levels change too quickly for a chatbot that learns from your pages, so write a short policy instead. Say how restocks and pre-orders work and that the product page shows what’s available now, and the chatbot can send shoppers there.

Payment, currency and duties

Shoppers abroad ask which payment methods and currencies you take, and whether they’ll pay import duties when the parcel arrives. A few lines in your FAQ answer all three.

Questions about an order need a chatbot connected to your store

“Where’s my parcel?” sounds like any other question, but it’s a different job. The answer lives in your store’s admin, not on a page, and the chatbot has to check that the order belongs to the person asking before it says anything. The tools that do this connect to your store.

• Shopify Inbox, Shopify’s free chat app, has an agent that checks an order’s status once the shopper signs in, as Shopify’s guide to the Inbox agent explains. Our Shopify AI chatbot guide covers what else it needs.
• Gorgias, a helpdesk built for online stores, gives its AI Agent six Shopify Actions, according to its docs. They include cancelling an order, which it does only if the order hasn’t been fulfilled, editing the shipping address and reshipping an order for free.
• Tidio’s AI agent, Lyro, can carry out Actions in your other apps through their APIs, and Tidio’s pricing page says your first Action is free.

Deacon doesn’t do this job. It has no connection to your store’s admin and takes no actions in other systems, and it always declines a question about a shopper’s own account, order or data. The shopper gets a polite decline and a box for their email, so you can reply. What Deacon can answer is “how do I track my order?”, once a page on your site says how. Our WooCommerce AI chatbot guide shows the order pages WooCommerce already gives your customers.

AI chatbots for ecommerce, compared

These three chatbots are sold to online stores, and each is built for a different job. The prices come from each vendor’s pricing page on 23 September 2026.

Each one counts something different. Gorgias counts an automated interaction when a request is resolved without a person, and each one also counts as a helpdesk ticket. Tidio counts a Lyro conversation once Lyro has replied in it at least once. ChatBot.com counts a resolution when its AI solves at least one question in a chat. Deacon counts answers, one per reply, and a conversation takes about 2 of them, so 50 answers covers about 25 conversations. Tidio vs Gorgias sets two of them side by side, and Zendesk vs Gorgias sets Gorgias against a general helpdesk.

What Deacon does for an online store

A shopper looking at a jacket late at night asks whether it runs small. Deacon answers within seconds, in the language they wrote in, from the fit notes on your product page, and often links the page it used. If your pages don’t say, Deacon doesn’t guess. It tells the shopper it doesn’t know and offers a box for their email. You get an email when they leave their address or ask for a person, and a reply you type in the dashboard appears in their chat while it’s open. If they’ve gone, it goes to the address they left in that chat.

Each question your pages didn’t cover waits in your dashboard with an Answer this button. Write the answer once and press Save & check. Deacon asks itself the question again, shows you the reply it now gives and, when that reply answers it, tells you how many other open questions your answer also covers. From then on your answer is part of what Deacon knows, so it can answer the next shopper who asks, and it needs you less every week.

It also shows you what shoppers hesitate over, from everyone who asks rather than the few who email. Every conversation is saved and searchable by what the shopper asked. Topics groups similar questions, counts the people who asked and labels most groups, for example as a how-to, a pricing question or feedback. Fifteen shoppers asking whether one pair of boots runs narrow is a product description to rewrite. Once one page’s questions go unanswered more often than anywhere else, Analytics › Widget names that page, so you know which one to fix first.

The same script counts your visitors and where they came from. Add data-deacon-goal="Added to cart" to your add-to-cart button, and a funnel you set up from Visited to that goal shows how many of your visitors get that far.

Deacon never starts a conversation. It waits for a shopper to open the chat and ask, so it sends no pop-ups and nothing that chases an abandoned cart. If that’s the job you want done, pick a tool built for selling.

Every feature is on every plan, the free one included. There’s no badge to pay to remove, nothing is billed past your plan’s answers and no plan upgrades itself. The pricing page has the paid plans.

Adding Deacon to your store

Deacon goes on as one script tag, with no app or plugin of its own, on any store platform that lets you add one. Our guides for Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Wix and Squarespace show where it goes on each. One difference matters for a store. A chatbot in a Shopify theme stops where the checkout starts, because Shopify’s checkout runs no theme code, while WooCommerce’s checkout is a page on your own site, so the chat can show there too.

Then give Deacon the pages from the list above, starting with the ones that answer the most questions. In Knowledge Sources, choose Add website and paste the address of your shipping page. A single page starts answering as soon as Deacon has read it. Add your returns policy, your size guide and your FAQ the same way. For product questions, crawl your store, tick the products shoppers ask about and save, then press Retrain agent. Before any shopper sees it, ask it their questions in the Playground, where chats are never counted.

Questions about AI chatbots for ecommerce

What is the best AI chatbot for ecommerce?

The one built for the job you need most. To answer questions before checkout from your own pages, Deacon is built for founders who answer their own support, with every feature on the free plan. To look up or change orders in the chat, pick a tool connected to your store. Shopify Inbox looks up an order’s status on a Shopify store, and the AI Agent in Gorgias, an ecommerce helpdesk, can cancel or edit one. To recommend products and recover carts, pick one with a catalogue and cart connection, such as ChatBot.com’s Selling through Shopify.

Can an AI chatbot track orders?

Yes, if it’s connected to your store’s admin and checks that the order belongs to the person asking. Shopify Inbox asks the shopper to sign in first. A chatbot that learns only from your pages, Deacon included, can’t see orders. It can tell a shopper how to track one if a page of yours explains it, and for anything else it offers a box for their email.

Can Deacon issue a refund or change an order?

No. Deacon takes no actions in other systems, so it never refunds, cancels or edits an order, and it always declines questions about a shopper’s own account, order or data. It offers the shopper a box for their email, and you reply from the dashboard.

Will an AI chatbot make up my returns policy?

It can, if it answers from what its model picked up elsewhere instead of from your pages. That’s an AI hallucination, and it happens in your store’s name. Deacon answers only from the passages it finds in your content for each question, and when they don’t cover it, it says it doesn’t know instead of guessing. Why support bots make things up

Does Deacon notice when a price or a stock level changes?

Not on its own. Deacon answers from each page as it was when it read it, and nothing reads your pages again on a schedule. After you change a page, choose Re-fetch on it in Knowledge Sources and press Retrain agent. For products whose price or stock moves every week, leave the page unticked and let your stock policy send shoppers to the product page.

Can a chatbot recover abandoned carts?

Some can. ChatBot.com runs cart recovery campaigns that spot returning visitors who left products in their cart and try to win the sale before they leave again. Deacon never starts a conversation. It waits for a shopper to open the chat and ask, so it won’t message someone who left. It answers the question that might have made them leave, if they ask it first.

Can shoppers ask in their own language?

Yes. Deacon replies in the language each shopper writes in, from pages written in one language. The chat’s own buttons and labels stay in English.

What happens when Deacon’s free answers run out?

Shoppers get a short reply saying Deacon can’t look into it right now, and are asked for their email unless they already left it in that conversation. You can still read and reply to every conversation, nothing is billed and your plan never upgrades itself. Your team’s owners are emailed when the month’s answers reach 80% and again at 100%.