The 8 Best AI Chatbots for E-Commerce in 2024

What are the best AI chatbots for e-commerce available on the market in 2024?

This article reviews the 8 best AI chatbots that can help you with your customers' pre-purchase and post-purchase journey.

But first, here are a few factors to consider when evaluating AI chatbot software for your e-commerce brand.

Factors to Consider When Choosing an AI Chatbot For E-Commerce

#1: Does The AI Chatbot Have The Technical Capabilities?

When evaluating AI chatbots, you should evaluate the technical side of things first, such as:

• Sophisticated natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning capabilities allow it to have natural conversations with consumers in a human-like way.
• Integrations and interoperability with your e-commerce platform, shipping software, and other customer service tools.
• Scalability of operations to handle your ever-increasing number of interactions.
• The capacity to use your brand voice and style, and not sound generic and robotic.

#2: What Kind of Analytics Does The AI Chatbot Provide?

The beauty of AI chatbots is that they can store answers and provide insights into what kind of questions and problems your customers are facing.

You should be looking for advanced analytics and reporting features so you can better understand customer behavior.

The AI chatbot should provide detailed insights on:

• Popular questions users ask.
• Conversion funnel - how many customers queried, added to the cart, and placed an order.
• Conversion rate of the chatbot and total order value.

#3: What Kind of User Experience Does The AI Chatbot Provide?

Different chatbots offer solutions. As such, they should provide a different kind of user experience.

Pre-Purchase Chatbots

• The chatbot can efficiently recommend products.
• Converse with the customers and help them compare alternatives.
• Prompt the customers to ask the right follow-up questions.
• The bot takes into consideration the user's history with the brand for a personalized experience - if there is such.

Post-Purchase Chatbots

• The chatbot can efficiently handle customer complaints without the need for human-agent interaction.
• High problem resolution rate.
• In cases where problems cannot be resolved by the bot, the bot should be able to escalate the issue to a human agent.
• The bot takes into consideration the user's history with the brand for a personalized experience.

Other considerations from enterprises include GDPR compliance, data security, and proper account management of the software.

After taking into consideration all of the above factors, we selected the best AI chatbots that specialize in e-commerce.

What Are The Best AI Chatbots For Online Stores?

Here are the best AI chatbots for e-commerce out of all the software we reviewed:

#1: Big Sur AI - Pre-sales, conversion-leading 24/7 live sales agent, semantic search, visual attribute-based recommendations.

#2: ChatBot - Scans your website, help center, or other designated resource to provide quick and accurate AI-generated answers to customer questions.

#3: Chatfuel - No-code platform for building Messenger and Instagram chatbots.

#4: Zendesk - AI-powered, award-winning customer service software trusted by 200k customers.

#5: Intercom - Build advanced automation workflows with an AI-powered chatbot.

#6: Botsify - Generate leads from your AI chatbot by setting up lead-generation conversational forms.

#7: SnatchBot - Set up an AI-fuelled automated chatbot in most messaging channels.

#8: ManyChat - Drive more sales through Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger via chatbot.

#1: Big Sur AI

Big Sur AI is the best AI Chatbot for e-commerce managers who want to guide their customers in their pre-purchase journey.

Our software is an AI-powered chatbot that tries to bring in the experience of talking to a qualified sales assistant to your customers to help them alongside their shopping or post-shopping journey.

Full disclosure: While Big Sur AI is our chatbot, we aim to provide an unbiased perspective on why Big Sur AI is the best AI-fuelled chatbot when compared to other alternatives.

The reason we put ourselves on #1 is that every one of our chatbot features is backed by machine-learning models that are optimized for conversions.

For us, it was not enough to build a conversational experience for your customers - it should be helpful to the consumer, increase purchase confidence, and drive toward a conversion.

Let's go over the standout features of Big Sur's AI Sales Agent.

Big Sur's AI Sales Agent Features

Conversion-Optimized Natural Conversations

• 24/7 Real-Time Assistance - your customers will have a natural language conversation with our AI chatbot. They can ask different questions, follow up, and get instant answers.
• Customized to your online store - you control the AI experience of your customers, including the tonality and brand voice. The software is fed and trained with your store’s information.
• Optimized for conversions at every point of interaction - the chatbot has been designed to provide relevant recommendations and propose follow-up questions on a data-driven basis to increase the interactions' conversion rate.
• High level of personalization by integrating with tools like Klaviyo for automated email campaigns.

💡 For some of our merchants, almost one-fourth of all orders on the site are from users who have interacted with our sales agent.

AI Product Recommendations

Our AI Sales Agent will help your customers find the best product from your online store for their needs.

Normally, customers would have certain considerations in mind when comparing products online, such as:

• Features of the products.
• Their height, weight, or age group.
• The price of the different products.

Our chatbot's AI Product Recommendations feature will guide your customers to the right products.

For example, if your customers were looking for an e-bike for all terrains in your store, the chatbot would recommend the best bikes for that query:

Our chatbot can also recommend a combination of products, such as a makeup routine:

Based on our internal data, users who interact with Big Sur's AI Sales Agent convert at 4x the rate of the average user at a store.

This is because your customers are now receiving custom recommendations tailored to their needs by a human-like chatbot, resulting in increased conversion rates and basket sizes.

Merchant Insights

Our software will enable your marketing team to be more data-driven about your customer journey based on customer conversations with the chatbot.

Big Sur AI's Merchant Insights provides you with a set of analytics and insights so you can compare the conversion rates of the different questions and follow-up questions our bots or customers ask.

Get insights into what products are frequently bought together to help you improve your online store’s user experience.

You can also evaluate the performance of the funnel for users who have interacted with the AI Sales Agent, and get insights into:

• How many users queried?
• How many of them added a product to their cart?
• How many of them placed an order?

Big Sur AI Sales Agent vs. Traditional Support Chat

Unlike traditional AI-powered chatbots, Big Sur AI's Sales Agent aims to help e-commerce brands increase their conversion rates by providing pre-purchase customer support.

Traditional chatbots focus on the post-purchase experience, such as handling tickets from existing customers. They have no direct contribution to the brand's bottom line.

They are configured to handle frequently asked questions and aim to provide insights into what problems customers have with the products.

Pricing

Big Sur AI has 2 pricing models:

• Commission-Based Model - Pay only when you get sales from the AI Sales Agent.

This is a pay-for-performance model, where you only pay a commission for the sale of your products, where the customer interacts with the AI Sales Agent and then converts.

The conversion window is negotiated but it’s typically 30 days.

• Tiered Pricing Model - recurring monthly payment based on the average volume of unique visitors per month.

Think of these pricing models as if you’re hiring a salesman.

You choose between paying per unique visitor to your website or a commission on each sale attributed to the chatbot.

Contact our team for pricing and a product demo!

Pros and Cons

✅ Pre-purchase AI Chatbot that serves as a real-time sales assistant to your consumers.

✅ Data-driven approach to optimizing for conversions with questions and product recommendations.

✅ Seamless integration with Shopify - setup takes less than 5 minutes.

❌ Takes a few days to set up on platforms that are not Shopify.

#2: ChatBot

Best for: Setting up a post-purchase AI-powered chatbot to help your customers solve their problems.

Similar to: Zendesk, SnatchBot.

ChatBot allows you to create and deploy an AI-powered chatbot that can interact with your customers in their pre or post-purchase shopping journey.

The bot is one of the best on the market because it offers a no-code chatbot builder that integrates with various platforms and channels, allowing you to customize it to your needs.

Top Features

• Drag-and-drop Conversation Builder - create and customize chatbot interactions with your platforms and marketing channels.
• Chatbot Analytics - detailed insights into chatbot performance so you can optimize and improve the chatbot's UX.
• Customizable to your brand - tailor the look and feel of the chatbots to match your brand's style and website design.
• Dynamic Responses - the chatbot can respond with images, buttons, quick replies, and carousels.

Pricing

ChatBot has 4 pricing tiers:

• Starter - $52/month, giving you access to 1 active bot, 1,000 valid chats, and access to all integrations.
• Team - $142/month, providing you with 5 active bots, 5,000 valid chats, and more advanced reporting.
• Business - $424/month, where the features are the same as the Team Plan but with unlimited chatbots, and 25,000 valid chats.
• Enterprise - Includes personal onboarding, custom integrations, and chatbot-building services.

Pros and Cons

✅ Scalable AI-powered chatbot that allows you to handle your customers' questions.

✅ User-friendly interface.

✅ Wide range of features for the price.

❌ Some users report setup challenges.

❌ Limited ability to handle more complex queries.

#3: Chatfuel

Best for: Setting up an AI chatbot on social media channels.

Similar to: Zendesk, Botsify.

Chatfuel allows you to set up an AI-powered chatbot on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

With this omnichannel approach to customer experience, you can deal with your customers not only on mobile but also on your social media channels.

Top Features

• Omnichannel Chatbot Creation - manage chatbots for Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp from a single platform.
• Increase your sales from your existing customers - the bot allows you to cross-sell, upsell, announce promotions, and do new product launches.
• Built-in CRM and integrations - integrate with ChatGPT, Zapier, Google Sheets, and more.
• Autoreply functionality - automatically respond to comments on Facebook posts.

Pricing

Chatfuel separates Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp for its pricing model.

The software's pricing is based on your customers' conversations with the chatbot.

Here's Chatfuel's Facebook & Instagram pricing:

• Business - $15/month for 1,000 conversations per month, allowing you to access all features.
• Enterprise - from $300/month, allowing you to get access to a dedicated bot builder specialist.

And their WhatsApp pricing:

• Business - $34.49/month for 1,000 conversations per month, allowing you to access all features.
• Enterprise - from $300/month, allowing you to get access to a dedicated bot builder specialist.

Note: For Facebook & Instagram, you'd have to pay $0.01 for each extra conversation, and $0.02 for WhatsApp.

Pros and Cons

✅ Easy-to-use no-code chatbot builder.

✅ Publish a chatbot on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

✅ Integrations with ChatGPT, Zapier, and Shopify.

❌ Limited functionality when compared to other tools.

❌ Users complain about the difficulty of translating the chatbot to other languages.

#4: Zendesk

Best for: Setting up an AI-powered chatbot to assist your human agents.

Similar to: ChatBot, Chatfuel.

Zendesk is a customer service platform that offers an AI-powered chatbot that can converse with your customers and offer them instant help.

The tool also extends over to WhatsApp and Facebook so you can support your customers across multiple platforms.

Top Features

• Omnichannel AI-powered chatbot - let your customers resolve their issues on WhatsApp and Facebook, or business tools like Slack.
• Automated workflows - set up loyalty programs, or personalize the experience of consumers by setting up automated workflows.
• Out-of-the-box reporting and analytics - track the performance of your chatbot and of your customer interactions with customer satisfaction data.
• Integrations with 3rd party tools such as Shopify, Mailchimp, and Survey Monkey.

Pricing

For Zendesk's chatbot, there are 3 pricing tiers:

• Support Team - $19/agent/month, giving you access to the ticketing system, social media channels, and AI features.
• Support Professional - $55/agent/month, providing you with multilingual support, and advanced AI add-ons.
• Support Enterprise - $115/agent/month, where you can get advanced data privacy and a sandbox testing ground.

You can also access Zendesk's Advanced AI add-on for an additional $50/month/agent, giving you access to actionable insights, generative AI tools, and macro insights.

Pros and Cons

✅ Flexible pricing model that is affordable for smaller teams.

✅ Good customization options.

✅ Omnichannel chatbot solution.

❌ Limited AI functionality.

❌ Users complain of performance issues in peak hours.

#5: Intercom

Best for: Building automation workflows with an AI-powered chatbot.

Similar to: Zendesk, ChatBot.

Intercom offers a post-purchase AI-powered chatbot that aims to resolve customer issues and improve team efficiency with automations.

The tool claims to be able to instantly resolve 50% of customer support questions with conversational-style answers, powered by ChatGPT.

Top Features

• Multi-Source Answers - the chatbot can pull information from a variety of sources including articles, help centers, and custom content snippets.
• Automated workflows - use bots, triggers, conditions, and rules to automate responses for certain scenarios (e.g., the user has a booking or does not have one).
• Omnichannel & Multilingual - the platform works across channels like web, mobile, SMS, and social, and can detect the customer's language.
• Context on Customers - enrich the chatbot with customer data, such as order history or billing information.

Pricing

Intercom's pricing for its chatbot, Fin, is quite simple:

$0.99 per resolution.

You only pay the platform when Fin achieves a resolved conversation.

You can also set up notifications or automatically stop Fin from delivering AI answers to your customers when a defined resolution limit is reached.

Pros and Cons

✅ AI-powered chatbot that is fuelled by automations based on customer context.

✅ Pay-per-result pricing model.

✅ Omnichannel and multilingual chatbot solution.

❌ Users report technical problems with updates and server-side issues.

❌ Pricing model can get quite expensive if you operate a large brand.

#6: Botsify

Best for: Generating leads from your AI chatbot.

Similar to: Big Sur AI, Chatfuel, ManyChat.

Botsify is a pre-purchase AI-powered chatbot that allows you to improve your conversion rate by setting up lead-generation conversational forms.

The chatbot can also be set up on popular social media channels, such as Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram.

Top Features

• Turn boring forms into friendly conversations - build relationships with your customers.
• Dedicated chatbot development team - Botsify will provide you with chatbot developers, designers, and testers.
• Collect and store your consumers' information - the chatbot can store user information on spreadsheets or in a CRM.
• Multi-language chatbot support - cater to your international customers by translating the chatbot into 100+ native languages.

Pricing

Botsify has 3 pricing tiers:

• Do it yourself - $49/month, giving you access to 2 chatbots, 5,000 users per month, and unlimited amounts of conversations.
• Done for you - $149/month, providing you with 5 chatbots, unlimited users, and a whitelabeled dashboard.
• Custom - Contact them for pricing to unlock custom chatbot development and unlimited chatbots.

Pros and Cons

✅ Dedicated chatbot builders that will help you set up a chatbot that is optimized for UX.

✅ Omnichannel platform that works across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other social channels.

✅ Lead generation conversational forms.

❌ Users complain about bugs with the chatbot builder that causes errors.

❌ No built-in chatbot analytics.

#7: SnatchBot

Best for: Setting up a multi-channel chatbot to build personalized customer experiences in messaging channels.

Similar to: Chatfuel, Zendesk.

Snatchbot allows you to create, build, and publish AI-powered chatbots to various messaging channels, such as WhatsApp, Viber, and Telegram.

The tool also provides you with a bot store where you can choose from their wide range of bot templates and integrations.

Top Features

• Visual, drag-and-drop interface lets you design complex conversational flows and integrate advanced features like payment processing.
• The chatbots can be published across a wide range of messaging channels, including SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, and more.
• Advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) - the chatbot can understand, remember, and learn from user interactions, allowing for more natural conversations.
• Voice Integration - text-to-speech functionality in over 60 languages, allowing the AI-powered chatbot to engage your customers through voice.

Pricing

The tool offers a freemium version that includes all basic features, such as advanced NLP and live chat, but to the limit of 2,000 messages.

On the Snatchbot's Pro plan, there are 4 paid pricing tiers:

• Starter - $79/month, giving you access to all basic features, 10,000 messages, and basic integrations.
• Team - $158/month, providing you with 25,000 messages, and more integrations.
• Business - $358/month, where there are 75,000 messages and a dedicated account manager.
• Enterprise - Includes unlimited messages, custom integrations, and chatbot-building services.

Pros and Cons

✅ Freemium version with basic features.

✅ Advanced NLP - the chatbot can learn from interactions and converse in a human-like way.

✅ Voice integration.

❌ Limited customization.

❌ Users claim that more advanced configurations require technical know-how.

#8: ManyChat

Best for: Driving more sales through Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger via chatbot.

Similar to: Big Sur AI, Botsify.

ManyChat is an AI-powered chatbot that allows you to drive more revenue from chat messaging platforms, such as Instagram DMs, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger.

The tool positions itself as a chat marketing platform and aims to increase your conversion rate by identifying and re-engaging interested leads.

Top Features

• Respond to interested customers - capture email addresses, and phone numbers, and then automatically add them to your database.
• Help with product recommendations by nudging the customers to browse products.
• Automatically respond to every message on your social media - never miss opportunities with potential customers DMing your brand.
• Plug-and-play templates to build AI chatbots.

Pricing

The tool offers a freemium version that includes all basic features to the limit of 1,000 contacts.

ManyChat has 2 paid pricing tiers:

• Pro - $15/month, giving you access to all basic features, 500 contacts, and analytics.
• Premium - Includes unlimited messages with no price scaling.

Note: ManyChat's Pro Plan pricing scales with the number of contacts. For example, the price can be $25 for 2,500 contacts and $45 for 5,000 contacts.

Pros and Cons

✅ Product recommendations and engagement campaigns.

✅ 24/7 customer support on social media.

✅ Easily collect customer information.

❌ Complicated setup.

❌ Insufficient training and documentation.

Next Steps: Improve Your Store's Conversion Rate With Big Sur AI's Sales Agent

Utilize advanced AI technology and bring sales assistant-like conversations to your online store.

Our AI-powered Sales Agent can guide your customers through their buying journey with product recommendations and conversion-optimized follow-up questions.

We went over pre-purchase chatbots like Big Sur AI that aim to increase revenue and post-purchase chatbots like Zendesk that strive to solve customer problems.

Comparing the benefits of pre-purchase and post-purchase chatbots is like comparing the benefits of eating breakfast and dinner.

Ideally, you'd need both for the most effect.

Enable your existing customers to solve their post-purchase problems with a tool like Zendesk, and empower your prospective customers to choose the right product with a pre-purchase chatbot like Big Sur AI.