Chatbot
Best chatbot for e-commerce shops: how to choose
The Ecbot team ·
The best chatbot for an e-commerce shop answers product questions, checks stock and orders, and runs on each channel you sell on. If you sell on 
Facebook, 
Zalo, Shopee and TikTok Shop at once, a bot that covers one channel leaves the rest of the inbox to you.
Six questions to ask before you choose
1. Does it run on all your sales channels?
Count the channels where customers message you. Ask whether one bot covers them all, or whether you rebuild it for each channel.
2. Can it check stock and orders?
Customers ask "Is this in stock?" and "Where is my order?". A bot that cannot read your inventory or order system has to pass those chats back to you.
3. Does it understand how your customers write?
Test the bot with real messages from your inbox, including ones typed without Vietnamese diacritics or full of abbreviations. A demo script tells you little about a message sent at 11pm.
4. Does it know when to hand over?
Refund requests, angry customers and questions about health or legal matters should go to a person, with the full conversation attached. Check that you can set these rules yourself.
5. Can you run it without a developer?
Prices and products change each week. Pick a tool where you update the bot's knowledge by uploading a document or typing it in, so a price change does not wait on someone to edit a script.
6. How is it priced?
Some tools charge per message, others per channel. Estimate how many conversations your shop gets each month and compare prices on that number.
Answer bots, flow builders and AI agents
Chatbots for shops come in three types: answer bots, flow builders and AI agents. AI agent vs chatbot: what is the difference? compares them in detail. For an online shop, the six questions above point toward an AI agent, because an agent reads orders and runs on several channels from one setup.
Where Ecbot fits
Ecbot is an AI agent platform for shops that sell through chat. One agent runs on 
Messenger, Zalo, 
WhatsApp, 
Telegram and website chat; Shopee, TikTok Shop and Instagram are coming soon. The agent checks stock or creates orders through the tools you connect, and passes refunds and complaints to your team. Ecbot counts usage per conversation (one customer thread within 24 hours), does not charge per channel, and has a free plan with no credit card required.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best chatbot for a small online shop?
The one that runs on each channel you sell on, reads your stock and orders, and hands hard cases to you. For a shop selling on several channels, an AI agent like Ecbot does this from one setup.
Can a chatbot take orders on Facebook and Zalo?
An AI agent can, once you connect it to your order system. Ecbot creates orders through the tools you connect, on Messenger, Zalo and your other channels.
How much does an e-commerce chatbot cost?
Tools charge in different ways: per message, per channel or per conversation. Ecbot charges per conversation, does not charge per channel, and has a free plan that needs no credit card.
