AI Chatbot for E-commerce: FAQ

Will it make things up? What does it do when it does not know?

It answers from your catalog and your store pages, not the open internet, and it does not invent products, prices or discount codes. When it is not sure, it says so and offers to bring in someone from your team, and the question goes on your dashboard's list of questions your pages don't answer, so you add the answer once. If one of your product descriptions is wrong, an answer built from it will be wrong too, which is why every conversation is saved for 90 days and chats a shopper rates poorly are flagged.

How it stays accurate

Does it work with my platform, and how long does setup take?

There are official plugins for WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Magento 2 / Adobe Commerce, Shopware 6, Drupal Commerce and Sylius, and any other platform connects through our API. You install the plugin and connect it (one click on WooCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop and Shopware, a Store ID and Connection Secret on Drupal Commerce and Sylius), then the first sync sends your catalog, with no developer needed. How long that first sync takes depends on the size of your catalog.

See all integrations

What does it cost?

Free to start: your first 100 or so conversations are on us, once, through a $25 signup credit, and no card is needed. Then $0.25 per conversation excluding VAT, with no seat fees, up to a monthly limit you choose.

See pricing

I already have a live chat. Can they run together?

Yes. Both are scripts on your pages, and you can put the Emporiqa button in any of the four corners so the two do not overlap. When a conversation needs a person, your team answers it in the Emporiqa dashboard, not in your other chat's inbox.

How your team takes over

Can my team take over, and how do they find out?

Yes. Anyone on your team can open a live conversation in the dashboard and take it over, and the chat brings someone in when the shopper asks for a person and offers to when it is not sure. Each request reaches your team by email and in the dashboard, and the same alert can go to Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord or Google Chat; whoever steps in sees the whole conversation, so the shopper does not repeat anything.

What your team sees

Where is my data, is it GDPR-compliant, and which AI provider do you use?

Emporiqa is run by an EU company, and the application, databases and search index run on servers in Germany. To write an answer, the shopper's message and the product and page text it needs go to OpenAI in the US (search ranking goes through OpenRouter, also in the US), under the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses; your data is never used to train AI models, and OpenAI keeps requests for up to 30 days to check for abuse. We have asked OpenAI for zero data retention; until OpenAI grants it, the 30 days apply. Our Data Processing Addendum (Article 28 GDPR) is published and applies automatically; no signature is needed.

Security and privacy Subprocessors

Which languages does it speak?

It answers in 65 languages, in the language the shopper writes in. It also searches across languages, so a shopper writing in German finds products you catalogued in English, and you can set the widget's title, greeting and starter questions per language.

More on languages

Can it place, cancel or refund orders by itself?

No. With the cart switched on, it puts products in the shopper's cart and opens checkout, and the shopper places the order. For returns, cancellations, order changes, quotes and invoices, a ready-made rule collects what your team needs and emails it to them: the chat never refunds, cancels or changes an order itself, your team decides.

Read the rules guide

How do I test it before it goes live?

Open the Test your chat page in your dashboard: it is the chat your storefront loads, answering from your own synced catalog, so you can ask it what worries you before a shopper does. Chats there are real conversations and come out of your signup credit, and you can keep the chat switched off for shoppers in your settings while you test. Before you sign up, you can talk to it on our demo store, which sells electronics.

Open the demo store

Can I make it look like my store?

Yes, from the dashboard and with no code: your colors, any of the four corners, your own picture in the chat header and next to its answers, and a title, greeting and starter questions per language. You can also pick its tone and write a note on how it words its answers; that changes the wording only, never what it is allowed to say.

What you can change

Do I have to build and maintain a separate knowledge base?

No. You do not have to, and you can when you want to. Emporiqa uses your store catalog as its knowledge base: the plugin pushes products, variants, prices, stock and store pages over webhooks as you save them, so there is nothing separate to write or keep up to date. Change a price or add a product, and the chat is already using the new version. For anything your shop pages never covered, like what happens when someone orders the wrong size, you can write it yourself on the Pages screen: a title and the text in your own words, in up to 10 languages on the same page. You write each language yourself, and a shopper gets the one they are already chatting in. Any language can carry a link to the same page on your site, and if your shop sells through more than one channel, you choose which of them the page applies to. The chat answers from it like it answers from any page your shop sent, and a sync never overwrites it. Up to 25 pages per store.

Does it work on a big or messy catalog?

Yes. It reads your product names, descriptions, attributes and variants, and answers from those. Where a product has a thin description, the answer on that item is thinner, and when it is not sure, it says so and offers to bring in someone from your team. Self-serve covers up to 100,000 products; larger catalogs run on Enterprise.

If the chat gets something wrong, who is liable?

You are. The chat speaks on your storefront, so its answer is your answer, the same as if a member of your staff had said it. Our terms set this out. What we do to make it less likely: answers are built from your own product data rather than the open internet, and when the chat is not confident it says so and offers to bring in your team instead of guessing. How you find out: every conversation is saved and searchable for 90 days, and chats a shopper rates poorly are flagged on your dashboard. That is you going to look rather than us telling you, so review them the way you read your support inbox. You can turn the chat off from your dashboard at any time.

How is this different from a regular chatbot?

Most chatbots answer FAQs from a knowledge base you write. Emporiqa works from your store: it finds the right product and the right variant with its current price and stock, fills the real cart, and tells customers where their order is through your store's plugin. Return, cancellation and quote requests go to your team; it never refunds or cancels anything itself. When it does not know, it says so instead of inventing an answer.

How does the product search work, and does it work in my customers' language?

Two ways at once: by meaning ("warm jacket for hiking" finds insulated outerwear) and by exact term (SKU, brand, model number), ranked by relevance. A shopper can also upload a photo and get the closest items from your catalog. It works in 65 languages and across them: someone writing in German finds products catalogued in English, and gets the reply in German. If you switch on voice mode, shoppers can also say what they want out loud and hear the answer read aloud.

Can shoppers add to cart and check out from the chat?

Yes. The chat shows product cards with an Add to Cart button. Shoppers can add items, change quantities, remove items, view their cart, and go to checkout, all from the chat. The plugin runs the cart through your store's native cart system, so your store's own logic (promotions, stock limits, minimum quantities) still applies.

Can it tell customers where their order is?

Yes, once you turn it on; it is not automatic. In Settings > Rules, add the ready-made Order status rule, try it, and go live. It looks the order up in your shop through the Emporiqa plugin, so it needs a connected, recent plugin. The chat answers with an order card. A guest gives the order number and email. Signed-in customers don't have to type their email (with the latest Emporiqa plugin). If you already set up the older Order Tracking API URL, it keeps working. The Rules guide walks you through it.

Does it know my signed-in customers?

Yes, with the current Emporiqa plugin. A signed-in customer sees their own prices in the chat: customer group, trade and customer prices and quantity breaks, as your shop prices them. The chat greets them by first name, and when it hands the conversation to your team, it uses the name and email on their account instead of asking. Guests see your public prices, as before. The setup guide for your platform names the plugin version.

Can shoppers carry on in WhatsApp or Viber?

Yes. When the chat hands a shopper to your team while you are away, it can offer buttons for WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, Messenger and Instagram. Add the apps you answer on in Settings > Handoff. The shopper's question is filled in for them on WhatsApp and Telegram, and copied for pasting on the others. A personal Viber number shows on phones only; a Viber Business number gets the question typed in, on computers too. The handoff in your dashboard says which app they went to, and the conversation then continues in that app.

Can I tell it how to word its answers?

Yes, in your own words. Pick a tone and you see each one answering the same shopper question before you choose: Standard, Friendly, Professional or Concise. Under that, write a short note the way you would brief a new sales assistant: use the shopper's first name, keep answers to two or three sentences, call them trainers rather than footwear. One note covers every reply, and you can add a different one for recommending a product, answering a question about your shop, looking up an order, and small talk. It changes wording only. What the chat says about stock, prices and orders comes from your shop, and nothing you write here can change that or stop it saying so when it does not know.

Can I see whether it is making me money?

Yes. The plugin tells Emporiqa when an order comes from a shopper who used the chat, and Emporiqa links that order back to the conversation that led to it. Your dashboard shows the funnel with a rate at each step, from chat sessions through cart additions and checkouts to completed purchases, with revenue attributed to the chat. Alongside it: widget engagement with 30-day trends, top products by cart activity, handoff response and resolution times, and the thumbs up or down shoppers leave after a chat.

Is this live chat, and does it replace my team?

It is live chat with the order reversed, and it replaces nobody. Classic live chat waits for someone at the keyboard, and if nobody is logged in the shopper gets a form. Here the AI answers from your catalog straight away, and any team member can open a conversation in the dashboard and take it over, whether or not the chat asked for help. They type in the same thread the shopper is reading, and your teammates can put their own name and photo on their replies instead of your store mark. A conversation is billed once, when the shopper writes their first message, so a person stepping in costs nothing more, however many of you join. Every account includes unlimited team members with no per-seat fee. What is not here: a list of visitors who have not written in, and outbound chat to people who are only browsing.

Can I set the hours my team is reachable?

Yes. You set a weekly schedule and a timezone per store. Outside those hours the chat tells the shopper your team is offline, asks for a name and an email or phone number so someone can follow up, and keeps helping in the meantime. You can write a short note about when you are back, and the chat puts what it says into the shopper's own language rather than showing your wording. No waiting-for-support banner appears outside your hours, so nobody is left watching an indicator. The request still lands in your needs-help queue with the whole conversation, so you can see what came in overnight. When your hours start, your team also gets the email and team-chat alert for each request that came in while you were away.

Does Emporiqa work with Shopify?

No. Emporiqa has no Shopify app. It is built for self-hosted platforms where stores have more control: WooCommerce, Drupal Commerce, Magento, PrestaShop, Sylius, and Shopware 6.

Will it slow down or break my store?

No, on both counts. Every native plugin sends catalog changes in the background, after the admin page has already gone back to you, so product saves and CSV imports never wait on us. The chat itself runs on Emporiqa's infrastructure, so chat traffic never touches your server and your hosting bill does not move with chat volume. If we have an outage the chat bubble does not appear, and your storefront, product pages and checkout carry on as normal.

Do you get access to my store?

No. We never get access to your store's admin or database. Your plugin sends catalog changes to us, puts products in the cart when a shopper asks, and answers signed order lookups for that shopper's own orders, all over HTTPS; the only credentials involved are a Store ID and Connection Secret generated in your dashboard. No customer payment data is ever stored: cart and checkout stay on your store.

Can someone abuse the chat or run up my bill with bot traffic?

Every entry point into the chat is rate limited, on the storefront widget and on the webhooks your plugin sends. The limits run across several time windows, so a burst and a slow flood both get caught. Ordinary browsing stays well under them. Your monthly spending cap sits behind that as a second ceiling. Reach it and the chat is hidden from your store until the next billing period or until you raise it.

What if I want to stop?

Turn the chat off from your dashboard whenever you like. There is no contract to end, no annual lock-in and no notice period. Disable or remove the plugin and the widget disappears from your storefront and catalog events stop. Your product and page data comes out of our search index; chat history and analytics are kept for 30 days in case you come back, then deleted. Your store keeps all its original data, we only ever held a copy for search.

What does Emporiqa not do yet?

What is missing today:

• No holdout mode. The dashboard shows revenue from shoppers who chatted and then bought, and those shoppers were already the interested ones. For a number you can defend, run it on part of your traffic and compare in your own analytics.
• You cannot forbid a topic. A rule can answer one kind of request with your own text; everything else is answered from your catalog and pages.
• No conversation export, and chat history is deleted after 90 days.
• Coupons and cart rules show at checkout, not in the chat: it quotes product prices.
• No SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification, and no SLA on pay-as-you-go: an SLA and dedicated support are Enterprise terms.
• A young product: few installs and one public review so far.

When is it not worth it?

Probably not when:

• You sell low-priced impulse items, or your catalog is small enough to browse in a few clicks.
• What you mainly need is ticket routing with CRM sync. A helpdesk product does that better.
• You are on Shopify, BigCommerce or Wix. There is no plugin for those.