Integration with WooCommerce: AI Search, live store search and order status

Connect your ChatLab chatbot with your WooCommerce store so customers can find products and check their orders directly in the chat. Products are found through AI Search, which searches your indexed WooCommerce catalogue by meaning, or through live store search, which queries the store API.

Example conversation

The example illustrates the customer experience. The available actions and returned information depend on this integration and your configuration.

Important: E-Commerce Best Practices

After completing the integration below, read the comprehensive guide on optimizing your chatbot for e-commerce: How to set up ChatLab for your E-commerce store

How the Chatbot Finds Products on WooCommerce: AI Search and Live Store Search

There are two ways a ChatLab chatbot finds products in a WooCommerce store. A chatbot uses one or the other, never both.

AI Search (recommended) - ChatLab keeps its own index of your WooCommerce catalogue and the chatbot searches it by meaning.

• Customers ask in plain language, for example "a red dress under 300". A price range is applied as a strict filter, and exact product codes (SKU, EAN) are matched too.
• Price, stock and variants are read live from WooCommerce at the moment of answering, so customers see current data even between index refreshes.
• Results appear as product cards in the chat, up to 5 per answer.
• Indexing starts by itself when the store is connected. The catalogue does not use training characters.
• Plan you need: every E-commerce plan includes it (Free 100 products, Start 2,000, Grow 5,000, Scale 20,000). On a Universal plan, add the E-commerce integrations add-on ($30 a month) plus an AI Search product pack ($29 a month, 5,000 products) assigned to the chatbot.

Live store search - the chatbot passes the customer's phrase to the WooCommerce search through the store API and answers with what the store returns.

• Nothing is indexed and nothing has to be kept in sync. The data is always live.
• It is a keyword search: it finds what your store's own search would find for that phrase. It does not understand descriptions of a need, synonyms or typos the way AI Search does.
• Plan you need: a Universal plan with the E-commerce integrations add-on ($30 a month). No product pack is needed.

When AI Search is on, it replaces live store search. Order status works the same way on both paths. A third option, training on scanned store pages, is available on any plan and is meant for informational content such as delivery and returns, not for products. For a full comparison see AI Search: how your chatbot finds products, and for product limits see E-commerce plans and limits.

What the Integration Provides

Live store search (product search by phrase) - The chatbot sends the customer's phrase to the WooCommerce search. It searches across product titles and descriptions, returning the top 5 matching published products with:

• Product ID, name, and description
• Price and SKU
• Product image and direct link to the product page

Product Search by SKU - Customers can look up products using a specific SKU, reference number, or product code. This is useful when customers already know the exact product identifier - for example, from a printed catalog, a previous order, or a recommendation. Returns the same product fields as the standard product search.

Product Search in Category - A more targeted search that combines a keyword with a specific product category. The chatbot first identifies the correct category, then searches within it for matching products. Returns the same product fields as the standard product search.

Get Categories - The chatbot can retrieve a list of product categories available in your store, helping customers navigate your catalog or narrowing down product searches. Each category includes:

• Category ID, name, and slug
• Category description

Order Details - By default, customers provide an order ID and the matching email address. This matches supplied information against store records, not proof that the visitor owns the email. An optional action setting allows lookup by order ID alone. The chatbot returns:

• Order number, total, and status (e.g., processing, completed, cancelled)
• Shipping address with recipient first and last name, company, full address (street, city, state, postal code, country)
• Ordered items with names, quantities, individual prices, and line totals

Prerequisites

Before starting the WooCommerce integration, make sure:

• Your chatbot is created in ChatLab. Installing the storefront widget is separate from connecting store data.
• You have access to your WooCommerce store's WordPress admin panel

Recommended: Connect with the WordPress Plugin

In Connect > WooCommerce, choose Get the WooCommerce plugin for the guided setup. Install the ChatLab plugin, open its WordPress menu, keep Connect WooCommerce integration selected, and click Continue. Sign in to ChatLab and select your chatbot. This connects your store and installs the widget. See the WordPress installation guide.

Choose Continue with manual setup if you need to use your own API keys. The following steps describe that alternative.

Step 1: Generate API Keys in WooCommerce

1. Log in to your WordPress admin panel
2. Go to WooCommerce > Settings
3. Click the Advanced tab
4. Select REST API
5. Click Add Key
6. Enter a description (e.g., "ChatLab Integration")
7. Select the user to assign the key to - this must be a user with Administrator or Shop Manager role (other roles like Customer or Subscriber do not have the required permissions to access WooCommerce data)
8. Set the permissions to Read
9. Click Generate API Key
10. Copy the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret - store them securely, as the Consumer Secret cannot be viewed again

Step 2: Connect WooCommerce in ChatLab

1. Log in to ChatLab and select your bot
2. Go to the Connect tab

3. Click Connect on the WooCommerce tile
4. Enter the URL of WooCommerce store (your full store URL, e.g., https://www.mystore.com)
5. Enter the Customer Key (Consumer Key from Step 1)
6. Enter the Customer Secret (Consumer Secret from Step 1)

7. Click Connect

ChatLab automatically tests the connection by verifying that your API credentials have the required access. If successful, you will see a confirmation message.

Connection Options

The WooCommerce connection form includes additional settings:

• Use order search instead of retrieve - Enable this if your store uses custom order number plugins. It uses a search-based lookup instead of direct retrieval, which is compatible with modified order numbering.
• Use product short description - When enabled, product search results return the WooCommerce short description instead of the full description. Useful for stores with very long product descriptions.
• Include in-stock products only - When enabled, product search results only include items that are currently in stock.
• Store language - choose the language of your product data.
• Product metadata fields to include - a comma-separated list of product meta keys (e.g. _brand, _manufacturer) added to product answers. Include only the fields useful to customers; do not expose private metadata.
• Order metadata fields to include - a comma-separated list of order meta keys added to order details. Use it to pass data stored by other plugins, for example the carrier and tracking number saved by the WooCommerce Shipment Tracking extension under _wc_shipment_tracking_items. Leave empty to return standard order fields only.
• Maximum variants - limits how many variants are returned for a product.

Step 3: Configure WooCommerce Actions

After connecting, you can enable and customize individual AI actions. Navigate to Settings > Actions and filter by the WooCommerce platform.

The keyword and order actions include:

• WooCommerce - Product Search - enables the chatbot to search your product catalog by keyword
• WooCommerce - Product Search by SKU - enables the chatbot to find products by their SKU, reference number, or product code
• WooCommerce - Product Search in Category - enables the chatbot to search within a specific product category
• WooCommerce - Get Categories - enables the chatbot to list product categories in your store
• WooCommerce - get product variants - retrieves the available variants of a selected product
• WooCommerce - Get Order - enables the chatbot to look up order information by order ID and email

Connection setup enables order lookup, categories, keyword search, category search, and variants. Product Search by SKU must be reviewed and enabled separately if you want it. Disable actions you do not want customers to use. Open an action to edit it, then use Enable or Update in its dialog. You can also customize the action label (the message shown to users while the action runs) and the instructions that guide how the AI uses each action.

Order lookup and product-search options

In the order action's configuration, Allow order lookup without email verification is off by default. Turning it on exposes order details to anyone who can supply a valid order ID. Leave it off unless your deployment has appropriate access controls.

The ChatLab WooCommerce plugin also supports extended searchable product fields and fuzzy SKU matching. These options need the detected plugin extension; without it, keyword search uses WooCommerce's native search and SKU lookup uses exact matching. Review the relevant product-search action before writing instructions that depend on these options.

AI Search for WooCommerce: Catalogue, Re-indexing and Settings

On an E-commerce plan, or on a Universal plan when an AI Search product pack is assigned to the chatbot, AI Search is on and replaces live store search. Indexing starts by itself when the store is connected.

• Check the catalogue - open Training > E-commerce catalog and review the Products and Categories tabs. Shop > Products shows the Product catalog panel and the AI Search packs on this chatbot card.
• Schedule re-indexing - use Schedule auto-retrain in Training > E-commerce catalog. Re-indexing can run as often as daily and is available on every E-commerce plan and with every product pack. Train now or Retrain runs it on demand. Refreshes are incremental: unchanged products are skipped and removed products are deleted from the index.
• Review the action - in Settings > Actions, open WooCommerce - AI product search. Its options are Include product card, Products in stock only and Number of products to return.
• Show product cards - turn on Enable Offer Cards in Settings > Model & Advanced. See Offer Cards.

When the catalogue is bigger than the product limit, indexing stops at the limit and the chatbot owner gets an e-mail. Options of the live store search action described above do not necessarily apply to AI Search.

Testing Your Integration

After activating the actions, open Overview and try:

• "Show me running shoes" (tests product search)
• "I'm looking for product SKU WH-1234" (tests product search by SKU)
• "What categories do you have?" (tests get categories)
• "Show me shoes in the Sportswear category" (tests product search in category)
• "What's the status of my order #1001?" (tests order details; supply the matching email for an order you are authorized to access)

Verify that the responses match data from your WooCommerce store and that product links open correctly.

Install Chatbot on Your WooCommerce Store

To add the chat widget to your WordPress/WooCommerce site, see the detailed guide: Installing Chatbot on a WooCommerce Store

View Demo

You can see a live WooCommerce integration in action: https://yourwear.chatlab.com/shop

Related articles

• AI Search: how your chatbot finds products
• E-commerce plans and limits
• E-commerce setup guide
• Adding chatbot to your website