Should I use website scan or API integration for e-commerce?

Combine both for best results. Website scan provides rich contextual answers from product descriptions. API integration gives real-time pricing, stock levels, and order tracking.

Which AI model should I use for e-commerce chatbot?

Always use higher-level models like GPT-4o or GPT-4.1 for e-commerce. Mini models lack the reasoning capabilities needed for proper API integration with your store.

How do I optimize website scanning for an online store?

Include only product and category pages, exclude blogs and tag pages, remove repeating elements like headers and footers, and use sitemap for better control.

What e-commerce features should I enable in ChatLab?

Enable Products View for visual product cards, dynamic suggested follow-ups, human hand-off for escalations, and conversation summaries for returning customers.

Where do I find e-commerce integrations in ChatLab?

Go to your bot's Connect tab to find all available integrations including Shopify, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Wix, CS-Cart, Abicart, and Baselinker.

How to set up chatLab for your e-commerce store

Properly configuring ChatLab is key to ensuring your chatbot delivers precise product information and real-time order updates. With the right setup, ChatLab can answer detailed product queries, fetch order statuses, and assist customers around the clock.

What Is Important in a Chatbot for E-Commerce

Accurate product information - ensure customers receive correct details about specifications and offers
Clear presentation of offers - highlight discounts, bundles, and promotions effectively
Up-to-date data - provide real-time pricing, stock levels, and order status (with integration enabled)
Order tracking & user data - allow customers to check order details and shipping status when integrated

How to Provide Product Information to ChatLab

Before teaching ChatLab about your store, decide how it will ingest product data:

Website Scan: ChatLab crawls and indexes your product pages (descriptions, specifications, and images) into a static knowledge base. Ideal for rich context and detailed answers when your catalogue is relatively stable. Read more: Adding New Website Sources
API Integration: Connect via Shopify, WooCommerce, or other platform APIs to fetch live product data, pricing, stock levels, and handle order lookups in real time. Best for frequently changing inventories and order management. Products are not imported into ChatLab's static knowledge base; instead, ChatLab dynamically queries your e-commerce platform in response to user questions.
Combine Both: Use a scan for deep contextual knowledge and keep integration active for up-to-date accuracy.

Available E-Commerce Integrations

Navigate to your bot and select the Connect tab to view all available integrations.

ChatLab supports the following e-commerce platforms:

Scanning vs Integration: Which Is Better?

Website Scan

Pros:

Full context AI research with rich answers
Deep understanding of product descriptions

Cons:

Requires manual or auto retraining to capture new or updated products
May hit training-character quota when indexing large catalogs
Potential misinterpretation of detailed specs
May fail to extract information from tables or parameter lists

API Integration

Pros:

Always up-to-date prices & stock via direct API calls
Real-time order look-ups for tracking status and history

Cons:

Keyword-based search only, lacking deep contextual understanding
Dependent on API availability and rate limits
Requires proper credentials and configuration
Higher-level AI models strongly advised for proper tool navigation

The Winning Formula: Combine Scan & Integration

By combining a site-wide scan with live integration, ChatLab keeps your product catalog and store status in sync. Customers always see current stock levels, accurate pricing, and detailed descriptions.

To achieve both deep contextual responses and live accuracy, configure ChatLab's custom behavior under Settings > Role & Behavior. Click Enable custom role and behavior instructions and add the following:

When a user asks about products or categories, first invoke API tools to retrieve current data; fallback to the scanned knowledge base only for contextual enrichment. After fetching live data, augment responses with detailed descriptions and recommendations from the knowledge base when relevant.

Read more about role customization: Role & Behavior Settings

Always Use Higher-Level Models

Integration with APIs requires the chatbot to reason about API calls and their results. Mini models (like GPT-5-mini) have limited capabilities for this. Always use higher-level models (like GPT-4o or GPT-4.1) when integrating with e-commerce platforms.

Change the model in Settings > Model & Advanced.

Setup Custom Prompt

For WooCommerce

WooCommerce integration has both searchProducts and searchCategories tools available. Add these instructions to your Settings > Role & Behavior:

First, classify the user question into one of:
- PRODUCT-SPECIFIC (SKU/variant/price/availability/recommendation)
- ASSORTMENT-OVERVIEW (brands we carry, categories, "do you sell X at all", broad offer)

If PRODUCT-SPECIFIC:
- Call searchProducts(text) first using normalized English singular lowercase query.
- If results are empty/weak:
  1) Call searchCategories(normalized noun) to choose best categoryId.
  2) Call searchProducts(categoryId) to show a few items as examples.
- Answer using tool results as primary truth (name/price/availability). Use Knowledge Base only to add extra details if consistent.

If ASSORTMENT-OVERVIEW:
- Build the overview primarily from tools, then enrich using Knowledge Base:
  1) Call searchCategories(normalized noun) to find relevant categoryIds.
  2) For up to 3-5 top categories, call searchProducts(categoryId).
  3) Aggregate from tool results; always label as non-exhaustive.
  4) Enrich the overview with Knowledge Base ONLY where it adds coverage the tools may miss.
- If tool results and KB conflict: prefer tool for concrete product facts; prefer KB for store-level statements.

For Shopify, PrestaShop, AbiCart, Wix, CsCart

These integrations have searchProducts tool available. Add these instructions:

First, classify the user question into one of:
- PRODUCT-SPECIFIC (SKU/variant/price/availability/recommendation)
- ASSORTMENT-OVERVIEW (brands we carry, categories, "do you sell X at all", broad offer)

If PRODUCT-SPECIFIC:
- Call searchproduct first using normalized English singular lowercase query.
- If results are empty/weak, try up to 3 reformulations (simplify, synonym, category).
- Answer using tool results as primary truth; use Knowledge Base only for relevant extra context.

If ASSORTMENT-OVERVIEW:
- Use Knowledge Base as the primary source.
- Do not rely on searchproduct for full lists; optionally call it only to provide a few examples and label them "examples".
- Always be explicit when a list is non-exhaustive (e.g., "Examples include ...").

How to Properly Scan Your E-Commerce Website

Plan scanning your website in portions rather than all at once for better control.

Define proper scanning scope - use URL exclusion filter:
- Include only URLs for product and category pages (e.g., /products/ and /collections/)
- Exclude low-value paths like /blog/, /tags/, and archive pages
- For multilingual stores, restrict scan to a primary language
Exclude repeating elements - use HTML Element Exclusion filter for header, footer, sidebar
Include only relevant content - use CSS Selector Inclusion to focus on product descriptions and specifications while excluding reviews, ratings, similar products sections
Use Sitemap if available - helps identify all product and category pages more efficiently than crawling

Read more about optimizing your website scan: How to Reduce Training Characters When Scanning a Website

Additional Features Worth Enabling

Products View

Enable this setting under Settings > Model & Advanced to allow the chatbot to return product cards with names, images, and prices. This improves visual presentation, especially with real-time API queries.

Add this to your custom instructions to avoid duplicate links:

If knowledge base provides URLs of the source information, provide them as comma separated list in the response as a reference - only after you have answered user's question in the conversation and only if the links are not included in the product list

Human Hand-off

Activate the Contact Human form and provide your support email for escalations.

Conversation & Client Summaries

When enabled, ChatLab automatically generates a summary for each conversation and maintains an up-to-date profile summary for returning customers.

Chat Frontend API

Pass information about the currently logged-in user (e.g., user ID, email, or security token) to allow the chatbot to securely access order history without requiring re-entry.

Language Setup

ChatLab supports 90+ languages. Read more: Chatbot Language Setup

When using integration with Shopify, WooCommerce, or other e-commerce platforms, consider what language your system returns products in. Add this instruction to your Role & Behavior settings:

When searching for products use [shop language] product and category names in singular form.

Monitor & Iterate Daily

To ensure ChatLab remains accurate and effective:

Review conversation logs regularly. Fine-tune answers or add content where the bot hesitates. Read more: Chatlogs
Enable AI Conversation Insights to identify patterns and issues. Read more: AI Conversation Insights
Leverage the automated Daily Activity Report. Read more: Daily Summary Email

Optimizing Chatbot Responses

Even well-configured chatbots benefit from regular fine-tuning. Analyze conversation logs to identify weak spots, misinterpreted queries, or repetitive fallback answers. Refine prompts, update training material, and experiment with system instructions.