7 Best Use Cases for a Shipping Info Bot for Online Retailers

HubSpot’s chatbot builder is a popular no‑code solution that allows marketers and sales teams to create conversational flows that can handle a variety of customer queries, including shipping status updates. The platform’s strengths lie in its seamless integration with the HubSpot CRM, enabling the bot to pull in order history, shipping dates, and carrier information directly from the database. HubSpot’s chatbot editor is intuitive, offering drag‑and‑drop modules for questions, responses, and conditional logic. In addition, the bot can be embedded on any website or used within HubSpot’s landing pages, making it highly versatile for inbound marketing. While HubSpot’s chatbot is not specifically designed for shipping, it offers features such as automated follow‑ups, lead qualification, and the ability to send dynamic email notifications, which can be repurposed for shipping alerts. HubSpot’s pricing for chatbots is bundled within its Marketing Hub plans. The Starter plan starts at $45/month, Marketing Hub Professional at $800/month, and Enterprise at $3,200/month. Each tier offers increasing levels of customization, automation, and integration depth. Businesses that already use HubSpot for marketing or sales will find the chatbot’s native connectivity a major advantage, as it reduces data silos. However, the platform’s focus remains on lead nurturing rather than detailed shipping logistics, so additional custom code or third‑party integrations may be required for real‑time tracking from carriers. The chatbot’s AI capabilities are based on rule‑based logic rather than generative language models, which means responses are deterministic and may lack conversational nuance. Overall, HubSpot Chatbot is a strong choice for companies that already rely on HubSpot’s ecosystem and need a lightweight solution for basic shipping inquiries, but it may fall short for more complex or highly personalized shipping interactions.

Intercom’s Conversational Bots provide a robust platform for engaging website visitors with instant, contextual support, including shipping status inquiries. The bot can be configured to pull data from Intercom’s own CRM or via custom integrations to connect with e‑commerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce. Intercom’s bot editor offers a visual flow builder, allowing marketers to define branching logic, set up fallback responses, and trigger outbound emails or in‑app messages. For shipping, the bot can ask for an order number, look up the status in the connected e‑commerce database, and deliver real‑time updates directly in the chat. Intercom is designed for high‑volume, customer‑centric businesses. Its features include live chat, help center integration, and a knowledge base that can be accessed via bot queries. The platform also supports automated workflows that can trigger alerts to support agents if a shipment is delayed. Pricing for Intercom’s Engagement Hub starts at $39/month for up to 1,000 contacts, scaling up to $1,500/month for 200,000 contacts. Additional modules such as the Product Tours or the Inbox add extra cost. While Intercom excels at customer engagement and support, its shipping bot capabilities rely on custom data connectors or third‑party services to retrieve real‑time shipping information. The bot’s AI is primarily rule‑based, though it offers a Natural Language Processing engine for basic intent recognition.

Drift is a conversational marketing platform that specializes in real‑time website engagement. Its chatbot can be programmed to answer shipping queries by querying external APIs or by pulling data from connected e‑commerce stores. Drift’s visual bot builder allows users to design flows that respond to user inputs such as an order number, and then fetch status information from Shopify, WooCommerce, or other carriers via webhooks. The bot can also schedule follow‑up messages, set up automated email delivery, and hand off conversations to sales reps when a shipping issue requires human intervention. Drift’s pricing is tiered: Starter at $50/month for 1,000 contacts, Growth at $150/month for 5,000 contacts, and Enterprise at $600/month for 20,000 contacts, with additional modules for advanced features. Drift is popular among SaaS and B2B companies, but it is equally effective for e‑commerce sites that want to keep customers engaged during the checkout and post‑purchase journey. The platform’s strengths include a highly interactive chat interface, strong integration ecosystem, and robust analytics. However, Drift’s AI is primarily rule‑based and does not offer generative language models, limiting the bot’s ability to handle complex or ambiguous shipping inquiries without pre‑configured responses.

Ada is a no‑code AI chatbot platform that focuses on automating customer support across web, mobile, and messaging apps. Ada’s bot engine uses a hybrid of rule‑based logic and machine learning to interpret user intent. For shipping information, Ada can be configured to retrieve order status from an e‑commerce API, deliver carrier tracking details, and provide estimated delivery dates. The platform offers a visual builder with pre‑built question flows, natural language understanding, and the ability to trigger automated emails or push notifications. Ada’s pricing model is subscription‑based and varies by usage. The Starter plan starts at $1,500/month for up to 10,000 messages, while the Enterprise plan is priced on a custom basis and can handle millions of messages. Ada supports integration with major e‑commerce platforms and third‑party services via webhooks. The platform also provides analytics dashboards and a built‑in knowledge base for self‑service. Ada’s major advantage is its ability to scale to high‑volume support scenarios, making it suitable for large retailers that need to handle thousands of shipping inquiries simultaneously. However, Ada’s AI does not provide generative responses; instead, it relies on pre‑defined templates, which may feel less natural to users.

Zendesk Chat (formerly Zopim) is a widely used live‑chat solution that can be extended into a full‑featured chatbot. The platform offers a visual flow builder, natural language understanding, and the ability to integrate with Zendesk’s ticketing system. Shipping inquiries can be handled by configuring the bot to pull order data from an e‑commerce backend via API or by using Zendesk’s own integration with Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce. Zendesk Chat is part of the larger Zendesk Suite, which includes support, sales, and marketing tools. Pricing for Zendesk Chat starts at $19/month per agent for the Essentials plan, with advanced plans at $49/month and $99/month for higher tiers. The platform’s strengths include seamless ticket creation, automated routing, and robust reporting. However, its AI is primarily rule‑based and lacks generative language models. Additionally, real‑time shipping data requires custom integration. For retailers already invested in Zendesk’s ecosystem, the chat bot offers a convenient way to add automated shipping support while keeping all customer interactions in a single system.

ManyChat is a no‑code chatbot builder that primarily targets Facebook Messenger and SMS, but also offers a web chat widget. The platform’s visual flow editor allows marketers to create step‑by‑step conversational paths, trigger automated messages, and integrate with e‑commerce platforms via Zapier or native connectors. Shipping inquiries can be handled by configuring the bot to request an order number, then using a Zapier workflow to pull the status from Shopify or WooCommerce and return the result to the user. ManyChat’s pricing tiers are: Free plan (limited features), Growth plan at $10/month (10,000 contacts), Pro plan at $25/month (30,000 contacts), and Enterprise plan at $350/month (custom). The platform is well‑known for its marketing automation capabilities, such as broadcasting, drip campaigns, and audience segmentation. While ManyChat excels at social media and SMS engagement, its web chat widget is less feature‑rich compared to dedicated chatbot platforms. Shipping support requires additional integration layers and the bot’s AI is largely rule‑based, meaning responses are pre‑defined and lack conversational nuance.