TL;DR:
For many ecommerce teams, store policies are an afterthought, tucked away in the footer or buried deep in the FAQ. But they shouldn’t be.
Great customer experience (CX) starts before a customer reaches out. And with 55% of shoppers preferring self-service support, your store policies are often their first stop for answers.
In this guide, we break down the must-have policies for five key ecommerce verticals, based on real Gorgias ticket data. From shipping delays to subscription changes, you’ll learn how to prevent tickets before they happen.
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If you’re constantly fielding questions about returns, shipping times, or order changes, it’s a policy opportunity.
Well-crafted store policies are one of your CX team's most effective tools for setting expectations, building trust, and preventing support issues before they happen. When done right, they turn common friction points into effortless experiences.
When policies are vague or hard to find, customers turn to your inbox, driving up ticket volume and slowing down your support team.
Here are the most common blind spots we see:
When policies aren’t clear or easy to find, customers turn to your inbox. And that means more tickets, wait times, and pressure on your team.
Based on real data from Gorgias, these are the top 10 tickets customers send across channels like chat, contact forms, and email:
What do most of these have in common? You can address them with clear, accessible policies.
Customer expectations aren’t one-size-fits-all, and your store policies shouldn’t be either.
What shoppers expect from a fashion brand is very different from what they need from a wellness company or electronics provider.
We’ve broken down the top policy must-haves by vertical, using real-world examples from Gorgias customers and ticket data.
Use these examples as your plug-and-play guide to write better policies, reduce ticket volume, and create smoother support experiences — no matter what you sell.
When it comes to fashion, uncertainty drives tickets. “Will this fit?” “Can I return it?” “Where’s my order?” The most successful fashion brands like Princess Polly cut down on support volume by making these answers easy to find before customers ever reach out.
Consumer goods customers often want to know two things right away: “What’s it made of?” and “When will it get here?” These questions can quickly pile up in your inbox if your policies aren’t front and center.
Trove Brands, home to household favorites like BlenderBottle and Owala, solves this by proactively answering product and shipping questions across their site and emails.
At the end of each product page, BlenderBottle shares a support menu where shoppers can find information on order status and replacement parts.
Read more: What's the secret to reducing WISMO requests?
In electronics, clarity is everything. Customers want to know how to use the product, what to do if it doesn’t work, and how to get a replacement — without jumping through hoops.
Over-the-counter hearing aid company Audien Hearing nails this by creating crystal-clear support content around setup, shipping, and returns, so customers can troubleshoot confidently and independently.
Audien Hearing has clear visual policies that make it simple for shoppers to find the info they need quickly.
In the health and wellness space, trust and transparency are everything. Customers want to feel confident that the products they’re using are safe and that the support will be just as thoughtful as the product itself.
Brands like period underwear brand Saalt do this exceptionally well, pairing clear product education with empathetic policies that guide customers through everything from first use to subscription changes.
Saalt lets customers phrase questions themselves or choose from a dropdown menu.
Food and beverage customers tend to be both curious and cautious. They want to know what they’re putting in their bodies — and what to do if something goes wrong with the order.
Brands like Everyday Dose get ahead of these concerns by making their policies clear, accessible, and customer-first.
Everyday Dose lists frequently asked questions and makes it simple for customers to find important allergen and ingredient information.
Given that Everyday Dose is a mushroom supplement brand, many shoppers will likely have questions around allergens and exact ingredients. On each of their product pages, there is a clear “Read the Label” button.
Everyday Dose also has a chat which encourages customers to click through to the correct support link or to track their order.
Pro Tip: Use a conversational AI platform to handle common questions at scale. For example, Gorgias’s AI Agent can instantly respond to FAQs like “How much is shipping?” or “When will my order arrive?” — all in your brand’s voice. And when a request needs a human touch, it routes the ticket to the right agent automatically.
Even the most well-written policy won’t reduce tickets if it’s buried three clicks deep in your footer. To truly support your customers (and lighten your team’s workload), your policies need to show up in the right places, at the right moments.
Here’s how to get them in front of customers when they need them most:
Well-placed policies turn support into a self-service experience. They empower your customers to get what they need without ever opening a ticket — and that’s a win for everyone.
Clear, proactive policies do more than answer questions. They prevent tickets, build trust, and make your support team’s job easier. By tailoring your policies to your industry and placing them where customers actually need them, you turn potential friction points into smooth experiences.
Want to take it a step further? Book a demo to see Gorgias’s AI Agent handle common inquiries like shipping, returns, and product questions, across chat, email, and contact forms.
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TL;DR
At Gorgias, we work with over 16,000 ecommerce brands and one common challenge emerges over and over:
Ecommerce tools are essential, but too many tools becomes a burden.
With different teams responsible for different functions, brands risk creating a disconnected tech stack that causes inefficiencies, reduces productivity, and ultimately impacts profitability.
Ecommerce teams are shuffling between tabs, copying and pasting order numbers, searching for customer data, and trying to piece it all together. It’s not only inefficient—it’s expensive, frustrating, and unsustainable as you scale.
So we dug into that data.
Our 2025 Ecommerce Trends Report surveyed ecommerce professionals across industries and job roles to understand what they really think about tech stacks and AI’s role in it.
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There is now an ecommerce app for every possible use case a brand could need. But as businesses adopt new technologies for each part of their customer journey, their teams end up working out of dozens of platforms.
The study found that 42.28% of ecommerce pros use at least six apps daily to perform their role. Regardless of the number of apps used, integration and compatibility are a must. When technologies don’t talk to each other, you spend time context-switching instead of focusing on customer experience.
For Audien Hearing, Gorgias’s open API allowed them to create an integration with its warehouse software to manage returns directly in Gorgias rather than a shared Google spreadsheet. This integration helped them reduce returns by 5%, protecting their margins and leading to higher customer satisfaction.
Read more: How Audien Hearing Increased Efficiency for 75 Agents and Reduced Product Returns by 5%
The most successful ecommerce brands aren’t necessarily using more tools—they’re using smarter tools. Leading businesses are opting for platforms that are deeply integrated, AI-compatible, and built specifically for ecommerce needs.
A growing tech stack also comes with a growing tech budget. Each new app has new costs, including subscriptions, set-up, management, and development fees. They quickly add up.
Nearly 40% of ecommerce professionals spend $5,000 to $50,000 annually on their tech stack.
We asked ecommerce professionals what they actually value in their tools. Unsurprisingly, the answer changed based on who we were talking to.
Top tool benefits included:
There’s a clear difference between what ecommerce leaders and agents value in a tool and considering both is key to success.
Despite the benefits of using fewer, well-integrated tools, there are a few things that hold brands back from consolidating their tech stacks.
We asked respondents:
What, if any, are the biggest deterrents to consolidating your tech stack?
Top concerns are:
AI is dominating the world of ecommerce. It impacts every aspect of the customer journey, from brand discovery to the post-purchase experience. AI is actively reshaping the way ecommerce professionals work, so we wanted to know how they feel about it.
Despite growing usage and excitement, teams still have their concerns with AI:
Read more: 8 AI Trends in Ecommerce: What’s Changing and How to Prepare
The most impactful use cases we’ve seen aren’t just about reducing support ticket volume. AI is now driving revenue, increasing conversion rates, and enabling 24/7 coverage without expanding headcount.
Gorgias’s AI Agent is now capable of virtual sales assistance through personalized product recommendations, dynamic discounts to reduce cart abandonment, and cross-sells and upsells.
Top brands are already leveraging these new capabilities and seeing results. For example:
We asked one final question to make ecommerce folks really reflect on how they work:
How many tabs do you currently have open?
The average ecommerce professional works with 22 open tabs. We’re not here to judge, but if you’re looking to close a few of those tabs, Gorgias might be what you’re missing.
Gorgias replaces all that complexity with a single workspace. From support to sales, order management to automation, it all happens inside one platform.
Ecommerce businesses can now leverage Gorgias’s Advanced AI for both support and sales. Within the same AI Agent, ecommerce brands can
This blog just skims the surface of what we uncover in our 2025 Ecommerce Trends report.
Want the full story?
Download the complete 2025 Ecommerce Trends: AI Adoption & Smarter Tech Stacks report to access:
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If you're an ecommerce leader right now, you’re likely facing a new wave of uncertainty. Rising tariffs, disrupted imports, and sudden cost increases are putting pressure on your margins, and your customer relationships.
At Gorgias, we are working with thousands of brands that are grappling with tough calls: adjust prices, shift sourcing, or absorb costs to protect loyalty. And while the supply chain is where these issues start, the customer experience is where they play out.
Whether you’re a growing DTC or an enterprise brand, your customers deserve transparency. We know the pressure you're under, and we're here to help you navigate it. To help you not only manage the conversation, but lead it with clarity, empathy, and speed.
Ecommerce brands are in an impossible position right now, following the 24 hours news cycle, and waiting to see how tariffs will cut into profits and impact their business.
For customers? It can create confusion, frustration, and a flurry of angry tickets if brands aren’t proactive and transparent. But here's the truth: how your team talks about tariffs is just as important as what they say.
These moments of friction, and how you communicate these changes to your customers can be opportunities to build trust, reduce churn, and even demonstrate the real revenue power of your team. In a moment when clarity and trust are everything, the role of CX leaders is more important than ever.
Tariffs may seem like a back-end issue, but in reality, they shape front-end experiences—from product pricing and availability to fulfillment speed and satisfaction.
For ecommerce brands, especially those sourcing from China or shipping globally, these trade shifts hit close to home. Products get more expensive, shipping slows down, and some SKUs disappear altogether.
And CX teams are often the first to hear about it. The question isn’t if you should communicate tariff implications, but how.
Here’s the good news: customers don’t expect you to control global trade policy. But they do expect honesty.
What matters most right now is:
And even more specifically, your customers are likely looking for answers to three simple questions:
In times of change, trust becomes foundational. If you're not upfront about what’s happening and how it affects them, customers will fill in the blank, or worse, turn to competitors.
Tariffs are complex, but your messaging shouldn’t be. Strip out the policy jargon and explain the changes in human terms. Let customers know what’s changing, why it’s happening, and what steps you’re taking to protect their experience.
Instead of: “Due to regulatory changes impacting import duties…”
Say: “Because of new tariffs, some of our prices have gone up. Here’s why, and what we’re doing to keep costs down.”
From your Help Center to your agents to your email updates, your message should be consistent. Mismatched explanations create confusion and erode trust. Align your team on the key talking points and update scripts and automations across all customer touchpoints.
Speaking of your Help Center, now might be a great time to create an article specifically about tariffs and how you’re approaching them. The article can serve as a source of truth for your customers and your AI agents on the front lines answering questions.
Customers don’t just want the facts, they want to know you care. Acknowledge the frustration, and offer reassurance. Small gestures like a personalized note or a shipping perk can show you’re on their side.
Generic messages fall flat. Give customers details that they can rely on: Are the changes permanent? Are you absorbing part of the cost? Is a specific product impacted? When you’re upfront about the situation, and how you’re responding to it, you build credibility.
Times of uncertainty are times to cut costs, but it may also mean increased ticket volume. AI agents can help on the frontlines. But be sure to build your handovers to escalate to your team in the right moments to build trust.
Luggage brand, Beis, recently sent an email to customers that is a great example in customer-first communication. Rather than quietly raising prices or burying fees in checkout, they called it what it was: tariffs.
They explained the change clearly, why it was happening, and what customers could expect. And most importantly, they acknowledged the frustration. No spin, or vague language, just a clear message from a brand that respects its customers enough to be honest with them.
This kind of proactive messaging does more than prevent a flood of support tickets. It creates alignment between the brand and the customer. Beis didn’t make the rules but they’re navigating them with their customers, not in spite of them.
Too often, tariff policies get relegated to the FAQ page or terms and conditions. Customers typically only land there after they’re already confused or upset.
Instead, CX should treat tariffs as a key part of the customer journey and be equipped to speak about them empathetically and clearly.
Add a proactive message to your chat widget that addresses tariff-related questions before they even come up. A short note like, “You may notice some pricing changes – here’s why,” with a link to your FAQ or a specific article, helps to deflect confusion and prevents cart abandonment.
Surface timely information right where customers are most likely to look. Use your chat or search function to include a clear callout.
“Looking for information on recent pricing or shipping updates? Here’s what changed.”
This type of visibility empowers self-service, and reduces ticket volume.
Don’t leave your support team guessing. Create internal scripts with clear language on what to say (and what to avoid) when talking tariffs. Script empathy, not just compliance: Empower agents with language that acknowledges the inconvenience while reinforcing the brand's values.
Say:
Avoid:
If you’re using automation, make sure your AI Agent and autoresponders can explain tariff policies accurately and compassionately. Use macros to ensure fast, consistent replies, without sacrificing tone. Some key macro themes to create:
Each macro should strike a balance of clarity, empathy, and brand voice, offering both the what and the why.
Tariffs might be out of your control. But how you talk about them? That’s entirely in your hands.
This is your moment as a CX leader, not just to react but to lead. To turn friction into transparency, tension into trust, and confusion into connection. Because when policies change overnight and customer confidence is on the line, the brands that communicate with honesty, consistency, and care don’t just survive. They strengthen loyalty.
Your customers don’t expect perfection. They expect clarity. They expect empathy. And they expect you to show up.
At Gorgias, we’re here to make sure you can. With tools to automate answers, personalize conversations, and empower your team to deliver the kind of CX that builds long-term brand equity, even when times get tough.
The best in CX and ecommerce, right to your inbox
TL;DR:
When customer service teams are at their busiest, they need a helpdesk that keeps up. That’s exactly why our Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team has been working behind the scenes to make the Gorgias platform faster than ever.
Over the past year, we've made remarkable improvements to our platform to eliminate bottlenecks, speed up data retrieval, and reduce incidents. For you, this means fewer disruptions, faster load times, and a more reliable helpdesk experience.
Here's how we did it.
Our platform relied on a single, shared database connection pool to manage all queries. Think of it as having just one pipe handling all the water flowing through your house — when too much water rushes in at once, the whole system backs up.
In practice, this meant a single surge in database requests could clog the entire system. When lower-priority background tasks got stuck, they could prevent high-priority operations (like loading tickets or running automations) from working properly. This would cause the entire helpdesk to slow down or, worse, become completely unresponsive.
Using PgBouncer, a tool that manages database connections and reduces the load on a server, we implemented multiple connection pools. Instead of relying on a single pipeline to stream all requests, we created separate "pipes" for different requests.
Like how road traffic picks up again after an exit, routing our database traffic into separate connection pools makes sure high-priority customer interactions don’t lag behind automated background tasks.
This solution is future-proof. In the event that a lower-priority task is delayed in one connection pool, other functionalities of the helpdesk will continue working because of the remaining connection pools.
The results speak for themselves:
We've eliminated incidents caused by connection pool issues in the helpdesk completely. This reduced major helpdesk outage incidents by around four per year and maintained an average uptime of over 99.99%.
As Gorgias grew to over 15,000 customers, so did the volume of data. We’re talking data from tickets, integrations, automations, and many more. The combination of more users and data meant slower searches within the helpdesk.
However, the amount of data was not the problem — it was how our data was organized.
Imagine this: An enormous storage room full of file cabinets containing every piece of data. Sure, those file cabinets kept data organized, but you would still need to spend time searching through the entire room, running up and down aisles of cabinets, to find your desired file. This method was cumbersome.
We needed a more efficient way to keep our data easy to find, especially as more customers used our platform.
The answer was database partitioning — breaking our large datasets into smaller, more manageable segments. Using Debezium, Kafka, and Kafka-connect JDBC, all managed by Terraform, we migrated over 40TB of data, including 3.5 billion tickets, without a moment of downtime for our merchants.
Instead of a giant room with thousands of file cabinets, we divided that giant room into 128 smaller rooms. So now, instead of looking for a file in one room, you know you just need to go into room number 102, which has a much smaller area to search.
This approach allows our system to quickly pinpoint the location of data, significantly reducing the time it takes to find and deliver information to users.
Additionally, database maintenance has become more efficient. Some of the partitions can probably sit without needing to be changed at all. We just have to maintain the partitions that are getting new files, which cuts down on maintenance time.
Better database partitioning provides several benefits:
When incidents occurred in the past, our response process was inconsistent, leading to delays in resolution. It was sometimes unclear who should take the lead, what immediate actions were required, and how to effectively communicate with affected customers.
Additionally, post-incident reviews varied in quality, making it difficult to prevent similar issues from happening again. We needed a standardized framework to address incidents in a timely fashion.
To streamline incident management, we introduced a replicable, automated process:
With our improved incident management process:
With more brands catching on to how essential a solid CX platform is, our team's got our work cut out for us. Here's what's on the way:
Gorgias will inevitably face new challenges in performance — no system is completely immune to downtime.
But we've built our architecture with the future in mind, and it’s more resilient than ever as more and more brands realize the power of conversational AI CX platforms.
The result? A platform you can count on to help you deliver exceptional customer service, without technical issues getting in the way.
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TL;DR:
Shoppers aren’t just open to AI — they’re starting to expect it.
According to IBM, 3 in 5 consumers want to use AI as they shop. And a McKinsey study found that 71% expect personalized experiences from the brands they buy from. When they don’t get that? Two-thirds say they’re frustrated.
But while most brands associate AI with support automation, its real power lies in something bigger: scaling personalization across the entire customer journey.
We’ll show you how to do that in this article.
Before AI can personalize emails, recommend products, or answer support tickets, it needs one thing: good data.
That’s why one of the best places to start using AI isn’t in sales or support — but in enriching your customer data. With a deeper understanding of who your customers are, what they want, and how they behave, AI becomes a personalization engine across your entire business.
Post-purchase surveys are gold mines for understanding customers — but digging through the data manually? Not so fun.
AI can help by analyzing survey responses at scale, identifying trends, and categorizing open-ended customer feedback into clear, actionable insights. Instead of skimming thousands of answers to spot what customers are saying about your shipping times, AI can surface those insights instantly — along with sentiment and behavior signals you might’ve missed.
Try this prompt when doing this: "Analyze 500 open-ended post-purchase survey responses. Identify the top 5 recurring themes, categorize customer sentiment (positive, neutral, negative), and surface any trends related to product quality, delivery experience, or customer support."
One of AI’s biggest strengths? Spotting intent.
By analyzing things like page views, cart activity, scroll behavior, and previous purchases, AI can identify which shoppers are ready to buy, which ones are likely to churn, and which just need a little nudge to move forward.
This doesn’t just apply to email and retargeting. It also works on live chat, in real time.
Take TUSHY, for example.
To eliminate friction in the buying journey, TUSHY introduced AI Agent for Sales — a virtual assistant designed to guide shoppers toward the right product before they drop off.
Instead of letting potential customers bounce with unanswered questions, the AI Agent steps in to offer:
With a growing product catalog, TUSHY realized first-time buyers were overwhelmed with options — and needed help choosing what would work best for their home and hygiene preferences.
“What amazed us most is that the AI Agent doesn’t just help customers choose the perfect bidet for their booty — it also provides measurement and fit guidance, high-level installation support, and even recommends all the necessary spare parts for skirted toilet installations. It’s ushering in a new era of customer service — one that’s immediate, informative, and confidence-boosting as people rethink their bathroom habits.”
—Ren Fuller-Wasserman, Sr. Director of Customer Experience at TUSHY
AI also helps you see the road ahead.
Instead of looking at retention and loyalty metrics in isolation, AI can help you forecast what’s likely to happen next and where to focus your attention.
By segmenting customers based on behaviors like average order value, order frequency, and churn risk, AI can identify revenue opportunities and weak spots before they impact your bottom line.
All you need is the right prompt. Here’s an example you can run using your own data in any AI tool:
Prompt: “Analyze my customer data to forecast revenue by segment. Break customers into at least three groups based on behavior patterns like average order value, purchase frequency, and churn risk.
For each segment, provide:
Here’s what a result might look like:
Instead of flying blind, you’re making decisions with clarity — and backing them with data that scales.
When used strategically, AI becomes a proactive sales agent that can identify opportunities in real-time: recommending the right product to the right shopper at the right moment.
Here’s how ecommerce brands are using AI to drive revenue across every part of the funnel.
Your prices shouldn’t be static — especially when your competitors, inventory, and customer behavior are anything but.
AI-powered pricing tools like AI Agent for Sales help brands automatically adjust pricing based on shopper behavior. The goal is to make the right offer to the right customer.
For example:
With dynamic pricing, you can protect your margins and boost conversions — without relying on blanket sales.
AI-powered chat is no longer just a glorified FAQ. Today, it can act as a real-time shopping assistant — guiding customers, boosting conversions, and helping your team reclaim time.
That’s exactly what Pepper did with “Penelope,” their AI Agent built on Gorgias.
With a rapidly growing product catalog (22 new SKUs in 2024 alone), Pepper knew shoppers needed help discovering the right products. Customers often had questions about styles, materials, or sizing, and if they didn’t get answers right away, they’d abandon carts and move on.
Instead of hiring more agents to keep up, Pepper deployed Penelope to live chat and email.
Her job?
“With AI Agent, we’re not just putting information in our customer’s hands; we’re putting bras in their hands... We’re turning customer support from a cost center to a revenue generator.”
—Gabrielle McWhirter, CX Operations Lead at Pepper
Let’s look at how Penelope performs on the floor:
A shopper asked about the difference between two wire-free bras. Penelope broke down the styles, support level, and fabric in plain language — then followed up with personalized suggestions based on the shopper’s preferences.
Using Gorgias Convert chat campaigns, Pepper triggers targeted messages to shoppers based on behavior. If someone is browsing white bras? Penelope jumps in and offers assistance, often leading to faster decisions and fewer abandoned carts.
If a customer adds a swimsuit top to their cart, Penelope suggests matching bottoms. No full-screen popups, no awkward sales scripts — just thoughtful, helpful guidance.
Penelope also handles WISMO tickets and return inquiries. If a shopper is dealing with a sizing issue, Penelope walks them through the return process and links to Pepper’s Fit Guide to make sure the next purchase is spot on.
By implementing AI into chat, Pepper saw a 19% conversion rate from AI-assisted chats, an 18% uplift in AOV, and a 92.1% decrease in resolution time.
With Penelope handling repetitive and revenue-driving tasks, Pepper’s team now has more time to offer truly personalized touches — like virtual fit sessions that have turned refunds into exchanges and even upsells.
Bundling is a proven tactic for increasing AOV — but most brands still rely on subjective judgment calls or static reports to decide which products to group.
AI can take this a step further.
Instead of just looking at what’s bought together in the same cart, AI can analyze purchase sequences. For example, what people tend to buy as a follow-up 30 days after their first order. This gives you powerful clues into natural buying behavior and bundling opportunities you might’ve missed.
If you’re looking to explore this at scale, you can use anonymized sales data and feed it into AI tools to surface patterns in:
Try this prompt:
"Analyze this spreadsheet of order data and identify product bundle opportunities. Look for: (1) products frequently purchased together in the same order, (2) items commonly bought as a second purchase within 30 days of the first, and (3) patterns in high-value or high-frequency product pairings. Provide insights on the most promising bundles and why they might work well together."
Just make sure you’re keeping customer data anonymous — and always double-check the insights with your team.
Related: Ecommerce product categorization: How to organize your products
AI isn’t just here to deflect tickets. From quality assurance to proactive outreach, AI can elevate the entire support experience — on both sides of the conversation.
Manual QA is slow, selective, and often feels like it’s chasing the wrong tickets.
That’s where Auto QA comes in. Instead of reviewing just a handful of conversations each week, Auto QA evaluates 100% of private messages, whether they’re handled by a human or an AI agent.
Every message is scored on key metrics like:
It gives support leaders a full picture of how their team is performing, so they can coach with clarity, not just gut feeling.
Here’s what brands can do with automated QA:
Let’s walk through a real example.
Customer: “Hi, my device broke, and I bought it less than a month ago.”
Agent: “Hi Kelly, please send us a photo or a video so we can determine the issue with your device.”
Auto QA flags this interaction with:
Reactive support is table stakes. AI takes it a step further by anticipating issues before they happen — and proactively helping customers.
Let’s say login errors spike after a product update. AI detects the surge and automatically triggers an email to affected customers with a simple fix. No need for them to dig through help docs or wait on chat — support meets them right where they are.
Proactive AI can also be used for:
This saves the time of your agents because the AI will spot problems before they turn into tickets.
Your customers are telling you what they think. AI just helps you hear it more clearly.
By analyzing reviews, support tickets, post-purchase surveys, and social comments, AI can spot sentiment trends that might otherwise fly under the radar.
For example:
Related: 12 ways to upgrade your data and trend analysis with Ticket Fields
Whether you’re enriching customer data, making smarter product recommendations, triggering dynamic pricing, or proactively resolving support issues, AI gives your team the power to scale personalization without sacrificing quality.
With Gorgias, you can bring many of these use cases to life — from AI-powered chat that drives conversions to automated support that still feels human.
And with our app store, you can tap into additional AI tools for data enrichment, direct mail, bundling insights, and more.
Personalized ecommerce doesn’t have to mean more work. With the right AI tools in your corner, it means smarter work — and better results.
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TL;DR:
AI is no longer a futuristic concept associated with sci-fi movies and robots. It’s driving real change in ecommerce right now. Currently, 84% of ecommerce businesses list AI as their top priority. And it’s only getting bigger. By 2034, the ecommerce AI market is expected to hit $62.64 billion.
Brands that use AI to improve personalization, automate customer support, and refine pricing strategies will have a major competitive edge.
The good news? Most brands are still figuring it out, which means there’s huge potential for early adopters to stand out.
Let’s dive into the key AI trends shaping ecommerce in 2025, and how you can use them to future-proof your business.
Instead of searching for keywords, shoppers can upload a photo and instantly find similar or matching products. Visual search eliminates the guesswork of finding the right words to describe an item and reduces friction in the search process.
In 2025, improvements in computer vision and machine learning will make visual search faster. AI will better recognize patterns, colors, and textures, delivering more precise results in real-time.
For customers, visual search simplifies product discovery while brands benefit from increased average order values. Visual search creates more opportunities to surface related products that customers might miss during manual searches, ultimately boosting conversion and revenue.
Pinterest is already doing it. With Pinterest Lens, users can take a picture on the spot to find similar products or ideas to help them with easier purchases or creative projects.
Pro Tip: Optimize product images and metadata (like color, size, and material) so your products appear accurately in visual search results. Clean, high-quality images and detailed tagging will make your catalog easier for AI to process and match.
Conversational AI, like Gorgias’s AI Agent, already handles 60% of customer conversations. Brands that adopt it often see more than a 25% improvement in customer satisfaction, revenue, or cost reduction.
Soon, advanced natural language processing (NLP) will make it easier for customers to use text, voice, and images to find exactly what they’re looking for. These multimodal capabilities will elevate support conversations, resulting in fewer abandoned carts and support teams that can focus on more complex issues.
For example, Glamnetic uses AI Agent to manage customer inquiries across multiple channels, resolving 40% of requests automatically while maintaining a personalized touch. Their AI can automate responses to common questions, recommend products based on browsing history, and even track orders in real-time.
Pro Tip: Invest in AI chat tools that integrate with your customer support system and sync with real-time product and order data. Your responses will be accurate and timely, without losing the personal touch.
Read more: The Gorgias & Shopify integration: 8 features your support team will love
According to McKinsey, omnichannel personalization strategies, including tailored product recommendations, have a 10-15% uplift potential in revenue and retention. But with only 1 in 10 retailers fully implementing personalization across channels, there’s a massive opportunity for brands to innovate.
In 2025, AI-driven product recommendations will become even more precise by analyzing customer behavior, preferences, and purchase history in real-time. Predictive AI will adjust recommendations on the fly, showing customers the right products at the right moment.
Take Kreyol Essence as an example. They use Gorgias Convert to track customer behavior and recommend products based on past purchases and browsing patterns. When a customer buys a hair mask, AI suggests complementary products like scalp oil or leave-in conditioner — increasing average order value without feeling pushy.
Personalization boosts sales by helping customers discover products they actually want. Plus, it creates a more tailored shopping experience, which encourages customers to return.
Pro Tip: Test different recommendation strategies, like “frequently bought together” or “you may also like,” to see which ones drive the most conversions.
Learn more: Reduce Customer Effort with AI: A Smarter Approach Than Surprise and Delight
In 2025, more customers may use smart speakers and voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant to shop hands-free. AI will improve voice recognition and contextual understanding, so it’s easier for customers to find products they want.
Instead of fumbling with a keyboard, customers will be able to say, “Order more coffee pods,” and AI will not only recognize the request but also pull up the preferred brand and size based on past orders. Less friction will make the buying process more intuitive, especially for repeat purchases.
Voice commerce expands shopping accessibility and creates a more convenient experience for busy customers. It also opens the door for brands to surface product recommendations and upsell during the conversation.
Pro Tip: Optimize product descriptions and catalog structure for voice search. Clear, simple language and detailed product tags will help AI understand and surface the right products.
A recent McKinsey report suggests that investing in real-time customer analytics will continue to be key to adjusting pricing and more effectively targeting customers.
In 2025, machine learning will allow ecommerce brands to adjust product prices instantly based on demand, competitor pricing, and customer behavior. If a competitor drops their price on a popular item, AI can respond immediately, so you stay competitive without sacrificing margins.
Machine learning will also refine pricing models over time, finding the sweet spot between profitability and customer conversion.
For example, AI might detect that customers are more likely to buy a product when it’s priced at $29.99 rather than $30, and adjust accordingly. More competitive pricing means higher revenue and better margins, but it also increases customer trust when prices are consistent with market trends.
Pro Tip: Test different pricing strategies and monitor how they affect sales and customer behavior.
According to McKinsey, AI-driven personalization and customer insights can improve marketing efficiency by 10-30% and cut costs significantly.
In 2025, AI will analyze customer data like purchase history, browsing patterns, and feedback to generate smarter, more actionable next steps. Instead of guessing what customers want, brands will have the data to predict it.
For example, Gorgias’s AI Agent for Sales can identify a shopper’s interest level and purchase intent and then use it to adjust its conversational strategy. It analyzes shopper data like browsing behavior, cart activity, and purchase history.
Here’s how it would behave for different customers:
AI-driven personalization leads to a 5-10% higher customer satisfaction and engagement. Yet, only 15% have fully implemented it across all channels — leaving a huge gap to fill.
In 2025, AI-driven personalization will go beyond product recommendations. Brands will be able to adjust website layouts based on customer preferences, highlight products that align with their style, and even customize customer service interactions.
A higher level of personalization will boost conversion rates and customer satisfaction. When customers feel like a brand “gets” them, they’re more likely to make a purchase and come back for more.
For example, AI Agent for Sales can adjust discounts and provide smart incentives to drive sales. When adjusting for discounts, AI Agent analyzes shopper behavior, including browsing activity, cart status, and conversation context, to offer a discount based on how engaged and ready the shopper is to buy.
Pro Tip: Use AI to test different personalization strategies and refine them based on performance data. Small adjustments, like changing product order or highlighting specific categories, can have a big impact on sales.
Keeping the right products in stock at the right time is about to get a whole lot easier. In 2025, AI will predict demand patterns and automate restocking decisions based on sales trends, seasonality, and customer behavior. Instead of manually tracking inventory, AI will handle it in real time to avoid stock issues.
For example, AI could notice a spike in orders for a specific product right before the holidays. It could then automatically increase stock levels to meet demand or scale back on items that aren’t moving as fast. Real-time tracking means fewer missed sales and less wasted inventory.
Efficient inventory management not only cuts costs but also improves the customer experience. When products are consistently available, customers are more likely to trust and stick with your brand.
Pro Tip: Implement AI-powered inventory management to sync data across all sales channels. This ensures accurate stock levels and seamless fulfillment, whether customers are shopping online or in-store.
AI makes it easier for brands to deliver a personalized and efficient shopping experience. From helping customers find products faster with visual search to automating support with conversational AI, there are plenty of opportunities for personalization.
The brands that adopt and refine these strategies now will be better positioned to meet customer expectations and stay ahead of the competition. Start by implementing conversational AI and later test some other AI trends like personalized suggestions.
Ready to see how AI can upgrade your brand? Book a demo to see AI Agent in action.
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TL;DR:
People are only able to identify AI-generated content 46.9% of the time. That’s less than half the time!
In the ecommerce customer service industry, this is just one reason teams are getting more comfortable with using AI.
Better language processing abilities mean AI can be a better extension of CX teams, relieving agents of repetitive questions, like where is my order?, while speaking in a way that’s familiar and delightful to customers.
Upholding a strong brand voice should be one of your top priorities in CX. With Gorgias’s AI Agent, you can choose AI Agent’s exact tone of voice, from sophisticated to fun. Below, check out seven AI Agent brand voice examples from real customer conversations.
“We’ve had customers respond to the AI thinking they were speaking to a real person. That’s how elevated the response was from AI.”
—Emily McEnany, Senior CX Manager at Dr. Bronner’s
Tone of Voice refers to how AI Agent communicates with your customers. In Gorgias, you can select from three pre-built tone options:
Or, you can create a custom tone, keeping your brand guidelines, style guide, and target audience in mind.
Note: AI Agent and Tone of Voice are only available to Gorgias Automate subscribers.
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Explore how effectively AI Agent adapts to seven distinct tones in the examples below. First, we’ll show you what a preset AI Agent tone option sounds like, then we’ll move on to six examples using custom instructions.
Feel free to copy and paste our provided instructions to set up your AI Agent with the custom tone of your choice, or, even better, take some inspiration to create your own.
A friendly AI Agent is the go-to for most CX teams. A Friendly tone of voice is outgoing and welcomes inquiries with enthusiasm. If you were to imagine the model support agent, they would speak like this.
The Friendly tone of voice is available by default in AI Agent’s settings.
Here’s how an AI Agent with a Friendly tone of voice responds to a customer asking for samples and coupons:
Now, we move away from AI Agent’s default Tone of Voice options and toward the vast possibilities of the Custom option.
If you prefer your AI Agent get to the point in as few words as possible, create a Custom tone of voice that breaks up text into separate lines, limits paragraphs to two to three sentences, and keeps responses short.
💡 Tip: Access a custom tone of voice by going to Automate > AI Agent > Settings > Tone of Voice > Custom. A text field will appear where you can write your instructions.
Tone of voice instructions:
Acknowledge the customer's feelings by briefly repeating their initial concern(s). Break text up, don’t send entire paragraphs, and keep responses short and easy to read. Keep interactions brief but filled with empathy. We are not long-winded. Keep an informative tone while remaining professional, clear, and easy for customers to follow. Insert links where needed. Don't use too many adjectives when expressing empathy. Never tell the customer to email support or contact our customer service team.
Here’s how an AI Agent with a direct and brief tone of voice responds to a customer who wants to cancel their order:
Who says support agents can’t have personality? Bring some fun into your conversations by creating a custom tone of voice that allows your AI Agent to use emojis and exclamation points.
Tone of voice instructions:
Greet with first name only. Acknowledge the customer's feelings by repeating their initial concern(s). Be concise and provide shorter responses, try to keep your responses to a few sentences. Use a warm, positive, and engaging—like chatting with a helpful, considerate friend. Sign off with "Best Regards". Avoid jokes or comments related to sensitive topics. Make the customer feel like a friend. You can include approved emojis for a personal touch and exclamation points. Approved emojis to use: 💞🫶✨🥰💖🎀💓💘🥳💗💕💯 You should recognize and celebrate personal milestones mentioned by customers, making the interaction feel more personal. After the customer's initial message, there's no need to restate their issue in follow-up responses.
Here’s how an AI Agent with a fun tone of voice responds to a customer asking about exchanging their damaged product:
Customer support often gets a bad rep. Customers anticipate long response times and unpleasant interactions. Flip customer expectations by giving your AI Agent a calming and comforting voice that can instantly fix negative experiences.
💡 Tip: Brands in the wellness and baby industry would do well to use a comforting tone of voice for their AI Agent.
Tone of voice instructions:
Our brand embodies the role of a nurturing parent, promoting happiness, growth, and well-being while creating moments of joy and inspiration. Stay genuine and reflect childlike wonder without being overly sentimental. We maintain a positive and supportive tone, offering a safe, comforting space. Avoid admitting fault or apologizing. Be shorter in replies. Do not offer replacements. Do not give out phone numbers.
Here’s how an AI Agent with a comforting tone of voice responds to a customer asking about exchanging their damaged product:
Give your AI Agent a laid-back, “we’ve got your back” vibe that feels like chatting with a buddy. This tone keeps things casual, approachable, and like you’re ready to tackle any issue together.
Tone of voice instructions:
Sound like a gym bro. Speak casually and friendly. Be eager to help. However, do not go overboard with puns or stereotypical phrases. You may use the following emojis: 🤙💪🏋️ End responses with "Stay awesome,"
Here’s how an AI Agent with a bro-y tone of voice responds to a customer asking about glove sizing:
If your brand isn’t afraid to lean into humor and puns, this tone will definitely connect with your audience. Let your AI Agent use wit and clever wordplay to keep conversations lighthearted and customers smiling at their screens.
Tone of voice instructions:
Speak in bee and honey puns and use colorful emojis. Use at least one emoji per message. Keep your messages brief. Sign off with a different pun in every conversation. If a customer is upset or needs urgent help, avoid puns.
Here’s how an AI Agent with a punny tone of voice responds to a customer asking about suit sizes:
In all of our examples, AI Agent responses can easily be mistaken for one of your human agents. But if, for any reason, you want to change that by making your AI Agent sound robotic — it’s possible.
Tone of voice instructions:
Sound like a robot. Make robot sounds and puns. Use short, direct, and easy-to-read sentences.
Here’s how an AI Agent with a robotic tone of voice responds to a customer asking about exchanging their damaged product:
Like a chameleon, AI Agent adapts to your brand voice. Whether it’s friendly, professional, or a custom tone, you can be sure that every interaction aligns with your brand’s identity.
With AI Agent on your side, you have the power to make each conversation feel authentic. Take it from Psycho Bunny’s Senior Customer Experience Manager Tosha Moyer who says, “The overall tone is good, and its responses are really excellent.”
Ready to see AI Agent’s excellence for yourself? Book a demo and discover how AI Agent can be a permanent part of your team.
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This episode’s featured guest is Nik Sharma, the CEO at Sharma Brands. He works with founders and executives of a wide variety of brands to launch their digital platform, develop an acquisition and retention strategy, expand their channels, and optimize their revenue. He has worked with big brands such as Bill Blass, Roc Nation, and Haus, and he is on the podcast today to discuss the importance of customer service.
Customer service is a brand’s frontline of defense. They are the first to know when something is wrong, broken, or if anything can be done better. By identifying the needs, concerns, and issues of the customer faster than anyone else, they can also fix or address problems before it gets any bigger and becomes damaging to the company. For example, when Nik was working with Judy, an emergency kit brand, there was an issue with their discount code. It simply was not working but no one knew until an online shopper got in contact with customer service. Immediately, the code was fixed and although Judy must have lost several potential customers during the mistake, they could have lost far more if customer service were not there to receive and respond to the matter.
It is important to keep the customer happy. If it is their first time ordering from a brand and they have a less than stellar experience, they are most likely not going to order again. They will not give any of the company’s second products a try, such as the more expensive purchases or subscriptions. That is why customer service is there to pacify the consumer and their issues, acting as a prevention method to any bad experiences. By offering even simple solutions from a technical standpoint, such as dealing with refunds or providing a shipping label, the customer is excited that the brand provided them with a solution.
Through this excitement and acknowledgement, an intimate relationship is created between the brand and customer. The customer feels valued as the brand understands and emphasizes with them. They recognize that they will be taken care of and as more customers begin to feel the same way, a community is built. Every company talks about wanting to build a community and all the strategies that it will take to do so, but the easiest and fastest way to accomplish that is by just having an efficient customer support team. Even a simple third-party logistics team can give a significant boost to a brand by providing front-line workers for customers.
It is not an exaggeration to say that customer service is the most vital piece of a brand. Nik has seen firsthand what good customer service can do and how much feedback, both positive and negative, it can receive. By offering world-class customer experiences, it can boost businesses to new heights and maximize profits. To speak to Nik and to get a further insight into the importance of customer service, he can reached via text at 917-905-2340.