Unlocking Tech

Solutions / Retail & E‑commerce

AI agents for retail and e-commerce that resolve orders, returns and questions — not just chat.

AI agents for retail and e-commerce read a shopper's message, pull the live order, stock or policy from your systems, and resolve it — a 'where's my order', a return, a product question — instead of bouncing it to an FAQ.

We build them around Shopify, your helpdesk and your ERP, and ship the first one in weeks.

Illustrative examplePick a step to see it in detailA return request, from message to resolution
  1. “Hi! The running shoes I got last week are too small. Can I send them back?”

    Channel
    Email
    Customer
    Matched by the order email
  2. The agent pulls the order from the store and the delivery status from the carrier — it never answers from memory.

    Order
    #10482
    Item
    Running shoes, size 42
    Value
    €79.90
    Delivered
    9 days ago
  3. The policy says: returns within 30 days of delivery, unworn and in the original box. Refunds up to the set limit go ahead without a person.

    Window
    Day 9 of 30 — inside
    Condition
    Unworn — confirmed by the customer
    Value vs limit
    €79.90 ≤ €150 — automatic
  4. The agent offers a size 43 or a refund, creates the return, books the pickup and updates the order in the helpdesk.

    Return
    RMA-2210 created
    Pickup
    Booked for tomorrow
    Order
    Updated, with history
  5. Instead of step 4, not after it. If the window has passed, the item is worn or the value is over the limit, the case reaches your team already prepared, with the reason — and the customer is told a person will reply.

    When
    Only if the step 3 check fails
    For instance
    Another order, delivered 34 days ago — outside the 30-day window
    Routed to
    Support team

Fictitious data to explain the flow: the order, the policy and the limits are examples, not a client's data.

Where it usually breaks

  • High “Where-is-my-order” ticket volume
  • Low basket size / weak upsells
  • Stock-outs and overstocking hurt margin
01 / Real work

Case study· Portugal

A real example: two AI agents in production at Grupo Filtrarte

Grupo Filtrarte, a Portuguese home-solutions group with more than 30 years in the market and 200,000+ customers, routed leads from its digital campaigns to distributors by hand and collected post-service reviews the same way. We built two AI agents inside the tools the team already used — HubSpot, Outlook, WhatsApp and Google Sheets — with no new software to learn.

Lead verification now completes autonomously in 15 minutes, no leads are lost to slow manual routing, and lead volume can grow across European markets without operational pressure. Read the Filtrarte case study.

Published results

  • 15 minLead verification cycle, fully autonomous
  • 0Lost leads from slow manual routing
02 / What they are · use cases

What are AI agents for retail and e-commerce?

AI agents for retail and e-commerce are software agents that handle the high-volume, rules-shaped work behind an online or omnichannel store: order and shipment status (the single biggest support question for most stores), returns and refunds, product and stock questions, and post-purchase follow-up — end to end, with a clean handoff to a person on the edge cases. They reason over your live commerce data, so the answer to 'where's my order' is the real tracking status, not a link to a help page.

Keep reading

Whether you call it retail or e-commerce, it's the same engineering pointed at your store — part of the wider AI agent work we do and our customer-service agents, built around the stack you already run instead of a closed product.

Top use cases for AI agents in retail and e-commerce

Six workflows where an agent pays back first for an online store, an omnichannel retailer or a franchise network. Each reads live order, stock and policy data and acts in your systems, with a person on the edge cases.

  • Order & shipment status (WISMO)

    Answers 'where's my order' from live data in Shopify, your OMS and the carrier — the highest-volume question in retail — in seconds, on any channel.

  • Returns, refunds & exchanges

    Checks eligibility against your policy, issues the refund or RMA, books the pickup and updates the order — inside set limits, with anything above a threshold sent to a person.

    See this flow in the example
  • Product & stock questions

    Answers sizing, compatibility, availability and 'when's it back in stock' from your catalogue and inventory, and recommends alternatives when an item is out.

  • Post-purchase actions & proactive updates

    Handles what happens after checkout — order changes, address corrections, cancellations within your rules — sends proactive shipping and delay updates before the customer asks, and runs the follow-up that drives repeat purchase.

  • Cart & checkout recovery

    Answers the question blocking a checkout — shipping cost, delivery date, payment, returns policy — in the moment, so the basket converts instead of bouncing.

  • Peak & seasonal cover

    Absorbs Black Friday and seasonal spikes at flat cost, 24/7, in the customer's language — the volume that otherwise needs temporary headcount.

03 / Sector agents

Agents already designed for this sector. Each one is adapted to your stack before it goes live.

04 / Build vs buy

Off-the-shelf store bot, custom agent, or a growing support team?

A standard store chatbot answers FAQs and deflects. A custom agent reads your live order and stock data and acts on it — and unlike a support team, its cost stays flat when volume spikes at peak season.

  • What we build

    Custom AI agent

    Resolution-first

    Answers 'where's my order' from live data
    Yes
    Processes returns & refunds
    Yes
    Reads your catalogue & stock
    Yes
    Works web, WhatsApp, email & social
    Yes
    First response time
    Instant
    Holds up at Black Friday volume
    Flat
    Headline metric
    Resolution + CSAT
  • Store chatbot

    FAQ / macros

    Answers 'where's my order' from live data
    No
    Processes returns & refunds
    No
    Reads your catalogue & stock
    Static
    Works web, WhatsApp, email & social
    One channel
    First response time
    Instant
    Holds up at Black Friday volume
    Flat
    Headline metric
    Deflection
  • Support team

    Agents in a queue

    Answers 'where's my order' from live data
    Yes
    Processes returns & refunds
    Yes
    Reads your catalogue & stock
    Yes
    Works web, WhatsApp, email & social
    Yes
    First response time
    Minutes–hours
    Holds up at Black Friday volume
    Needs temps
    Headline metric
    Resolution + CSAT
05 / In depth

Which AI agents manage post-purchase actions?

Actions the agent performs

  • Order changes
  • Address corrections
  • Cancellations
  • Returns
  • Refunds
  • Exchanges
  • Delivery problems
Read the full answer

Post-purchase actions — order changes, address corrections, cancellations, returns, refunds, exchanges and delivery problems — are handled by an order-management agent connected to your store, your OMS and your carriers. It checks the order's real state, applies your policy, executes the action within limits you set (refunds below a threshold, for example) and routes everything else to a person with the case already prepared.

A helpdesk bot answers questions about these actions; an agent performs them. That's the difference to measure: resolution rate, not deflection.

Retail AI agents vs retail AI software

  • Retail AI software

    Subscribed. One job, inside its own data model.

  • Retail AI agent

    Built around your stack. One workflow across systems, and it acts on the result.

Read the full answer

Retail AI software is a product you subscribe to: a recommendations engine, a forecasting module, a chatbot inside your helpdesk. Each does one job inside its own data model. A retail AI agent is built around your stack and runs a workflow across it — reading the order in Shopify, the stock in your ERP and the tracking at the carrier — and acts on the result.

Most retailers need both. Keep the software that does its one job well, and put agents on the workflows that cross systems, where people today copy data between tabs.

Custom stores

AI agents for a custom e-commerce site, not just Shopify

Connects to

  • Order database
  • ERP
  • Search index
  • Helpdesk
  • Messaging channels
  • A read-only service when there's no API
Read the full answer

Plenty of retailers run a custom storefront, a headless setup or a B2B portal on top of an ERP. An agent doesn't need an app store: it connects to whatever exposes an API — your order database, your ERP, your search index — and to your helpdesk and messaging channels. When an order or stock system has no API, we put a small read-only service in front of it instead of scraping screens.

Beyond support: product data, stock and recommendation agents

Support is where most stores start, but the same engineering runs the catalogue and stock side of the business.

  • Product descriptions & catalogue enrichment

    Drafts and normalises product descriptions, attributes and translations from supplier data for a merchandiser to approve, so new SKUs don't wait on copywriting.

  • Product recommendations & discovery

    A shopping assistant that answers 'which one fits my case' from your catalogue and live stock, and suggests in-stock alternatives — see the product recommendation agent.

  • Inventory & stock levels

    Forecasts demand per SKU and flags stock-outs and overstock before they hit sales — see the inventory forecasting agent.

Before you sign

Retail AI consulting: five questions before you hire anyone

Before you sign with anyone, us included, get a straight answer to these five questions.

  • Will they build and run it, or only advise?

    A roadmap doesn't resolve a single 'where's my order'.

  • Who owns the code, prompts and model accounts?

    You should. No per-seat licence, no lock-in.

  • How is it tested before it talks to a shopper?

    An eval harness run against your past tickets, then launch behind a human review.

  • What does it cost to build and to run?

    Get both numbers in writing. Ours, per agent: a one-off setup from €1,500, or a fixed monthly fee instead.

  • Where does customer data go?

    Processors, region and retention under GDPR, known before the first order is touched.

06 / Pricing

What does an AI agent for an online store cost?

A first agent on one workflow — order status or returns — starts at €1,500, fixed price, delivered in about two weeks (~12 business days). Multi-step agents that act in your store, OMS and helpdesk start at €2,500 per agent. After launch you pay the model tokens, capped per run, with no per-resolution fee — so Black Friday volume doesn't change the price. Either option can also be paid as a fixed monthly fee instead of the one-off setup, with hosting, maintenance and tuning included — see packages and pricing.

Starter
€1,500
setup per agent · one workflow
  • ✓One agent, one workflow
  • ✓Eval harness included
  • ✓2-week delivery
Request a quote
Medium
Most popular
€2,500
setup per agent · multi-step
  • ✓Multi-step workflows
  • ✓Tool-use & integrations
  • ✓Cost ceiling per run
  • ✓Audit log on every field
Request a quote
Enterprise
Custom
on-prem · compliance
  • ✓On-prem or private cloud
  • ✓HIPAA / GDPR posture
  • ✓SLA & support
Talk to a principal
07 / Process
  1. 0130 min
    Assessment

    30 minutes with a principal engineer. We map your workflow and find the highest-impact agent.

  2. 02~12 business days
    Pilot

    One agent in production in ~12 business days. Fixed price.

  3. 03With every agent
    Evals
    Automated quality tests

    Every agent ships with an eval harness (a suite of tests run against real cases) and a cost ceiling per run.

  4. 04Ongoing
    Roll-out

    Scaled across the operation, documented, handed over. No lock-in: the code and the accounts are yours.

Go deeper
08 / Frequently asked questions
09/Start the conversation

Book your assessment.

Talk directly to a principal engineer.

No sales team.

No discovery workshops.

No procurement circus.

We scope, build and ship.

  • Reply within one business day
  • Engineer-led assessment
  • Written proposal
  • Lisbon · UK time zone

No commitment. Just an engineer.

Budget (estimated)
Timeline

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