One follows a script.
One reads the catalog.
Both sit in the corner of your storefront and both open with a greeting, which is why they get shopped against each other. The difference only shows up on the question nobody wrote down in advance.
Ask it something nobody anticipated
Every evaluation should start here, because this is the only question that separates the two categories. Everything else — tone, avatar, install time, colour picker — is the same on both.
The scripted bot
Matches the sentence against flows a person authored. No match means a catch-all: a rephrased apology, a link to the contact page, or a menu the shopper already rejected. It cannot be wrong, and it also cannot help.
The store agent
Searches the catalog, resolves a variant, checks stock, returns a checkout link — or says it cannot confirm and offers a human. It handles what nobody scripted, at the cost of needing to be bounded properly.
What each is actually good at
| Capability | Scripted chatbot | Store agent |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed FAQ (hours, shipping threshold) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Questions nobody wrote in advance | — | ✓ |
| Search your live catalog | — | ✓ |
| Resolve a specific in-stock variant | — | ✓ |
| Return a real Shopify checkout link | — | ✓ |
| Build a draft order for a quote | — | ✓ |
| Callable by other software (MCP) | — | ✓ |
| Structurally cannot invent an answer | ✓ | — |
| Cheapest option for five known questions | ✓ | — |
Two of those rows favour the chatbot, and they are real. A scripted flow cannot hallucinate because it can only emit what a person wrote — if your support load is five repeated questions with exact answers, script them and spend nothing else.
Most stores need both, doing different jobs
The failure is not picking the wrong one. It is using a single tool for three jobs that have different correctness requirements.
Script the exact answers
Shipping thresholds, returns windows, opening hours. Fixed, high-volume, and they must be exactly right. Cheapest and safest as a script.
Agent the long tail
Fit, compatibility, occasion, "which of these two" — the pre-purchase decisions that are unbounded in phrasing but bounded by your catalog.
Escalate the specific
Orders, refunds, account edge cases. A human, with the conversation attached, so the customer never repeats themselves.
The rest of the cluster
Store as agent tools
When there is no chat window at all — headless storefronts, and shoppers talking to an assistant somewhere else.
The assistant
What a good pre-purchase conversation looks like: ask, eliminate, resolve to one variant.
Conversational commerce
The category argument, including where a conversation is the wrong surface entirely.
Agent vs chatbot, answered
01Is a store agent just a chatbot with an LLM in it?+
02Are decision-tree chatbots ever the better choice?+
03What does "reasoning over the catalog" mean in practice?+
04Which one is more likely to say something wrong?+
05Do I have to choose one?+
06What about an agent with no chat window at all?+
Test it on the question you never scripted.
That is the only comparison that separates them. Install the agent, ask it something awkward about your own catalog, and see whether it answers or escalates.