Well, it’s that time of year again. The season of holiday gift-giving is upon us. If you’re like me, you never seem to have time to shop for presents, either online or out in the real world. Frankly, the shopping is the easy part. How do you know what gift to get for each of the people on your list?

2016 has become the “Year of the Chatbot,” so are their bots out there that can play the role of elves and help simplify the seasonal gifting challenge? Discovering bots isn’t easy, but I found four bots on Facebook Messenger that might fit the bill. Two of the chatbots were created by specific brands to promote their products. Two others are independent gift recommendation bots that direct you to Amazon to complete your purchase.

Trolli Candy
Trolli Candy is a confectionary company that specializes in gummy candies. Their products include Gummy Bears, Sour Brite Crawlers Gummy Worms, and Sour Brite Blasts. These candies would seem to make great stocking stuffers.

Enter “Trolli” in your Facebook Messenger search to start a conversation with their chatbot. The conversational experience is designed to help you discover which Trolli candy best suits your personality. The questions are entirely silly and fun, apparently geared towards 7 to 15 year-olds. For the question “what scares you most?,” for example, your choices are acorns, grilled cheese, and pajamas. Who comes up with that stuff?

If you happen to have loved ones that age, they’d probably get a big kick out of chatting with the Trolli bot. You could choose to let them engage with the bot prior to the stocking unveiling or afterwards. Either way, there is fun to be had. And since I wasn’t all that familiar with the Trolli brands, the chatbot did its job, raising my awareness of what the candymaker has to offer.

Tommy Hilfiger
Apparel is always a top gift category for the holiday season. Who wouldn’t enjoy receiving a fashionable outfit from the Tommy Hilfiger brand? Save yourself a trip to the crowded mall and message Tommy Hilfiger in Messenger. You’ll be greeted by the TMY.GRL bot, who’s anxious to show off the TommyxGigi collection for women.

TMY.GRL invites you to explore the collection by products, looks, or specific clothing categories. I first chose to dive into the outerwear category. I have a relative in mind who might need a new jacket or coat. The chatbot offered photos of 10 different jackets that I could look at more closely or add to a shopping cart. I got so caught up in the experience that I ended up shopping for myself (doesn’t that always happen?).

I encountered a roadblock when I tried to add items to my cart, though. Every item I tried was out of stock. The chatbot was very apologetic, saying “Ugh, hat when that happens.” I guess this chatbot won’t save me a trip to the mall, but at least I have a better idea of what to buy.

5Gifts4Her
5Gifts4Her has created the Sparkle bot for Facebook Messenger. According to their website, Sparkle bot is powered by Wit.ai. The chatbot asks you to say who you’re shopping for, so I chose “Mom.” I always struggle to find a gift that suits her. Christmas wasn’t one of the occasions that Sparkle offered, but it had “other,” so I picked that one. For price range, I kept it a low (sorry Mom), but was ready to adjust upward if needed.

Next, Sparkle presented me with several product categories to choose from, so I went with “health.” My mom is the type who prefers practical gifts. It’s just hard to know what her definition of practical is. The Sparkle bot offered up several cool products, including Philips wake-up light with sunrise simulation. There were also cooking steamers that looked interesting.

I decided to explore the Philips wake-up light further. When you’re ready to buy a product, Sparkle bot sends you off to Amazon. I ended up not buying a product that Sparkle recommended, but the chatbot’s suggestions gave me a great idea for another present that I think my mom will love. That’s one thing about these gift recommendation bots: they’re great idea generators.

Tasting Table
Tasting Table operates DINE bot, a restaurant recommendation chatbot on the Facebook Messenger platform. This is a super fun bot that has multiple uses, including a gift finding option. You choose from lists of emoticons to select who you’re shopping for, what their hobbies and interests are, and how much you want to spend.
Similar to the Trolli Candy chatbot, Tasty Table’s TTBot is cheeky and offers lots of laughable choices. For example, for the question about your budget, the choices include “whatever I can find in my couch cushions,” “Umm… $20,” and “as much as it takes to make them happy.”

I decided to shop for a good friend and, after navigating through the questions, the TTBot suggested that cocktail-flavored jelly beans would be the perfect gift. Not a bad idea! With another tap the bot sent me off to Amazon to complete the purchase.

I tried shopping with another person in mind and this time the recommendation was the BigMouth Inc Ultimate Wine Bottle Glass, a wine bottle with a glass built right into the top. Wow, who even knew there was such a thing? While the gift recommendations may not be what you’re looking for, Tasty Table’s chatbot is fun to use and full of ideas.

It’s a Wrap!
As has been said on countless occasions, chatbots are in their infancy. But there are plenty of them out there, if you can find them. All four of the chatbots I explored for this post did a great job at introducing me to new products. The brand-specific bots represented their brands well and gave me a new appreciation for the products they offer. The two independent gift recommendation chatbots were fun to use. While their recommendations might be somewhat limited at this point, I like the concept of how they work and could certainly see using them again in the future as their repertoire expands. Now to finish up on my shopping. Maybe by next year the chatbots will do it all for me.

Categories: Conversational Intelligence, Intelligent Assistants, Articles

Tags: Facebook, Amazon, chatbot, Bots, gifts