Assisted selling / guided selling A shopping experience where technology (chatbots, quizzes, AI assistants) guides the user toward the right product, replicating the role of an in-store sales assistant. Definition Definition Assisted selling is when technology takes over part of what a good salesperson used to do in a physical store: ask a few questions, rule out what doesn't fit, and point the shopper toward two or three real options instead of the whole catalog. Online, that role gets played by AI chatbots, conversational assistants, product-finder quizzes, or recommendation engines that interact with the shopper before showing them products. The difference from standard search is that the initiative isn't only the user's ("I'm looking for X"). It's shared. The system asks, suggests, and refines. It's an umbrella term that covers a few concrete implementations, each with its own entry in this glossary: Product quiz: a set sequence of questions with conditional logic that ends in a recommendation. Guided search: contextual filters and autocomplete that narrow the catalog step by step. Conversational commerce: natural-language chat or an AI assistant that interprets intent without a fixed question flow. What sets assisted selling apart from those three is the commercial intent behind it. It's not just about helping someone find a product. It's about doing what a good human salesperson does: answer questions, compare options, and push toward a decision. This matters most in categories where people want advice, not just speed: electronics, skincare, nutrition, technical sportswear. What it's used for What it's used for The problem this solves is simple: the shopper knows what they need but not what it's called, and the catalog is organized by product type, not by need. Without help, they either leave or buy something that's a rough fit and end up returning it. The effects usually show up in three places: higher conversion (sessions that go through an assisted-selling flow convert better than ones that browse alone), higher average order value (a recommendation that makes sense builds trust, which makes cross-selling easier), and fewer returns (fewer purchases made on a wrong guess about size, fit, or use case). A consumer electronics store with 50,000 monthly visits and a 1.8% conversion rate that adds a shopping assistant and pushes conversion to 2.3% picks up around 250 extra orders a month, with no extra spend on traffic. How Doofinder applies it Doofinder covers assisted selling through a few features that can work together, depending on the catalog and category: AI Shopping Assistant: the shopper describes what they need in plain language ("I need a lightweight laptop for travel, under $900") and the assistant reads the intent, filters the catalog, and returns a short list with reasoning, no manual filtering needed. Quiz Maker: no-code question flows where each answer maps to products or catalog attributes. Works well for categories with predictable buying criteria, like skin type or size. Behavior-driven recommendations: while the shopper searches, Doofinder tracks what they look at and skip, and adjusts what gets suggested in real time. This runs quietly in the background even without an explicit quiz or chat. All three sit on top of the same search engine and catalog index, so what gets recommended always matches current stock and price. There's no gap between what the assistant suggests and what shows up once the shopper clicks. Example Case study Example A sports nutrition store carries 600 products split across categories like protein, creatine, pre-workout, and vitamins, but most new shoppers don't know which category they need. They just know their goal: build muscle, or train for endurance. Without help, they browse generic categories and a good chunk leave without deciding. The store adds a conversational assistant to its homepage. A shopper types "I train three times a week and want to recover better after the gym." The assistant reads that as a recovery need, not a bulking one, and returns three products (a recovery protein, an amino acid blend, and a magnesium supplement) with a short line explaining why each one fits. Sessions that use the assistant convert at roughly double the rate of sessions that browse by category alone. References Sources https://support.doofinder.com/quiz-maker/quiz-maker-setup