Chapter 3: Preparing for conversational commerce
The shift toward conversational commerce is still developing, but its direction is clear. It will not replace traditional ecommerce. Instead, it will reshape the starting point of product discovery and determine which products reach the consideration stage.
Brands can begin preparing by strengthening these foundational areas:
1. Understand what ChatGPT actually does in commerce conversations
ChatGPT does three things in shopping-related chats:
Frames the problem for the user
Narrows options based on constraints
Recommends or links when it’s confident
If your brand or product cannot be:
clearly categorized,
confidently compared,
and safely recommended,
You will be excluded, even if you have strong ads or SEO.
ChatGPT optimizes for low regret, not discovery.
2. Make your product categorically legible
ChatGPT reasons in categories first, brands second.
You must be answerable to:
“What kind of product is this?”
“Who is this for?”
“When should I not recommend this?”
Action
Create a one-line canonical definition for each product or collection:
“This is a [category] for [user type] who wants [primary outcome], especially when [context].”
Store this consistently across:
product descriptions
collection intros
structured FAQs
About / explainer pages
If ChatGPT can’t place you cleanly in a category, it will default to safer, clearer alternatives.
3. Win the comparison moment (this is critical)
Most ChatGPT commerce prompts look like:
“What’s better: X or Y?”
“Is brand A worth it compared to brand B?”
“What should I buy instead of …?”
You need pre-written comparison logic.
Not claims, trade-offs.
Example structure
Choose A if you value X
Choose B if you value Y
A is not ideal if you need Z
Where to put this
blog-style comparison pages
FAQ sections (“How is this different from …”)
neutral, non-salesy explanations
ChatGPT rewards balanced, precise language, not hype.
4. Reduce hallucination risk (this affects recommendation likelihood)
LLMs become conservative when data is vague.
Do this
Avoid ambiguous superlatives (“best”, “premium”, “ultimate”) without evidence
Specify limits (“Not suitable for…”, “Designed for…”)
Keep specs factual and consistent across the web
The clearer your boundaries, the more confidently ChatGPT can recommend you.
5. Become a safe default, not a bold claim
ChatGPT optimizes for:
low regret
low risk
user satisfaction
So instead of:
“the most innovative”
“game-changing”
You want:
“reliable choice for…”
“commonly chosen by people who…”
“works well when…”
This is unintuitive for marketers, but extremely effective in LLM-mediated commerce.
6. Ensure your brand is retrievable from memory
ChatGPT draws from:
general web knowledge
high-authority pages
consistent brand mentions
Practical steps
one clear canonical brand name (no variants)
strong “About” page with plain-language positioning
presence on trusted platforms (reviews, articles, marketplaces)
consistent product naming everywhere
If your brand identity fragments, ChatGPT’s confidence drops.
7. Write for “answerability”, not SEO
ChatGPT doesn’t rank, it selects.
Good content is:
Example
Bad:
“Designed with premium materials for modern lifestyles.”
Good:
“Made from full-grain leather, so it holds its shape and ages without cracking.”
If your content can’t be quoted as an answer, it won’t be used.
8. Treat structured product data as a growth lever (Shopify Winter Edition 2025)
Shopify Winter Edition 2025 makes one thing clear:
AI-driven commerce depends on structured, centralized product knowledge, not free-form marketing copy.
Shopify’s own AI layer (Sidekick, Shopify Magic, unified admin) assumes that products are described through:
consistent attributes
explicit use cases
clear limitations
reusable logic
This matters for ChatGPT because:
LLMs prefer explicit signals over interpretation
Missing structure increases hallucination risk
Vague product data leads to conservative (non-selection) behavior
If your product knowledge only lives in:
long descriptions,
creative storytelling,
or campaign-specific copy,
ChatGPT will not trust it.
Do this
Use Shopify as your single source of product truth by storing decision-relevant information in structured fields:
primary use case
intended audience
not-ideal-for scenarios
key differentiators
comparison anchors
When product logic is explicit, AI can reason with confidence.
When it isn’t, your brand becomes a risky recommendation.
9. Prepare for ChatGPT checkout & linking
As ChatGPT evolves toward native checkout and product linking, your store must:
have clean, stable product URLs
maintain predictable availability
show clear pricing (no hidden conditions)
keep product pages publicly accessible
Products that frequently:
go out of stock,
change naming,
or bundle unpredictably
will be avoided by the model.
10. Think in “prompts people will actually use”
Reverse-engineer your presence.
Ask:
“What would someone ask ChatGPT before discovering us?”
“What problem are they trying to solve?”
Then ensure your content answers:
budget constraints
use cases
alternatives
regrets
If ChatGPT can complete the answer without you, you’ve lost the slot.
11. Internal rule of thumb
If a human sales assistant would say:
“It depends, let me ask you a few things first.”
You should encode that logic before ChatGPT has to invent it.
Closing thought
Conversational commerce in ChatGPT doesn’t reward the loudest brand. It rewards the clearest one.
Extra: submit your webshop to ChatGPT:
Merchants interested in providing product feeds and adding Instant Checkout can submit a merchant application to ChatGPT. They reach out and onboard merchants on a rolling basis.
It is live only in the US today with US merchants, but their goal is to expand user and merchant geographies in 2026. You can now submit your webshop here.
