Shopify plugin for ChatGPT
You can use the Shopify plugin for ChatGPT to create or manage a Shopify store without leaving your chat. You can describe a business that you want to start and get storefront previews, claim a preview as a Shopify store, or connect a store that you already own.
Standard Shopify plan pricing applies to a store that you create or run this way, and there's no extra Shopify fee for using the plugin. You pay any ChatGPT subscription costs to OpenAI rather than to Shopify.
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Actions the Shopify plugin for ChatGPT supports
To start, open ChatGPT and ask for Shopify. For example, you can ask ChatGPT to help you create a Shopify store for your handmade candle business.
The plugin supports the following actions:
- Generate storefront previews: Describe what you want to sell, and then choose a preview that fits your business. A preview isn't a Shopify store until you claim it.
- Claim a store: Claim a preview to create your Shopify store and become the store owner. To finish setup after you claim a store, refer to setting up a store created with an AI tool or vibe code partner.
- Manage a store that you own: Connect a store that you already own, and then work with your products, collections, inventory, orders, customers, discounts, and analytics. You need to sign in and approve access first.
What the plugin can do in your store depends on the data access that you approve and on your user permissions. To review access levels, refer to authorizing AI tool access to your store.
Managing your store from ChatGPT
The Shopify plugin for ChatGPT works with the store that you connect to it. You can ask which store the plugin is connected to, and you can switch to another store that you own. To review how connecting and switching work, refer to authorizing AI tool access to your store.
What the plugin can change depends on the data access that you approve and on your user permissions.
Adding and editing products
You can build and maintain your product catalog from your chat. The plugin supports the following product actions:
- Create a product with a title, description, price, variants, options, and inventory tracking.
- Update a product's title, description, status, images, variant prices, or SKUs.
- Rename variant options, such as color or size names.
- Search your catalog by keyword, or open a single product for its full details.
- Set products to active, draft, or archived in batches of up to 50, either by naming the products or by choosing a collection.
Example prompt: Add a Vanilla Bean Candle for $24.95.
Name the product and the price, and the plugin writes a description and creates the product. If you include details such as variants, tags, or inventory tracking, then the plugin uses what you give it instead of generating its own.
If you're still deciding what to sell, then describe a product or a category and ask for suggestions. The plugin shows sample products that you can browse and add to your store.
Looking up orders
The plugin reads your orders but doesn't change them. It supports the following order actions:
- List your recent orders with the customer, totals, and payment and fulfillment status, up to 50 at a time.
- Open a single order for its line items, fulfillment status, shipping address, and tracking.
Example prompt: Show me my 10 most recent orders.
Ask for the orders that you want by number, date, or status, and then ask about a single order to get its details. To edit, refund, or cancel an order, use your Shopify admin.
Checking your store's analytics
The plugin answers questions about your sales, orders, products, customers, and fulfillment from your store's analytics data, and returns the results as tables and charts. It reads this data and doesn't change it.
Example prompt: Show me my total sales for the last 30 days, broken down by product.
Ask one question at a time. Short, specific questions work best, and a question that layers several comparisons and filters together can fail or return a result that's hard to read. Other questions that work well include What's my average order value this month compared to last month? and How many new versus returning customers did I get this month?
Organizing products into collections
You can group products into collections and publish them to your online store. The plugin supports the following collection actions:
- Create a manual collection from products that you choose.
- Create a smart collection from rules that add matching products automatically.
- Update a collection's title, description, image, sort order, or rules.
- Add products to a collection that already exists.
- Search your collections, or open a single collection for its details.
Example prompt: Make a Holiday Gifts collection with my three bestsellers.
Name the collection and say which products belong in it. To build a collection that maintains itself, describe the rule instead, such as every product over a certain price or with a particular tag.
Adding product photos
You can attach a photo in your chat and ask the plugin to add it to a product. You can also supply a link to an image on the web.
Example prompt: Add this photo to my Vanilla Bean Candle.
Attach the image first, and then name the product that it belongs to. An image link must be a public web address, so a file on your own device works only when you attach it to the chat.
Managing your inventory
The plugin reads and sets your stock counts. It supports the following inventory actions:
- Check the stock for every variant of a product across your locations.
- Set the quantity available for an item at a specific location, with a reason such as received, correction, or damaged.
Example prompt: How many Vanilla Bean Candles are left? and then Set it to 40.
Check a count before you change it. The plugin reads the current quantity first, so an update stops safely if the count changed after the plugin looked.
Looking up customers
The plugin reads your customer records but doesn't change them. You can look up customers by name, email, location, or tag, and review each customer's order count and total spend.
Example prompt: Show my top-spending customers.
Name the customer or describe the group that you want. To edit a customer record, use your Shopify admin.
Creating discount codes
The plugin creates percentage-off discount codes. A code can apply to your whole store, to particular products, or to a collection, and you can add a minimum purchase requirement, a start date, and rules for who can use it.
Example prompt: Make a 15 percent off code called COZY15.
Name the code and the percentage, and the plugin asks you to confirm the start date and who can use the code. The plugin creates codes but doesn't change codes that already exist, and it doesn't create fixed-amount discounts. Manage those in your Shopify admin.
Working with pages, menus, and other store data
Some parts of your store have no dedicated action in the plugin, and the plugin works with them through the Shopify Admin API instead. This covers your pages, blogs, navigation menus, metafields, markets, and translations. The plugin asks you to confirm before it makes a change of this kind.
Example prompts: Create an About page about my brand story and Add my About page to my main menu and label it About us.
Say what you want to create or change, and where it belongs. Results vary more for these changes than for the actions that have a dedicated name, so review what the plugin built in your Shopify admin before you rely on it.
Reviewing the action names in your chat
Every action that the plugin takes has a name, and that name is displayed in your chat as the action runs. Review the following table to check what an action does.
| Action name | What it does |
|---|---|
add-to-collection | Adds products to a collection that already exists. |
bulk-update-product-status | Sets up to 50 products at a time to active, draft, or archived. |
claim-storefront-preview | Starts the signup for the storefront preview that you chose to claim. |
create-collection | Creates a manual or smart collection and publishes it to your online store. |
create-discount | Creates a percentage-off discount code. |
create-product | Creates a product, including its variants, options, and inventory tracking. |
find-sample-product | Returns sample products for a category that you name, for you to browse and add to your store. |
get-collection | Returns one collection's title, description, image, products, and rules. |
get-inventory-levels | Returns the stock for every variant of a product across your locations. |
get-new-store-previews | Generates storefront previews from a short description of your business. |
get-order | Returns one order's line items, fulfillment status, shipping address, and tracking. |
get-product | Returns one product's title, status, vendor, variants, images, tags, and inventory. |
get-shop-info | Returns the connected store's name, domain, email, plan, currency, time zone, and country. |
get-storefront-generation | Checks whether your storefront previews have finished generating. |
graphql_mutation | Makes a change through the Shopify Admin API to a part of your store that has no dedicated action. |
graphql_query | Reads data through the Shopify Admin API from a part of your store that has no dedicated action. |
graphql_schema | Returns the parts of the Shopify Admin API that a request can use. |
list-customers | Returns your customers with their name, email, phone, order count, and total spend. |
list-orders | Returns your recent orders with the customer, totals, and payment and fulfillment status. |
run-analytics-query | Runs a ShopifyQL query against your store's analytics data. |
search_collections | Searches your collections by keyword, or by a filter such as title or collection type. |
search_docs_chunks | Searches Shopify's documentation for an answer to a question about the platform. |
search_products | Searches your catalog by keyword, or by a filter such as price, tag, or status. |
set-inventory | Sets the quantity available for an item at one location, with a reason for the change. |
switch-shop | Switches to another store that you own, and asks you to authorize it. |
update-collection | Updates a collection's title, description, image, sort order, or rules. |
update-product | Updates a product's title, description, status, images, variant prices, or SKUs. |
upload-image | Uploads a photo to Shopify and returns a hosted address that a product can use. |
validate_graphql_codeblocks | Checks a Shopify Admin API request for errors before the request runs. |
Getting the best results from the Shopify plugin for ChatGPT
Mention Shopify by name so that ChatGPT uses the plugin rather than answering from general knowledge. Enter @Shopify in your message. If you don't, then ChatGPT sometimes replies with instructions for your Shopify admin instead of making the change for you.
Keep your requests to one task at a time. Analytics questions in particular work best when they're short and specific, so ask a follow-up question rather than layering several comparisons and filters into a single request.
Limits of the Shopify plugin for ChatGPT
Your Shopify admin is the main place to manage your business. The plugin can help you start a store and handle some tasks, but it doesn't replace your Shopify admin, and it doesn't replace Sidekick, which is the AI assistant inside your Shopify admin.
A connected AI tool works within the data access that you approve, and some changes to your store can be made only in your Shopify admin. Review the following considerations:
- Editing your live theme: A connected AI tool can change a theme that isn't published, but it can't edit your live theme, publish a theme, or delete one. To change your storefront's design, duplicate your theme in your Shopify admin, let the tool edit the copy, and then publish the copy yourself.
- Changing store settings: A connected AI tool can't change settings such as your plan, payments, taxes, or domains.
- Editing data without write access: A connected AI tool can read data but not change it, unless you approve write access. Access also depends on the permissions of the staff account that the tool acts through. Some connector actions are read-only by design, which the AI tool's provider controls.
- Moving money or changing paid orders: A connected AI tool can't issue refunds, cancel or capture orders, mark orders as paid, process returns, or create and adjust gift cards. These actions are blocked even when you approve write access.
- Changing many items at once: A connected AI tool changes items one at a time, so a large batch can stop partway, and some actions cover only a limited number of items. If a batch doesn't complete, then finish it in your Shopify admin.
- Finishing your store setup: A connected AI tool can help with some tasks, but your Shopify admin is still required for payments, taxes, domains, and launch readiness.
A storefront preview is a starting point rather than a finished store. The theme matches the preview that you chose, and the preview can include sample content. Before you start selling, review and update your product names, descriptions, images, prices, store policies, shipping and payment settings, and domain settings in your Shopify admin.
Installing the Shopify plugin for ChatGPT
The Shopify plugin for ChatGPT isn't available on the Shopify App Store. You install it from ChatGPT, on the Shopify plugin for ChatGPT install page. Installing the plugin connects ChatGPT to Shopify and redirects you to your Shopify admin to approve the data access that the plugin requests.
Use a desktop browser for setup. Whether the plugin is available on a mobile device depends on ChatGPT.
For the full authorization flow, including how to approve a data access level, switch stores, and revoke access, refer to authorizing AI tool access to your store.
Getting help with the Shopify plugin for ChatGPT
Where you go for help depends on whether the issue is with ChatGPT or with your Shopify store. If you're not sure which one to contact, then start with where you noticed the issue: ChatGPT, or your Shopify admin.
Contact OpenAI for issues with ChatGPT itself, such as signing in to ChatGPT, your ChatGPT subscription, plugin access, or ChatGPT not loading. For help from OpenAI, refer to the OpenAI Help Center.
Contact Shopify Support for issues with your Shopify account or your store. For a breakdown of who to contact for each type of issue, refer to getting help with a store created with an AI tool or vibe code partner.
If ChatGPT still responds with advice after you ask for the Shopify plugin by name, then the issue is with plugin access in ChatGPT rather than with your Shopify store.
If you switch the plugin to a different store and it keeps asking you to authorize the store that you left, then start a new conversation. A conversation that started before you switched stores can continue to use the earlier connection.