Is ChatGPT the new goldmine for a Shopify store?

Shopify Discussion
1

Hey folks :waving_hand:

I’ve been diving deep into how AI tools like ChatGPT, Bing Copilot, and Perplexity are starting to replace Google for product discovery.

More and more consumers are asking questions like “What’s the best waterproof speaker under $50?” and AI just gives them a direct answer. Often with no link or click involved.

That’s great for users, but what about us merchants?

-Are our stores being recommended in these answers?

-Can we optimize for these AI engines like we did with SEO?

-How can we track if we’re mentioned, and fix it if we’re not?

I’m currently exploring this shift (some call it Generative Engine Optimization or GEO) and thinking about building something to help Shopify merchants:

  • See if they’re being mentioned by AI

  • Track competitors

  • Understand how to boost visibility in LLMs

Before I go too far, I’d love to hear from you:

  • Have you seen any impact from AI tools on your traffic or discovery?

  • Are you doing anything already to optimize for AI (structured data, content, llms.txt, etc.)?

  • What would help you most here?

If you’re curious, already testing stuff, or just worried about how search is changing — I’d really appreciate your thoughts :folded_hands:

Thanks!

Antoine from zeroclick.app

2

As a merchant with a huge catalog of products, I freakin love GPT. It pretty much does everything for me, I don’t even know where to start. Have I noticed an increase in traffic and sales as a result from the SEO and ad copy GPT creates for me on an every day basis? Absolutely. Am I re-organizing my website so be more friendly and easily read by AI? You know it. Is my store getting increased conversions as a result of being mentioned in AI to consumers? Eh… I’m not quite there yet. But I hear about a lot of new and exciting ways this is being implemented, and I’d love to figure out hwo I could get more AI exposure for my store in the long term.

3

Hey AntoinePayre,

regards your point with LLM visibility. We have developed an app, which helps you to create an automatic llms.txt file for you Shopify store. You have the full control of the data types you want to show in the llms and also the availability to block llms bots to crawl your llms.txt.

Maybe this is already helping you a bit.

https://apps.shopify.com/ahoiapps-llms-txt

4

Hi there @AntoinePayre this is such a lovely initiative and I’d love to know what the current status report is on it. If merchants can find a hack for their stores to be directly or indirectly linked by AI when asked questions by potential customers, then that is definitely a big game changer in the market.

5

Are stores being recommended? Yes, but very selectively. When someone asks ChatGPT “best waterproof speaker under $50,” it typically recommends well-known brands and major retailers. Small Shopify stores rarely appear for broad category queries. Where smaller stores do show up is in niche queries “handmade soy candles from small businesses” or “artisan leather wallets made in USA.” The more specific the query, the more likely independent stores get recommended.

Can you optimize for it? Yes, but it’s different from traditional SEO. From auditing stores over the past few months, the factors that correlate most with AI visibility are:

Attribute-rich product descriptions AI agents need specific details (materials, dimensions, ingredients, use cases) to compare and recommend products. Marketing copy alone doesn’t help AI understand what you sell.

Complete metadata most stores I audit have 40-60% of products with blank meta descriptions. AI agents rely on these heavily.

Clear brand identity signals AI needs to understand who you are and what you specialize in. Stores with a clear niche and consistent messaging get recommended more than stores that sell everything.

Structured data JSON-LD schema on product pages, properly formatted with pricing, availability, and reviews.

How to track it? The simplest approach right now is manual testing. Run 5-10 shopping queries relevant to your product category across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Note whether your store appears, which competitors show up instead, and what those competitors’ product data looks like compared to yours. Do this monthly and track changes.

There’s no Google Search Console equivalent for AI yet, which is why several people (myself included) are building tools to automate this monitoring. The market clearly needs it merchants shouldn’t have to manually run prompts every month to know if AI is recommending them.

Regards,
Rahul