A practical guide to in-chat eCommerce with ChatGPT

Online shopping is shifting under our feet again. We’ve gone from physical stores to websites, then to mobile apps and scrolling through social media. Now, the next big thing is here, and it’s moving the whole shopping experience from a search bar into a conversation. The latest move in this direction is OpenAI’s "Instant Checkout," a feature that lets people buy products right from a ChatGPT conversation.

This is a pretty big shift. It points to a future where AI assistants don’t just find stuff for you, but actually get things done. But what does that really mean for your business? This guide will walk you through how this new kind of in-chat eCommerce ChatGPT works, the hidden downsides of relying on someone else’s platform, and how you can build a conversational strategy that you actually control.

What is in-chat eCommerce ChatGPT?

Basically, it’s a system that allows ChatGPT to handle purchases from other stores, like those on Shopify or Etsy, without you ever leaving the chat. The whole process, from asking a question to making a purchase, happens in one window.

Here’s a quick look at how it plays out:

1. A person asks ChatGPT for a product, like, "I need a pair of durable hiking boots for under $150."

2. Instead of just spitting out a list of links, ChatGPT checks with its network of connected stores.

3. It then shows you relevant products with a "Buy" or "Instant Checkout" button right there in the chat.

4. You confirm your details, and the purchase is done, typically using a payment processor like Stripe and a system called the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP).

This is completely different from how we search now. In the old model, Google or Amazon would point a customer to your website. With this, the conversation is the store. OpenAI claims that products are ranked based on how relevant they are to the user’s question, not on ad spend. While that sounds nice, it also means you’re playing in someone else’s sandbox, and you don’t get to see or influence the rules.

Getting your store ready for discovery

Getting your products to show up in a conversational search isn’t about the old SEO tricks or stuffing keywords everywhere. It’s about making your product data so clean and organized that an AI can understand it perfectly. For a lot of businesses, this is a pretty big technical lift.

If you want a chance of your products being recommended, you’ll need to nail a few things:

Your product data has to be spotless. This is the big one. An AI needs structured data, like Schema.org markup, to understand everything about your products: price, stock, sizes, colors, you name it. If your data is a mess, incomplete, or just not there, you’re basically invisible. The AI simply won’t be able to make sense of what you’re selling, so it won’t suggest it.

You need good, recent reviews. We all know reviews build trust with people, and it turns out they do the same for AI. The model will likely look at customer feedback to figure out if a product is any good. A healthy stream of real, detailed reviews is a strong signal that your products are a solid choice.

Your eCommerce platform needs to be on the list. The initial rollout is focused on the big players like Shopify and Etsy. If your store is on a different or custom platform, you might be stuck waiting for an official integration or facing the headache of trying to build one yourself.

Trying to manage and structure all this data can be a real challenge, especially for smaller teams without developers on call. It demands a technical precision that a lot of standard eCommerce setups just don’t have built-in.

The catch with selling via ChatGPT

While the idea of a new sales channel is exciting, handing over your customer experience comes with some serious trade-offs. When you rely on a platform like ChatGPT for sales, you’re giving up control over the very things that make your brand yours.

Here are some of the biggest drawbacks to think about:

You lose the direct customer relationship. When a customer buys from you inside ChatGPT, they’re OpenAI’s user first and your customer second. You miss the chance to bring them into your world, guide their experience, and build the kind of connection that turns a one-time buyer into a loyal fan.

Your branding gets lost in the mix. The chat interface is, by design, one-size-fits-all. You can’t control the branding, the flow of the conversation, or the little up-sell and cross-sell moments you’ve perfected on your own site. Your unique brand voice gets flattened into a generic, uniform experience.

You’re at the mercy of an algorithm you don’t control. Your visibility completely depends on whatever ranking factors OpenAI decides are important. They could tweak their algorithm tomorrow, and your shiny new sales channel could vanish overnight without any explanation. That’s a shaky foundation to build a business on.

There are big questions about data privacy. Who actually owns the data from these conversations? How is it being used to train the next version of the model? For a lot of brands, letting another company manage these sensitive customer interactions is a deal-breaker.

This is where having your own AI experience becomes so important. An AI chatbot on your own website, like the one from eesel AI, gets around these problems. You get the benefits of conversational shopping but keep total control over your branding, your customer data, and the entire relationship. It’s about using AI to make your brand better, not to replace it.

A better approach for your business

Instead of just hoping a third-party algorithm finds you, a more durable strategy is to build a powerful, brand-owned conversational tool right on your website. This way, you get all the perks of AI-driven sales without the risks of outsourcing your customer journey.

This is exactly what eesel AI’s AI Chatbot is built for. It gives you the tools to create an in-chat eCommerce experience that’s fine-tuned for your business.

Here’s how it’s different:

• It’s trained on your knowledge. eesel AI connects right to your data sources. It can pull info from your Shopify catalog, help center, FAQs, and even internal documents in Confluence or Google Docs. This means the chatbot gives answers that are incredibly relevant and based only on your company’s information, keeping things accurate and on-brand.

• You’re in complete control. With eesel AI, you call the shots. You can set the AI’s personality, define its tone of voice, and decide exactly what it can and can’t do. You can build custom flows for looking up an order status, offering a personalized discount, or smoothly handing off a chat to a human agent when it makes sense.

• You can get started in minutes, not months. One of the best parts is how quick and easy it is. While some platforms involve complicated setups and long sales calls, eesel AI is designed to be self-serve. You can connect your knowledge sources and have a fully working, catalog-aware chatbot on your site in less than an hour, without ever talking to a salesperson.

__IMAGE::https://website-cms.eesel.ai/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/02-eeselAI-Bot-Training.png::02 , eeselAI , Bot Training::A screenshot of the eesel AI platform showing how the chatbot connects to various data sources like Shopify and Google Docs to train itself for in-chat eCommerce ChatGPT.

The two approaches are worlds apart. Selling through ChatGPT is about becoming another product in someone else’s massive database. Using an on-site tool like eesel AI is about building your own intelligent system where you own the customer journey from the first question to the final thank you.

The real cost of selling through ChatGPT

When you make a sale through ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout, OpenAI takes what it calls a "small transaction fee." The issue is, nobody really knows what that fee is. This lack of transparency makes it tough for businesses to plan their margins and figure out customer acquisition costs. Will the fee change over time? Will it be different for different types of products? Your guess is as good as mine.

This is a huge contrast to platforms that offer clear, predictable pricing. For instance, eesel AI’s plans are based on a simple flat monthly rate for a certain number of AI interactions. There are no surprise fees for each sale or resolved ticket. This means your costs don’t suddenly jump during your busiest season, giving you the financial stability you need to grow.

This video explains the upcoming integration of a Shopify checkout into ChatGPT, a key development in in-chat eCommerce ChatGPT.

In-chat eCommerce ChatGPT: Take control of your conversational commerce

There’s no question that in-chat eCommerce ChatGPT is a fascinating peek into the future. It creates a new way for people to discover products and shows that AI is starting to play a much more active role in our daily lives. Getting ready for this means cleaning up your product data and thinking hard about where and how you want your brand to show up.

But for most businesses, the smartest path forward isn’t to just hand over the customer relationship to someone else. The real opportunity is in building and owning your own conversational AI. This approach lets you use the power of AI to create personal, on-brand conversations that build real loyalty and keep you in the driver’s seat of your own business.

Ready to build an AI chatbot that works for your brand?

Don’t just be another search result in someone else’s chat window. Own your customer conversations with an AI that’s trained on your unique knowledge and speaks in your brand’s voice.

Try eesel AI for free and build your own powerful eCommerce chatbot in minutes.