Setting Up Agentic to Connect Your Store to ChatGPT (Early Access)
ChatGPT is one of the AI channels available in Agentic, SHOPLINE’s sales channel for AI shopping experiences. When ChatGPT is allowed to read your public product pages, your products have the chance to appear in its answers, and shoppers can follow the links to buy on your online store. This guide explains how to check whether ChatGPT can access your store, allow or restrict that access with robots.txt, and view the sales you receive from ChatGPT.
| Note: This feature is available to selected merchants only. Contact your SHOPLINE account manager to enable it for your store. |
Understanding How ChatGPT Helps Shoppers Discover Your Products
ChatGPT finds products by reading the public pages of online stores. When a shopper’s question matches what you sell, ChatGPT may recommend your products and link to your store.
How shoppers reach your store from ChatGPT:
- ChatGPT reads your product pages: ChatGPT visits the public product pages on your online store, as allowed by your store’s robots.txt file.
- Your products may be recommended: When shoppers ask ChatGPT for product suggestions, your products have the chance to appear in its answers.
- Shoppers buy on your store: Shoppers follow the link to your online store, view product details, and complete their purchase.
For example, a shopper asks ChatGPT to recommend a lightweight backpack for weekend hiking. ChatGPT suggests a backpack from your store with a link, and the shopper clicks through to your online store to buy it.
| Important: Unlike Meta, ChatGPT doesn’t need product syncing and has no on/off toggle in Agentic. Whether ChatGPT can read your product pages is controlled by your store’s robots.txt file. |
Prerequisites for Connecting ChatGPT in Agentic
Before you begin, make sure:
- Agentic has been enabled for your store by your SHOPLINE account manager.
- The Agentic sales channel is added to your store. If it isn’t, follow the steps in “Installing the Agentic Sales Channel” in “Setting Up Agentic to Sync Products to Meta (Early Access)”.
Checking Your ChatGPT Web Crawling Status in Agentic
The ChatGPT card on the Agentic page shows whether ChatGPT can read your product pages. To check the status:
- In the left menu of your SHOPLINE admin, go to Channels > Agentic.
- On the right side of the Agentic page, find the ChatGPT card below the Channel management panel.
- Check the status label next to ChatGPT.
Understanding the ChatGPT Web Crawling Status Labels
The ChatGPT card shows one of the following statuses:
- Web crawling allowed: ChatGPT can read your public product pages, so your products have the chance to be discovered and bought by shoppers.
- Web crawling restricted: Your robots.txt file blocks ChatGPT from your entire store. ChatGPT can’t read your product pages.
| Note: The status is based on your store’s robots.txt file. After you change robots.txt, it may take up to 1 day for the status to update. |
Allowing or Restricting ChatGPT Access with robots.txt
Your store’s robots.txt file tells crawlers, including ChatGPT, which pages they can read. The ChatGPT card shows Web crawling allowed unless your robots.txt contains a rule that blocks ChatGPT from your entire store.
For example, the following rule blocks OpenAI’s crawler (GPTBot) from your entire store:
|
User-agent: GPTBot Disallow: / |
To allow ChatGPT, remove or edit any rule like this. To restrict ChatGPT, add one.
To open the robots.txt editor:
- On the ChatGPT card, click Set access permissions. This opens the Preferences page of your online store. You can also go to Channels > Online Store > Preferences.
- Find Robots.txt Management and click Go to Settings.
- In the Robots.txt editor, add, edit, or remove the rules for ChatGPT, then save your changes.
| Important: Editing robots.txt requires a basic understanding of code and SEO. An incorrect rule can also stop search engines from crawling your store. For detailed instructions, see “Managing robots.txt for Advanced SEO”. |
Viewing Agentic Sales Data from ChatGPT
The Sales overview section on the Agentic page shows how shoppers from ChatGPT are performing in your online store. ChatGPT is listed above Meta with its own metrics:
- Visitors: The number of shoppers who visited your store through links from ChatGPT.
- Orders: The number of orders placed by these shoppers.
- Sales: The total sales from these orders.
- Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors who placed an order.
To change the reporting period, click the date range (default: Last 30 Days) and select the dates you want.
Important Notes for ChatGPT in Agentic
- ChatGPT decides which products to recommend and when, so appearance in its answers isn’t guaranteed.
- ChatGPT can only read pages that are publicly available on your online store.
- Sales data for ChatGPT only includes shoppers who reached your store through links from ChatGPT.
- Shoppers from ChatGPT complete their purchases on your online store.
Frequently Asked Questions About ChatGPT in Agentic
Q1: Do I need to sync my products to ChatGPT?
No. ChatGPT reads your public product pages directly. There’s no product sync or on/off toggle for ChatGPT in Agentic.
Q2: Why does the ChatGPT card show Web crawling restricted?
Your robots.txt file contains a rule that blocks ChatGPT from your entire store. To allow ChatGPT, open the Robots.txt editor and remove or edit that rule. For steps, see “Allowing or Restricting ChatGPT Access with robots.txt” above.
Q3: Why does my ChatGPT sales data show no results?
No shoppers reached your store through links from ChatGPT during the selected period. Try a longer date range, and check that the ChatGPT card shows Web crawling allowed.
Q4: How do I stop ChatGPT from reading my store?
Add a rule to your robots.txt file that blocks ChatGPT from your entire store. Once the change is detected, the ChatGPT card shows Web crawling restricted.
Q5: Why can’t I find Agentic in my channel list?
Agentic is currently available to selected merchants only. Contact your SHOPLINE account manager to request access.