# ChatGPT Shopping: What It Is and How Your Products Get In

> What ChatGPT Shopping is, how it picks and shows products, how a catalog gets in, what changed in 2026 and what a store can do today.

URL: https://clione.ai/glossary/chatgpt-shopping/
Lang: en

ChatGPT Shopping is not an OpenAI store or a separate app: it is what ChatGPT does when what you ask sounds like a purchase. Nor is it the same as [ChatGPT Search](/glossary/chatgpt-search/), the web search it builds on, or the ads ChatGPT began testing in 2026. OpenAI simply calls it _shopping in ChatGPT_.[^openai-merchants] For a store, the change is that **a question like "I need a six-cup moka pot that works on induction" can end in a carousel of products with prices, reviews and a list of stores**, and that your product gets into that list or not by routes that are not Google's.

## What it includes

When a question has [purchase intent](/glossary/purchase-intent/), ChatGPT can show products with an image, details and links to the sites where you can buy them. OpenAI states that **ChatGPT chooses those results on its own; they are not ads and do not depend on its commercial agreements**. It chooses based on the question and the context of the conversation, including memory if it is turned on, and takes into account the structured metadata it receives from first-party and third-party providers, such as price or description.[^openai-shopping-help] When you open a product, it can show the stores that sell it, ranked by availability, price, quality and whether they are the manufacturer or the main seller.[^openai-shopping-help]

On top of that base, OpenAI has been adding pieces:

- **Shopping research**, since November 24, 2025: it asks questions to understand what you are looking for, researches the web for a few minutes and delivers a personalized buying guide. OpenAI says its results are organic, that it reads product pages directly from public store sites, and that it **can get [price and availability](/glossary/price-and-availability/) wrong**.[^openai-shopping-research]
- **Visual shopping and comparison**, since March 24, 2026: exploring products with images, uploading a photo to find similar ones and comparing options side by side with price, reviews and features, for the Free, Go, Plus and Pro plans.[^openai-discovery]
- **Virtual try-on and library**: a button to see how a garment or accessory looks from a selfie, and the option to save products in folders.[^openai-shopping-help]

## How products arrive

OpenAI describes three routes, and they are not mutually exclusive:

| Route              | What the store does                                                   | What OpenAI says                                                                                                                                                                                 |
| ------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Integrated catalog | Nothing extra if it sells on Shopify or Etsy                          | The Shopify and Etsy catalogs are already integrated and need no application.[^openai-merchants] On Shopify they arrive through [Shopify Catalog](/glossary/shopify-catalog/)[^openai-discovery] |
| Direct _feed_      | Requests access and sends its [product feed](/glossary/product-feed/) | With the [ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol)](/glossary/acp/), directly or through providers such as Salesforce and Stripe[^openai-discovery]                                                       |
| The web            | Lets ChatGPT read its pages                                           | The _feed_ is not required if ChatGPT already crawls your site, but it gives more control over how your products appear[^openai-merchants]                                                       |

The direct _feed_ has its own specification: one row per item or variant, with nine required fields, and the recommendation of titles up to 150 characters and descriptions up to 5,000.[^openai-feed-spec] The entry on the [ChatGPT product feed](/glossary/chatgpt-product-feed/) goes into the detail. For access, OpenAI's page for merchants collects requests on a waitlist and announces a self-serve portal "later this year".[^openai-merchants] And anyone who wants a deeper integration can build an app inside ChatGPT, as Walmart did, although OpenAI says **most merchants start with the _feed_** and that apps fit large merchants better.[^openai-discovery][^openai-merchants] An app like that connects through the [MCP](/glossary/mcp/) protocol and can include an [MCP server](/glossary/mcp-server/) when it needs to read live data or act in another system.[^openai-plugins-mcp]

## What has changed in a year

On September 29, 2025, OpenAI launched [Instant Checkout](/glossary/instant-checkout/): US users could buy from US Etsy sellers without leaving the chat, and the merchant paid a small fee per completed purchase.[^openai-buy] On March 24, 2026, OpenAI acknowledged that first version did not give the flexibility it wanted and moved to letting **merchants use their own checkout**, while it focuses on product discovery.[^openai-discovery]

As of October 2026, the page for merchants puts it this way: OpenAI is moving away from a standalone Instant Checkout experience, the purchase is completed on the merchant's site or app, **purchases that start in ChatGPT carry no fee**, and shopping in ChatGPT works in the United States and will reach more regions.[^openai-merchants] The help center still mentions that, for some eligible products and merchants, ChatGPT may offer Instant Checkout.[^openai-shopping-help]

The other novelty of the year is ads. Tests began in the United States on February 9, 2026, for the Free and Go plans; ads appear below the answer, marked as sponsored, and OpenAI states they **do not influence what ChatGPT answers** and that they run on systems separate from the model.[^openai-ads-help]

## In a store

What a store can do today, depending on how its catalog reaches ChatGPT:

| Store's situation         | What to do                                                                                                                                           | Limit to keep in mind                                                                                         |
| ------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Sells on Shopify          | Check that each product has title, description, image, [price and availability](/glossary/price-and-availability/) filled in completely in the admin | The catalog is already integrated and no application is needed[^openai-merchants]                             |
| Sells on another platform | Request access to the direct _feed_ and prepare it with the specification                                                                            | Waitlist; the self-serve portal is announced, not available[^openai-merchants]                                |
| Any case                  | Let ChatGPT read the site and keep product pages up to date                                                                                          | Displayed prices can take a while to reflect a change[^openai-shopping-help]                                  |
| Customers outside the US  | Prepare the data now                                                                                                                                 | The shopping experience works in the United States; no date is published for other regions[^openai-merchants] |

A store that is not on Shopify can delegate the technical part: Clione builds the _feed_ from the enriched catalog and uploads it every day to the SFTP account OpenAI gives the merchant; whether the products appear and where is up to OpenAI.


Believing that appearing in ChatGPT Shopping is paid for, or that it requires payment inside the chat. OpenAI says product results are not ads and that **ads go separately**, marked as sponsored.[^openai-shopping-help][^openai-ads-help] Purchases that start in ChatGPT carry no fee, and by default the customer buys on your site.[^openai-merchants] What OpenAI asks merchants for is something else: complete, up-to-date product data.[^openai-merchants]


## How to check it

1. **See how your catalog reaches ChatGPT**: Shopify or Etsy, a direct _feed_ or just the web.[^openai-merchants]
2. **If you are not on Shopify or Etsy, request access to the _feed_** and validate each row against the nine required fields before sending it.[^openai-feed-spec]
3. **If you want to appear in shopping research**, follow the allowlisting process that OpenAI links in its announcement.[^openai-shopping-research]
4. **Ask your customer's question in ChatGPT** and open the product: note which stores appear, in what order and at what price, with the date.[^openai-shopping-help]
5. **If you see wrong data for your product, report it** from the product's own menu, which is the route OpenAI gives.[^openai-shopping-help]

## Related concept: ChatGPT Search

ChatGPT Search is ChatGPT's web search: it rewrites the question, retrieves pages and answers citing them. ChatGPT Shopping is what is built on top when the question is about buying: **instead of citations, products; instead of pages, product metadata** that arrives from catalogs and _feeds_.[^openai-shopping-help] A store needs both: pages that can be read and cited, and product data that arrives complete. Above both is [agentic commerce](/glossary/agentic-commerce/), the step where the assistant does not just recommend but buys.

To go further, [ACP](/glossary/acp/) explains the protocol through which the _feeds_ arrive, and the [agentic commerce reading path](/learn/agentic-commerce/) orders the rest of the terms.