ChatGPT now lets you claim your shop. Here's the 20-minute setup

On 10 November OpenAI opened Businesses in ChatGPT in beta. In plain words: you can now claim your business inside ChatGPT, give it your own products and policies, and in the US switch on an agent that answers customers for you.

I run a small online stationery shop, so I went through every guide I could find this week. The clearest were eesel's walkthrough of OpenAI's help pages and EcomCrew's notes for sellers. Here is the short version.

What you get. Three parts. Business Hub, where you claim and edit your listing. Insights, which shows how often ChatGPT mentions you, clicks to your website and the topics people found you through, over the last 28 days. And Business Agents, a chat that answers questions using what you give it.

The setup, step by step

1. Open Business Hub from the ChatGPT sidebar and search for your business name.
2. Prove it is yours: a code by SMS or call to the business phone, a code to the business email, a TXT record on your domain, or a Shopify login.
3. Pass the identity check, run by Persona. Have your ID and business registration details ready.
4. Fill in website, description, category, logo, delivery and returns policies, and a product feed. That can be Shopify Catalog, a CSV or a hosted feed URL.
5. Preview the agent with a real question, like "Can I return something I bought on sale?" Then decide whether to publish. Publishing is separate from claiming.

What it costs. According to eesel, OpenAI lists no charge for claiming or publishing. Ads are optional: you can sponsor your agent as an ad destination.

What it cannot do yet. The agent cannot take payment, make bookings or check someone's order. It answers and links to your site. Agents are US-only for now, while claiming a profile works more widely. And you will not see the chats customers have with it.

My honest take. This is not a sales channel yet. It is a shop window. But it is free, and the shops that set it up now will have weeks of data before everyone else starts asking why ChatGPT never mentions them.

What I would do first:

• Rewrite your returns policy the way a customer would ask about it.
• Fix product titles so they say what the thing actually is.
• Add real sizes, materials and delivery times as text, not only in photos.

Claiming does not promise traffic. Not claiming promises nothing at all.