What a shopper asks, and what the answer needs to know
A shopping question carries its own filter: a hand-made Welsh blanket under a hundred pounds that arrives before Christmas, a gift for a gardener, waterproof boots in a wide fit. To put your product forward, an answer needs to know its name and kind, its price, whether you have it now, how it gets to the buyer and what makes it fit the request.
Many small shops keep those facts where a machine reads them badly. The price sits in a basket that appears only after a click, the stock level lives in a till system, and the description is a photograph with a caption that says “Lovely!”. A person can work it out. An answer built from text cannot.
So the work is the same whichever assistant you care about: one page per product that says, in words, what it is, what it costs, whether it is in stock and how it is delivered or collected. The two routes below take those facts further.
Route one: free listings on Google through Merchant Center
Google Merchant Center is Google’s free tool for telling it about the products you sell. Its help pages say a product with a free listing can appear, at no cost, across Google: on Search, Maps, YouTube, the Shopping tab, Images and Lens. Google says new accounts are opted in to free listings by default; adverts are a separate, paid choice you do not have to make.
The account holds a list of your products and their details. If your shop runs on a hosted platform, look in its settings for a connection to Google before you type a single product in by hand.
A free listing is a chance to appear, not a promise. What Google shows depends on the product data you give it, so the same rule applies here as on your page: a full, accurate name, a real price, the stock position and a clear photograph.
- A Merchant Center account in your shop’s own name
- Every product with a price and an “in stock” or “out of stock”
- Delivery costs and return policy filled in
- The same price in Merchant Center as on the page
Route two: product markup on your own pages
Structured data is a short block of code that restates a page’s facts in a form machines read without guessing. For products, Google’s documentation separates two cases. A page where someone can buy the product is eligible for what Google calls merchant listing experiences, which rely on details such as price and availability. A page that reviews or compares products without selling them is a case for product snippets.
Since 2022, Google has said a shop can be eligible for merchant listing experiences from the markup on its pages alone, without a Merchant Center account. It also says that adding the properties a merchant listing needs generally makes the page eligible for product snippets too. So for a shop, the markup to aim at is the buying kind.
In schema.org terms, that is a Product with an Offer inside it. The offer carries price, priceCurrency (GBP) and availability, such as InStock. Your shop platform may already write this block for you; your job is to check it says what the page says. Google’s guidelines require markup to describe content a visitor can see, so a price in the code that differs from the price on the page is a fault, not a shortcut.
Check before you change anything. Open a product page, view its source and search for "Product". If a block is there, read its price and stock against the page. Google’s Rich Results Test shows the same thing without reading code.
How ChatGPT chooses products, in OpenAI’s words
OpenAI publishes a help page on shopping in ChatGPT, and it is more specific than most guesses about it. It says product results are selected independently by ChatGPT, are not adverts, and are not influenced by any OpenAI partnership. To decide which products to show, ChatGPT considers structured metadata from first-party and third-party providers, such as price and description, and other third-party content.
When someone opens a product, ChatGPT lists merchants that sell it, built from merchant and product data that reaches OpenAI from third parties or from merchants directly. OpenAI names the factors behind that list: availability, price, quality, and whether the merchant is the maker or main seller of the item. For a small shop that makes its own goods, that last factor is worth stating on every product page: “Made in our workshop in Llandeilo” is a fact an answer can use.
The same page warns that prices and delivery details can lag behind a merchant’s changes, and that ChatGPT may write simpler titles and descriptions from what it receives. Both are reasons to keep your own page, and anything that copies it, correct and up to date. OpenAI also invites merchants to apply to send it a product feed directly; its developer documentation has the details.
The product page, in both languages, before Black Friday
An invented example: a shop in Llandeilo selling hand-thrown mugs. Its page says “The perfect gift.” and shows a price only in the basket. The version that answers questions reads: “Hand-thrown stoneware mug, 350 ml, glazed in sea green. Made in our Llandeilo workshop. £24. In stock: posted within two working days, or collect from the shop.” Every fact in that sentence matches a field in Merchant Center and a property in the markup.
If your shop has a Welsh version, give each product its own Welsh page with the same facts, not a Welsh menu over English descriptions. A shopper asking an assistant in Welsh for “myg crochenwaith wedi’i wneud yng Nghymru” is asking about that page. Keep the price, the size and the stock identical in both, and keep the product names that are brands in their own form.
Black Friday falls on 27 November 2026. Set up the listing and check the markup now, so that Google has read your products before then, and change prices on the page, in Merchant Center and in any feed on the same day. The free assessment on this site reads one of your product pages as a machine does and names what is missing.
- What it is, in the words a shopper uses
- The price, in pounds, as text on the page
- In stock or not, and how soon it ships
- Delivery, collection and returns, in a sentence each
- Who made it, if you did
- The same facts on the Welsh page
Frequently asked questions
Can I pay to get my products recommended by ChatGPT?
Not in its product results. OpenAI says those are chosen independently by ChatGPT, are not adverts, and are not influenced by its partnerships. Adverts in ChatGPT, where they appear, are separate from the product results.
Is Google Merchant Center free for a small shop?
Yes. The account and free listings cost nothing. Shopping adverts are a separate paid option you can ignore.
Do I need a Merchant Center account if my product pages already have structured data?
Not to be eligible for merchant listing experiences in Google Search: Google has said page markup alone can qualify. Merchant Center adds the free listings on its other surfaces, so most shops benefit from both.
Does my shop need a product feed for ChatGPT?
Not to be found. OpenAI says ChatGPT uses product data from third parties and other content, not only feeds from merchants. A direct feed is something OpenAI invites merchants to apply for; what matters first is a product page that states the facts.