52 Ways eCommerce Businesses Can Use ChatGPT

Ecommerce needs lots of administrative and assistantship tasks to run smoothly. Apart from raising your operations cost, using a human assistant for every task can expose you to avoidable errors.

That’s why an AI assistant like ChatGPT is gaining attention among eCommerce business owners.

To help you make the most of this tool, we’ve identified 52 ways you can use ChatGPT to drive better business results.

What we’ll cover:

1. Market research and competitive analysis

2. Write new or improved product descriptions

3. Social media engagement

4. Order management

5. SEO help

6. Build a list of influencers

7. Inventory management and restocking

8. Upselling and cross-selling

9. Write product launch and pre-order copy

10-20. Create personalized marketing messages

21. Interactive and gamified shopping experiences

22. ​​Abandoned cart recovery

23. Return and refund assistance

24. Identify important holidays and dates by country

25. Find promotions and product launch ideas

26-28. Write administrative emails

29-33. Content ideas

34. Customer review response ideas

35. Understand your customers’ aspirations and pain points

36. User feedback and surveys

37. Prepare slide decks for Presentations

38. Complete business calculations

39. Create form fields

40. Gift selection assistance

41. Create job descriptions for permanent or contract positions

42. Prepare interview questions for hiring staff or hosting guests

43. Draft employee offer letter

44. Build prospect lists

45. Prepare discussion points for a meeting

46. Plan and schedule travel itinerary

47. Product troubleshooting and DIY support

48. Find a list of niche suppliers

49. Recipe recommendations and meal planning

50. Event planning

51. Sustainability and ethical sourcing information

52. Virtual shopping assistance and order personalization

52 Ways your eCommerce business can use ChatGPT

1. Market research and competitive analysis

Use cases:

• Analyzing customer interactions
• Identifying trends
• Providing insights into customer preferences and purchasing behavior
• Monitoring competitor websites, prices, and product offerings

You can even start with a regular chat without the API.

I asked ChatGPT “What’s the best demographic to target if you sell ball pens” and it provided six suggestions. Notice it identified specific target groups and offered some insights on their needs.

Here’s another example about Sephora campaigns:

2. Write new or improved product descriptions 

Generate new or improved product descriptions based on these elements:

• Specifications of the product
• Features of the product
• Product’s target audience
• Customer reviews

ChatGPT shortens the time spent to generate a compelling and informative product description. The software performs best when your prompts reflect the specifications, features and customer reviews.

Using ChatGPT is only a starting point as some information about the product would be placeholders for you to fill with the appropriate information.

For example, I asked ChatGPT to “Write a product description for our running shoes using Nike’s running shoes as a guide for specifications and features.”

So, product sellers can use information from ChatGPT to improve their product description.

I can choose to be platform-specific. So, I modified the request for the Amazon marketplace:

3. Social media engagement

Use cases:

• Generate copywriting ideas for social media captions
• Write better content more frequently to grow your social media presence
• Foster customer loyalty
• Put brand advocacy on autopilot

If you integrate ChatGPT with social media channels you can respond more promptly to your audience’s requests. However, you can generate ideas and content directly from the software.

Here’s an example:

I requested ChatGPT to “Generate copywriting ideas for a week-long promotion on social media for our keto snacks brand” and got the reply below. 

Treat this like a template and adapt them to your target audience and program.

4. Order management

Use cases:

• Generate order confirmation emails
• Write product delivery email and notifications copy
• Inventory records to track product availability
• Provide customers a means to monitor the progress of their order
• Send prompt response to customer enquiries

For example, when I asked to “Generate a personalized order confirmation email for our sustainability conscious makeup kit,” it provided the template below. 

The template provides placeholders for all the information you should add.

5. SEO help

Use cases:

• Find the keywords competitors use in their copy
• Discover how many times a keyword appears in their product description/landing page

For example, I asked ChatGPT “What keywords do sellers of omega 3 supplements rank for” and it gave me this reply:

I can take my research further from here by doing these:

• Find pages that rank for these search terms
• Copy their content and add to ChatGPT
• Ask the AI tool to provide how many times these keywords or similar keywords appeared in the text I shared

So, I took my own advice and tried this SEO analysis with ChatGPT. I copied and pasted an article from the NCCIH and asked ChatGPT to identify how many times each of the 20 terms above appeared in this article.

Identify how many times each of the 20 terms above appeared in this article.

Here’s what I found:

6. Build a list of influencers

Use cases:

• List popular influencers within a time frame
• Describe areas of influence of the listed persons
• Specify what social media platform the influencer is popular

This can be industry or topic-specific. For instance, I requested a “List the top beauty industry influencers in North America based on their social media following.” It focused on their Instagram following and showed follower numbers.

However, ChatGPT warns users to research further as information changes over time.

You can set a specific follower range too. But ChatGPT will not provide a follower count even if you request it.

7. Inventory management and restocking

Manage stock and inventory with ChatGPT:

• Monitoring inventory levels
• Automatic product replenishment reminders
• Generate reports on popular items
• Forecast demand
• Provide recommendations for restocking

You’ll have to train the language model to perform these tasks.

8. Upselling and cross-selling

Use cases:

• Reduces time taken to encourage customers to buy higher-priced  or upgraded products
• Draft customized upsell emails
• Write compelling product bundling copies

I asked ChatGPT to “Write a compelling upsell email for our cycling helmet suggesting that for extra $30 buyers can get 2 helmets instead of 1 for $50,” this is what I got:

9. Write product launch and pre-order copy

Create template email copies and customize them for your launch:

• Draft personalized product launch emails
• Write pre-order copy for a product launch
• Increase customer engagement

For example, I enter this prompt:

Write a personalized product launch email for our new scented beard oil offering discounts on pre-orders and free products for people who refer at least two people to buy.

But I think the message is long. So I requested that ChatGPT make it shorter, sharper, and more engaging and it did.

Look at what I got:

Create personalized marketing messages

Create personalized notifications for your campaign, website, email and app.

Here are 11 examples:

10. Personalized welcome messages

Use cases:

• Email leads
• New customers.
• Website landing page notification
• App sign-up welcome notification
• Membership area welcome message
• Community chatbot message

I requested that ChatGPT write a personalized welcome email message for my subscribers to show them when they opt-in to get my free 30-day workout program and keto recipe book.

The first draft was long so I requested that it makes it short, sharp, and very engaging. Here’s what I got:

So I requested a short and sharp welcome message to help me engage first-time app users for my keto workout app. It gave me this:

I liked the initial draft but wanted it to keep some elements and remove other elements.

So I requested, “This is supposed to be an in-app message. So write with that in mind. I like the emojis so keep them, but make this message shorter, sharper, and super engaging.”

And got this:

11. Re-engagement messages

Use cases:

• Re-engage inactive subscribers
• Reactivate inactive customer accounts
• Make one-time buyers shop again and more often
• Reignite relationships with inactive loyal customers

I asked ChatGPT to draft a re-engagement email to first-time buyers who remained on my email list after their first purchase.

My prompt: Draft an email to first-time buyers of our scented candles who never bought again but didn’t unsubscribe from my list. Offer them special 30% discounts, and that they enter into a sweepstake when they buy to win one of our premium products.

The outcome:

It produced a lengthy message and I requested that it shorten it. Here’s what I got:

12. Product recommendation messages

Use cases:

• Nudge shoppers to buy complementary products
• Invite shoppers to buy a product they recently looked at in your store
• Cross product recommendation campaigns with partners
• Featured bestsellers
• Match products to your buyer segmentation
• Personalized recommendation based on customers’ shopping history

I segmented shoppers who buy often and might be interested in our bestsellers and drafted a message targeting them.

I asked ChatGPT to “Write a product recommendation email asking my customers to consider our best seller cologne and perfume collections. Also, for being a previous buyer we will offer them 15% discounts that run until the end of month regardless of how many items they buy.”

It came back with this:

13. Review request messages

Use cases:

• Request reviews for newly purchased products
• Ask happy customers to review your product on review platforms
• Invite customers after a positive experience to leave a review
• Run a review promotion to encourage buyers to leave a review
• Get initial reviews for a new product

We launched a new product and I needed to get reviews from customers willing to test the new product for free and leave honest reviews.

So, I asked ChatGPT to write a review request asking our existing customers who would want to test our new hair spray to get it for free in exchange for an honest product review on Amazon and our website.

The result:

I like that ChatGPT also provided review guidelines for our customers which I can modify to fit our needs.

14. New arrivals messages

Use cases:

• Announce new arrivals on social media
• Alert email subscribers you have new arrivals
• Set up a new arrival notification on your website
• In-app popup to alert users of new arrivals

I got new product arrivals and wanted to write a compelling copy to attract our existing and potential customers.

So I asked ChatGPT to write a short, sharp, and engaging new product arrival announcement for our stylish summer sun shades. The message is for our social media followers offering the first 30 persons a $15 off.

15. Back-in-stock messages

Use cases:

• Alert your favorite buyers of a back-in-stock product
• Let email subscribers know your product is back in stock
• Announce the back-in-stock to your social media audience
• Let online store visitors know that your product is back in stock

We sold out our sunscreens just as the summer approached. Now we have it back in stock. So I asked ChatGPT to write a short, sharp, and compelling social media back-in-stock message for our sunscreens offering a buy one get one promotion.

Here’s what it gave me:

16. Seasonal promotion messages

Use cases:

• Birthday deals
• Back to school deals
• Anniversary promotions

If you’ve collected your customer’s birthday dates you can make them offers on their special days.

I asked ChatGPT to write a short, sharp, compelling, and personalized birthday email to our July-born customers. We’ll send the message out on their birthdays offering them a special 20% discount on our makeup and grooming kits, scented candles, and body care bundles.

I got this:

17. Sales and discount messages

Use cases:

• Holiday sales
• Flash sales
• Weekend or weekday discount offers
• Special discounts for seniors

I wanted to attract seniors to our stores. So I launched a campaign offering their frequently bought products at a bundle price lower than the sum of individual items.

My ChatGPT prompt: Write a compelling, short, and sharp Email message for seniors who shop at our stores, offering them a bundle of their frequently bought products at a 15% discount if they buy them together this month.

Here’s what I got:

18. Subscriber-only promotion messages

Use cases:

• Grow subscriber base
• Re-engage subscribers
• Generate word-of-mouth referral

I asked ChatGPT to write a promotional message inviting our subscribers to follow a link on our website to post a customizable message on social media and then get a subscriber-only coupon they can redeem any time.

See what I got:

19. Thank you messages

Use cases:

• After customers make a purchase
• When customers or partners make a referral
• After you resolve a problem with a customer or partner
• Greetings during special occasions
• When customers leave positive feedback or reviews
• If your customer has been loyal to your brand for a long time

So I asked ChatGPT to write a thank you message to our customer who left a positive review even though we delayed their product delivery. Thank them for accepting the delivery agent’s explanations and protecting the brand reputation.

Outcome:

20. Referral messages

Use cases:

• Leverage your customers' satisfaction
• Leverage the results you drove for your partners or customers
• Loyalty program invite
• Turn testimonials and voluntary reviews to referral requests
• Launch affiliate program

Hypothetically, our store launched a loyalty and an affiliate program to improve customer acquisition, sales, average order value, and customer return rate.

So I asked ChatGPT to write an invite letter to our customers to join our skin care loyalty program and that if they also invite people using their unique affiliate links, they win redeemable points.

Here’s what it gave me:

21. Interactive and gamified shopping experiences

Use case:

• Build a list of conversion-optimized quiz ideas
• Find product recommendation games
• Personalized styling challenges
• Encourage sharing and buyer engagement

I requested that ChatGPT list and explain product recommendation games we can use to engage parents on social media to buy our childrens’ play toys and games.

It came up with this:

22. ​​Abandoned cart recovery

Use cases:

• Re-engage shoppers who nearly completed a purchase but left abruptly
• Help customers understand they are losing out on a deal for not completing a purchase
• Get repeat customers to complete a chase
• Recover sales after a technical glitch on your store
• Write automated abandoned cart emails and notifications

I asked ChatGPT to write an abandoned cart recovery message to help us recover sales after our website went down during the year’s black friday and cyber monday rush.

Here’s what it gave me:

23. Return and refund assistance

Save time and lower customer service costs by using ChatGPT to do these:

• Reply to a defective or damaged product return request
• Refund billing or payment for overcharging or other issues
• Provide return support for unwanted gifts
• Address refund due to poor product quality
• Change products and manage billing for wrong product, size, or fit issues
• Give refund and product return for a late or non-delivery
• Give refund and return for buyer's remorse or change of mind
• Write simplified product return and payment refund policies

I asked ChatGPT to write an email addressing an overcharging issue on a shopper’s credit card and that we have effected a refund.

Here’s what I got:

24. Identify important holidays and dates by country

Use cases:

• Special holidays
• Summer holidays promotions
• Winter holidays offers
• National holidays
• Religious holidays and festivals

E-commerce sellers understand how important it is to sell season-appropriate products. Hence, the need to know what people buy on popular holidays. 

I asked ChatGPT to list 20 special holidays in Canada and their dates with the best gift for each holiday. Here’s the result:

25. Find promotions and product launch ideas

Use cases:

• How to plan and host product launch events
• List of successful product launches from other brands
• List product promotion ideas and real-world case studies
• Determine ways to engage and delight your target audience

I asked ChatGPT to “Provide me a list of product launch ideas using case studies from highly successful skin care product launches from leading brands.”

It came back with this result:

Write administrative emails

Write emails for managing your business operations.

Here are three examples:

26. Cold emails

Use cases:

• Generate leads for your business
• Nurture and retain existing customers
• Create awareness for initial sales
• Promote time-sensitive deals
• Establish B2B partnership
• Influencer or affiliate partnerships

ChatGPT provides suggestions and a template for an engaging and compelling cold email. When you provide the right information about the recipient and their company, the software will fix them in relevant areas.

After you get the structure and suggested content from ChatGPT, remember to adapt it to your brand voice. Also, ensure your marketing practices follow applicable laws and regulations.

27. Apology email

Use cases:

• Issues with product or service
• Customers receive misleading or incorrect information
• Billing errors
• Privacy concerns or data breaches
• Customer service failure

Here’s my prompt for a delivery delay apology: 

Write an email to a buyer from our eCommerce store apologizing for a delay in delivery time and explaining that bad weather (it's winter) impacted our logistics. So we're offering them a coupon as compensation.

Of course, ChatGPT’s initial response wasn’t this short. I asked it to shorten the message and keep it engaging.

28. Write an email reply

Brainstorm the perfect response to an email message you received.

You can provide an appropriate prompt and ChatGPT will generate a customizable email for you.

For example, I copied and pasted a message from my inbox, provided some context to ChatGPT, and asked it to reply to the message.

Here’s the result I got:

Content ideas

29. Generate newsletter email ideas

Find your buyers’ pain points and then create newsletter content around them.

Here’s an example:

I ask to “Generate newsletter email ideas that target buyers of women cycling jerseys focusing on the pain points and aspirations they want to learn more about.”

And it gave me this result:

That’s not bad in itself. If I was looking for a welcome email template for our customers or leads, that’s a good starting point.

But that’s not what I’m looking for.

So, I refined my request, asking that it “Don't write the email, just give the ideas and cite any supporting stats.” And then it gave me these ideas:

So, I’ll just go on and create content around each of these items on the list or research further on them.

30. Ad copy ideas

Use cases:

• Generate compelling headlines suggestions
• Craft persuasive body text
• Adapt ad copy to different platforms
• Incorporate storytelling into your ad copy
• Adapt the ad copy for different target audiences

I asked ChatGPT to “Provide me with 10 real ad copies from top keto nutrition brands and then give me your own rewrite of the copy for each ad.”

The results:

31. Generate content title ideas

Use cases: 

• Partner, supplier, and sales presentations
• News articles for brand PR or product launch
• Compelling product titles on marketplaces like Amazon
• Social media posts
• Lead generation campaign titles
• SEO titles for content marketing
• Newsletters and email marketing

My prompt: Write compelling product headline ideas for my wooden kitchen rack product to be sold on different marketplaces, format headlines for each eCommerce platforms: Amazon, Walmart, Wayfair, Wish, and Etsy

32. Proofread content for grammar and sentiment

Reasons you to improve messaging:

• Ensures clarity and comprehension
• Effective communication
• Maintain consistency
• Credibility and professionalism
• Eliminates grammatical and syntax errors to avoid misunderstandings

Some of your use cases might include these:

• Academic writing
• Marketing collateral preparation
• Legal messaging and documents to be posted on your store
• Articles, product descriptions, and other website content
• Social media messages
• Email marketing messages
• Sales messages
• Business communication with suppliers and investors

Write your messages and ask ChatGPT to review grammar and sentiment for you. If I sold granite countertops on my website and was writing an article about it, I could do the basic editing on ChatGPT.

Here’s an example:

33. Discover and answer frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Use cases:

• Provide product information
• Resolve shipping and delivery queries 
• Manage payment and pricing questions
• Answer order process inquiries
• Address returns and refunds questions
• Answer technical and B2B account management questions

In the example below, I asked ChatGPT to provide the frequently asked questions for back braces and the appropriate answers. And here’s what the software showed.

This ChatGPT capability helps you discover questions your customers ask about your product and provide viable answers:

• Save time and resources on customer service
• Clear doubts by addressing concerns and objections
• Improve customer experience with readily available information
• Reduce repetitive queries for your support team
• Demonstrate expertise and authority

34. Customer review response ideas

Use cases:

• Reply to positive reviews
• Take control of the narrative in negative review situations
• Address customer complaints on social media
• Answer product or service inquiries
• Respond to delivery delays or  technical issues
• Follow-up on customer feedback
• Handle malicious or fake reviews
• Connect with your brand advocates

Here’s an example for a negative review and how ChatGPT provided an answer:

However, to avoid using a generalized answer, customize your responses to fit your brand voice.

Why responding to customer reviews matter:

• Shows that you value customer feedback
• Mitigate impact of negative reviews
• Increases customer retention
• Better understanding of customer expectations
• Improve online reputation

35. Understand your customers’ aspirations and pain points

Use cases:

• Conduct comprehensive market research
• Create detailed buyer personas
• Collect and analyze customer feedback
• Use empathy mapping
• Develop product and services that address pain point

ChatGPT analyzes customer reviews to extract insights, generate summaries, and identify trends, to help you make data-driven decisions.

As a starting point you can ask ChatGPT questions about your audience directly.

36. User feedback and surveys

Use cases:

• Gather intelligence for product development
• Collect feedback to improve online store and app user experience
• Gauge customer satisfaction and loyalty
• Collect post-purchase experience feedback
• Assess customers' perception of your pricing and product value
• Evaluate your marketing and customer service

Here’s the prompt I used in this example: 

“Build a user survey to collect customer feedback on preferences, satisfaction levels, and suggestions for improvement. Also suggest ways to use potential replies to improve our online store design, product experiences, features, etc.”

When you provide specific information about your survey, the software can suggest relevant questions to include in your survey. It also provides guidelines on best practice and design principles.

After you collect your survey responses, you can feed it to ChatGPT for analysis and interpretation.

Why gathering feedback and surveys matter:

• Provide valuable insight for data-driven decisions
• Gauge customer satisfaction and improve experience
• Refine offerings from customer feedback
• Assess customers’ perception of competitor
• Measure employee engagement and satisfaction
• Promotion decision based on employee strength
• Assess success of events and determine areas of improvement

37. Prepare slide decks for Presentations

Use cases:

• Pitch potential investors or stakeholders
• Product launches
• Sales pitches to potential B2B buyers
• Staff training and onboarding
• Reporting and business update summaries
• Showcasing your business at trade shows/PR events

As an AI text-based software, ChatGPT doesn’t directly create slide decks or add images. But, it helps with the structure and content of the presentation.

It’ll suggest an outline or starting point for you to create your slide decks. With this outline, you’ll know how and where to add relevant texts and images.

I asked ChatGPT to “Prepare a slide deck for a furniture brand trying to sell its office furniture to corporate buyers who are very savvy office furniture buyers.”

Why slide deck preparations matter:

• Visual representation of your ideas
• Effective structuring of ideas
• Highlight key points for clarity and focus
• Attract audience attention and keep them engaged
• Increase understanding of presentation
• Serve as reference and handouts
• Helps manage time allowed for presentation

38. Complete business calculations

Use cases:

• Calculate eCommerce management metrics
• Calculate productivity frequencies, etc.
• Analyzes business data such as market trends
• Forecast future business performance and budgets
• Determine optimal pricing and product profitability

When you input the necessary data, you can get ChatGPT for some calculations with accurate results. However, it’s safer to consult with financial experts and consultants before applying any information from this AI tool to your business situation.

For example, you can quickly calculate your inventory turnover ratio.

39. Create form fields

Use cases:

• Sweepstakes 
• Lead generation and research
• Registration and enrollment
• Events
• Feedback and complaint

ChatGPT can’t generate files, but can guide you on the types of forms to use for your needs. It would provide a structure that lets participants provide information and legal compliance.

For instance, I asked ChatGPT to create form fields for Facebook sweepstakes. The goal was for a Mother’s Day marketing campaign to promote our products, and build loyalty.

Sweepstakes legal requirements and regulations vary, depending on the nature of the prize or jurisdiction.

So, we recommend that you consult with a sweepstakes expert or legal professional to comply with all applicable laws and regulations.

40. Gift selection assistance

Use cases:

• Help customers select gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and holidays
• Assist customers in finding personalized gift items that match their preferred design or massaging
• Assist buyers in finding gifts that match their recipient's interests, hobbies, age, culture, or preferences
• Support customers to find gifts that match their budget
• Offer customers discounted gift bundles

Just ask ChatGPT to generate gift ideas based on your parameters and then you can use those suggestions to offer gift selection assistance to your shoppers.

Here’s ChatGPT’s response when I did that:

You can also request ideas based on a set of characteristics.

41. Create job descriptions for permanent or contract positions

Use cases:

• Hiring new employees to fill existing positions
• Creating a new company position for existing or new employees to fill
• Replacing a departing employee and updating duties for the role
• Update the responsibilities for an existing role
• Contracting specialized services
• Scaling operations
• Department restructuring
• Succession planning 

Create job descriptions for positions you’re hiring for in your business. Identify relevant tasks and work descriptions and remove irrelevant ones from the list.

For example, I asked ChatGPT to create detailed job descriptions for a permanent beauty and skin care salesperson position for our eCommerce brand.

Here’s the result:

You can also use ChatGPT to write the job ad to attract the perfect candidates for the position.

And if you want to give your job ad maximum exposure, you can use ChatGPT to build a list of job ad platforms to use.

42. Prepare interview questions for hiring staff or hosting guests

Use cases:

• Interview questions for live or prerecorded podcasts or shows on social media
• Interview questions for online marketing outlets like your blog or partner websites
• Hiring questions for permanent or contract positions

In this example, I asked ChatGPT to “I'm interviewing the CEO of Jungle Scout to publish on my website. Prepare interview questions that I'll ask him about how to source products from China.”

Here’s the result I got.

43. Draft employee offer letter

Use cases:

• Hire full-time or part-time employees
• Hire contract or freelance employees 
• Offer internships and trainee programs
• Transfer or promote employees internally
• Executive hires
• Remote workers

I asked the AI tool to provide me with an offer letter for a digital marketing manager role in Ottawa, Canada, to comply with relevant local employment laws.

Here’s the outcome:

Your offer letter should include these:

• Salary
• Benefits
• Position
• Other legal obligations

44. Build prospect lists

Use cases:

• A chance to attract and convert customers
• Efficient resource allocation
• Cultivate relationship with potential customer
• Lead generation
• Build steady stream of revenue
• Market research and insight

You can find a list of important business prospects by asking ChatGPT to provide you with one.

For instance, I requested that the AI tool provide me a list of the top people in electronic gadget sourcing in South East Asia and it came back with this list:

Like any other query, you can modify your search. I modified mine and here’s what I got:

45. Prepare discussion points for a meeting

Use cases:

• Strategic planning session preparations
• Preparing for a new product launch
• Discussion points for performance review 
• Discuss store optimization, inventory levels, marketing and ads
• Team alignment discussions

For example, I asked ChatGPT to provide discussion points for a meeting with a potential white label headphone supplier.

Here’s the result:

Benefits you can get from preparing your discussion points with ChatGPT:

• Helps maximize meeting time
• Shows professionalism and respect
• Enhance influence and credibility
• Fosters collaboration and fruitful outcomes

If you’re to hold meetings with a potential business partner and you need to find talking points, ChatGPT can help you list useful talking points and even leads to use for each of those talking points.

46. Plan and schedule travel itinerary

ChatGPT makes planning a trip easy. So, it helps in:

• Budget management
• Efficient use of time
• Provides a clear plan
• Ensures smooth logistics
• Enhances preparedness and safety

ChatGPT can help you plan a trip, giving you ideas on what to do each day. You can then modify and adapt them to your needs.

Here’s an example request to plan an itinerary for a business trip to find potential suppliers in China.

You can also ask ChatGPT to help you schedule these itinerary into actual calendar days if you already have a time in mind for this trip.

Here’s an example.

After I received this schedule and modified them to fit my needs, I made this request of ChatGPT:

“Schedule this itinerary to calendar days from June 18 to June 30 taking into account any holidays or off-work days in China or the cities I will be staying in China.”

47. Product troubleshooting and DIY support

Use cases:

• Ecommerce businesses that sell technical products such as electronics, appliances, automotive parts, and gadgets
• Troubleshooting for home improvement or DIY products
• Businesses that sell smart home devices
• Troubleshooting and support for DIY crafts and art supplies

Describe the issues to ChatGPT and it’ll offer a guide to complete the tasks or troubleshoot the issue. And if you’re unsure of the cause, you can also explain the error or symptoms to ChatGPT.

Here's an example:

Offer troubleshooting assistance and DIY (do-it-yourself) support if you sell technical products or equipment:

• Write quick guides to help customers through common issues
• Provide step-by-step instructions
• Recommend relevant resources such as user manuals or video tutorials, helping customers resolve problems without the need for customer support intervention
• Simplify and explain technical concepts

Some eCommerce processes like payments, shipping, and product description issues can benefit from this solution.

48. Find a list of niche suppliers

Use cases:

• Sourcing for specialized products unavailable from mainstream suppliers
• Looking for high-quality or handcrafted goods
• Prioritizing sustainable or ethical product sourcing
• Seeking for customizable or personalized product suppliers
• Limited edition product suppliers
• Sourcing products with unique or rare materials or ingredients
• Sourcing high-end luxury goods

ChatGPT may not be able to offer you real-time data and you may need to use its paid version if you need more recent data, but it can offer you something to start your search.

For example, here’s a request I placed on ChatGPT to find African art suppliers in Manhattan, New York:

“List 13 businesses in Greater Manhattan area that sell West African art works to resellers”

49. Recipe recommendations and meal planning

Use cases:

• Subscription boxes
• Grocery and meal kit delivery eCommerce businesses
• Ecommerce business specializes in health and wellness products
• Selling to consumers with special dietary needs or preferences
• Customers searching for recipe ideas and meal plans for specific seasons or holidays
• Cross-promotion of ingredients or products
• Provide ongoing value to customers 

With focus on specific dietary restrictions, my prompt was: “Write recipe recommendations and meal plans for lactose intolerant customers using alternatives to dairy products.”

Here’s what ChatGPT produced:

This option works for eCommerce businesses that sell foods or groceries. You can provide recipe recommendations and assist with meal planning by letting ChatGPT suggest recipes based on these criteria:

• Dietary preferences
• Ingredients on hand
• Specific dietary restrictions

50. Event planning

Use cases:

• Plan product launches
• Sales and promotion planning
• Webinars and workshops planning
• Trade shows and exhibitions planning
• Influencer collaborations planning
• Brand user gatherings planning 

I requested that ChatGPT plan my exhibition at the White Label World Expo in New York where I’ll be presenting our novel Samsonite competitor bags.

Use the AI tool to accomplish event planning feats like these:

• Suggest event themes
• Recommend suitable venues
• Provide catering options
• Assist in selecting personalized gifts or party favors

51. Sustainability and ethical sourcing information

More buyers are concerned about ethical issues surrounding the products they use. You can use ChatGPT to help your eCommerce business provide details on your business’s:

• Sustainability initiatives
• Ethical sourcing
• Social responsibility efforts
• Help buyers make informed purchasing decisions that align with their values

For instance, I asked the AI tool to “Write a sustainability statement that demonstrates we align our vitamin supplement eCommerce business to a sustainability conscious audience and committed to ethical sourcing and processes.”

It gave me this:

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52. Virtual shopping assistance and order personalization

Deloitte study on how personalization influences buyers and business outcomes.

This point assumes you plan to integrate the ChatGPT model into your chatbot.

How ChatGPT can provide virtual shopping assistance and order personalization: 

• Mimic the experience of interacting with a knowledgeable salesperson
• Help customers navigate through product catalogs
• Suggest suitable items based on preferences
• Provide personalized shopping experiences
• Help customers personalize products by providing options for color, size, design, or other customizable features
• Create personalized recommendations based on browsing history, previous purchases, buyer preferences, to facilitate product discovery and boost sales opportunities
• Lower product returns using the customer’s size and fit recommendations by asking questions about measurements and preferred fit

Two approaches to using ChatGPT:

You can use ChatGPT in two ways: prompts and using the API. Here's a summary of each approach

1. Use ChatGPT Prompts

• Provide an initial message or question as a prompt to the AI model
• You can start the conversation with a system message to set the behavior of the AI assistant or directly ask a user message
• The model will generate a response based on the provided context and the prompt
• You can use the generated response as input for a continued conversation

Prompts are suitable for interactive and iterative conversations.

2. Use ChatGPT API

• The API approach involves making API calls to the OpenAI API using programming languages like Python or JavaScript
• You send a list of messages as the input, where each message has a 'role' ('system', 'user', or 'assistant') and 'content' (the text of the message)
• You can include a system message at the beginning to set the behavior of the assistant, followed by user and assistant messages
• After sending the input, the API will return a response containing the assistant's reply and other relevant information

Caveat for using ChatGPT

Both approaches mentioned have their advantages. But this AI model isn’t perfect.

Prompts are simpler and easier to use for basic interactions. But the API method offers more flexibility for advanced use cases such as maintaining context over multiple turns or handling complex conversations.

Keep in mind that the ChatGPT model can sometimes produce incorrect or nonsensical answers. So, review and validate responses for accuracy.

In addition, provide clear instructions to boost the quality of responses you receive.

Final thoughts: Ways eCommerce businesses can use ChatGPT

You can start with simple tasks from any of the 52 options discussed here. And as you get comfortable with the tool, you can start expanding your usage of the tool.

ChatGPT is only a tool, and no tool has all the solutions. So, use it with caution. Don’t divulge trade secrets or give away personal information to the AI model.