How to run your online store from ChatGPT or Claude

What “connecting” means

On its own, ChatGPT can’t touch your store. Neither can Claude. They can only talk to you.

Connecting gives the AI permission to use one app for you. Here, that app is your Zarii store. Once you say yes, the AI can do things in the store when you ask. It reaches only what your sign-in allows, and you can disconnect any time.

The technical name for this is MCP. It’s a standard way for an AI to use an app you’ve said yes to. You never need the word again.

Both companies have a place to do this. Anthropic calls it a custom connector, and its help page says Claude reaches it through a public web address. OpenAI’s developer page describes adding a custom server in ChatGPT by its address, then reviewing the tools ChatGPT finds there.

Which plans can do this changes from time to time, and so do the menu names. For ChatGPT, check OpenAI’s help page. For Claude, check Anthropic’s. Zarii’s connect guide keeps the server address and the current steps for each app.

You sign in with your Zarii account. No key to copy.

What a first chat looks like

Say you bake and sell banana bread. You open ChatGPT or Claude, with Zarii connected, and type:

“What’s in my shop?”

The AI checks which store it’s in and what’s there before it changes anything. Then you tell it what to sell:

“Put up my banana bread, ₱350, 12 loaves.”

The AI adds the product with that price and that stock. It starts as a draft, so nobody can see it yet.

“Here are my photos.”

A picker opens so you can add photos from your phone. These are your photos, stored exactly as you sent them. The AI never makes one up.

“Make it live.”

Before it goes live, Zarii checks that the product has a photo and a description. A product that ships also needs a shipping size. Once those are there, your banana bread is on your store at yourname.zarii.store, ready to share.

Later, you can ask “Any new orders?” The AI lists them, newest first, and tells you if a payment screenshot is waiting.

A few other things work the same way. You can describe a product with sizes or colours and their prices in one message. You can tell it what you counted on the shelf and it sets your stock to that number. You can take a product down, and its stock and past orders stay.

What only you can do

This is the part to read twice. Some things stay with you on purpose.

• Add your payment QR. The AI can give you the link to add it, and that’s all.
• Confirm or reject a payment. You do that yourself, next to the screenshot.
• See a buyer’s payment screenshot. The AI only knows whether one is waiting.

Here is how an order goes. Your buyer opens your link and orders without making an account. They see your QR exactly as you uploaded it, with the amount and an order code. They pay it from their own app and send you a screenshot. You check your account and tap Confirm. Only then does your stock go down, once.

The money goes from your buyer to you. Zarii keeps the order record and never holds the money, so there are no platform fees to charge. That is also why the AI has no way to touch a payment. If you want to know how the QR side works, see how to accept GCash payments without a payment gateway.

What the AI can see

Your orders include your buyers’ names, phone numbers and addresses. The AI can read them so it can answer questions like “who ordered the banana bread this week?” Connecting shares that with your AI’s provider, so decide that before you connect.

Where it works today

ChatGPT and Claude both work by signing in with your Zarii account. Claude Code and Codex work too, with a key you create in your admin.

A command-line tool and a browser version are not ready yet. When they are, they’ll be listed on the connect page.

After the product is live

Share your store link where your buyers already are: Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram. If you sell mostly in chat, selling on Messenger shows how that flow looks for a buyer. Wondering how this compares with a bigger platform? Read Zarii vs Shopify.

To connect your own ChatGPT or Claude, go to the full connect guide. It has the server address and the steps for each app.