Connect Claude or ChatGPT

Connect Claude or ChatGPT to your workspace and ask about your stock, sales and listings in plain words. Your assistant can also suggest listing changes and draft replies to buyers.

In Settings → AI agents, select Connect agent, then choose your assistant. Copy setup prompt gives you a prompt to paste into that assistant for help. You still need to complete sign-in and consent yourself. For the connector URL and numbered instructions, open Manual setup steps.

After authorising, return to Shopfront and select Check connection. A connected account first shows Connected — waiting for a read. Ask your assistant to review your inventory without changing anything, then check again. Read verified means Shopfront recorded a successful read through your connection. Copying a prompt or signing in alone does not verify it.

How do I connect Claude?

Follow these steps on claude.ai or in the Claude desktop app. Claude says a connector you add there also works in its mobile app, but we haven't tried that yet.

On a Claude Team or Enterprise plan, an Owner adds the connector first, in Organization settings → Connectors. Each person then selects Connect in Customize → Connectors.

To get the skills as well, use the plugin zip instead of a custom connector.

How do I connect ChatGPT on the web?

ChatGPT doesn't ask before read-only tools, so there's nothing more to set. If you don't see Add custom MCP server, your ChatGPT plan or workspace may not allow it. On a workspace plan, ask your admin.

What does the plugin zip add?

The steps above give your assistant Shopfront's tools. The plugin zip gives it those tools and four skills: reviewing your inventory, reviewing your sales, proposing a listing change and replying to buyers. A skill loads by itself when you ask a plain question, so there's nothing extra to type.

The zip is optional. Shopfront sends it to you when your workspace joins the pilot. If you don't have it, contact support.

• Claude: open Customize → Plugins → Add → Upload plugin and choose the zip. Then open the plugin's Connectors tab and connect Shopfront. The plugin brings its own connector, so you don't need a custom connector too. To stop the repeat prompts, set Read-only tools to Always allow, as in step 4 above.
• ChatGPT desktop app: add the zip from Plugins, then connect Shopfront. We haven't tried this with a seller yet, so tell us if a step looks different.

What do I choose when I connect?

After you sign in, Shopfront asks what the assistant can see and do.

• Workspace: you see the pilot workspaces you own or administer. A connection reads one workspace. To use another, connect again and choose it.
• Access: Read your shop covers listings, photo drafts, sales, fees, costs and profit, offers and channel settings. Accounting figures don't include eBay sales yet, so your assistant tells you when they're left out. Every sale is on the Accounting page. Read and suggest changes also lets it propose changes.
• Buyer messages: off until you tick Read buyer messages and draft replies. It can then read what buyers write to you and draft replies for you or an admin to send in Shopfront.

With buyer messages on, what buyers write goes to Anthropic (Claude) or OpenAI (ChatGPT), with email addresses and phone numbers removed. Anything else a buyer types, such as an address, goes as written. Delivery addresses from orders are never shared. Replies go out under your shop's name, and Shopfront records which assistant drafted each one.

What your assistant reads goes to Anthropic or OpenAI in the United States, and Shopfront can't make them follow the Australian Privacy Principles. Selecting Allow means you agree to this.

A connection ends after 90 days. To carry on, connect again the same way.

Do changes wait for my approval?

Yes, unless you turn on automatic approval. Each change your assistant suggests waits in Approvals, and nothing changes until an owner or admin selects Approve. A change nobody decides expires after 24 hours.

Approvals isn't in the menu. Open it from the link your assistant gives you, from Alerts in Shopfront, or from the Approvals page link in Settings → AI agents.

Recent, on the same page, shows the last seven days. A saved edit has Undo on its card, and so does a change that applied automatically to a live listing. If Undo can't put it back, it says why. A live change you approved yourself has no Undo, so you change it back yourself.

How do I turn on automatic approval?

Automatic approval lets a connection change prices, titles and descriptions without asking you, live listings included. It's off until you turn it on, and you set it for each connection that can suggest changes.

These still wait for you:

• Buyer replies and reply notes. Automatic approval never covers them.
• A price change above your limit, or one Shopfront can't check against the marketplace before it goes out.
• A second automatic price change on the same listing within 24 hours.
• A price change that would relist the item.
• Text with a handle, or something that looks like a web address.
• Any change after the connection reaches Changes a day, or the workspace reaches 100 changes a day.

Your limit is measured from the last price Shopfront recorded. Just before an automatic price change goes out, Shopfront reads the marketplace's own price. If that's a different price, or Shopfront can't read it, nothing is sent and the item shows why. A new price your assistant asked for isn't kept. A change stopped because the price was different doesn't count towards your limits, and the next one is measured from the price Shopfront read.

New text with a link, email address or phone number never gets that far. Shopfront refuses it, whatever your settings, so your assistant asks you for different text.

Changes that went ahead are listed under Recent in Approvals as Applied automatically. You don't get a notification for them. Your assistant tells you whether each change applied or is waiting.

What can't an assistant do?

How do I disconnect?

Open Settings → AI agents, select Manage on the connection, then Disconnect. Your assistant loses access straight away, and its changes still waiting can no longer be approved. Disconnected and expired connections remain in Connection history.

Disconnecting stops new access. It can't remove what's already in your assistant's chats.

What if it doesn't work?