An AI agent helps an online seller with the work behind the shop: writing listings, working out what to reorder, comparing supplier quotes, reading the week's numbers and drafting the awkward messages you then send yourself. It remembers your products, policies and tone, so you explain them once. It doesn't connect to your shop, change orders or talk to your buyers.
Running a shop rarely means one big task. It's forty small ones, each needing a decision and a bit of writing: a listing that still describes last year's fabric, a reorder you're doing in your head, a supplier who's gone quiet, a discount you can't tell was worth it. You paste in the spec, the figures or the message, and the agent gives you a draft, a table or a summary to check.
Listings that answer the questions before they're asked
You know the product. Turning a spec sheet into 120 words is the slow part.
"Specs, materials and measurements for the canvas tote are below. Write 120 words in a dry, practical tone. Lead with what makes it different, put care instructions last, no exclamation marks."
Ask for two alternative openings at the same time, so you're choosing rather than rewriting.
Titles are worth a separate pass, because marketplaces reward different phrasing. Give the agent your current title and main search terms, and ask for six variants under 80 characters, each leading with a different term, with any that read like keyword stuffing flagged.
The bullet points under the photos do a lot of selling. Ask for five, each answering a reason someone hesitates (size, care, weight, delivery, returns), with no adjectives that can't be checked. While you're there, ask for alt text for each product photo from your notes on what's in it, under 125 characters each.
The best listing improvements come from the messages buyers send you. Paste forty from last month with names removed, and ask the agent to group them by what the buyer wanted, count each group, and suggest three changes to the listing or policy that would stop the most common questions. If sizing comes up fourteen times, start with the size chart.
How much should you reorder?
Sell-through maths is simple, and easy to get wrong when you're doing it at speed. Paste last month's sales by size and colour, current stock and the supplier's lead time:
"Work out what to reorder to cover eight weeks at the current rate, allowing for the jump in sale week. Show the working."
Because the working is shown, you can overrule any line. You still decide how much cash to commit.
Comparing supplier quotes is harder than it looks when each one uses different units, minimums and shipping terms. Ask for a table at your volume showing the true cost per unit, then which supplier is cheapest and which is least risky (often not the same one).
Import costs can change the answer more than the unit price does. Give the agent the unit cost, freight, duty rate and selling price, and ask for the landed cost per unit, your margin at full price and at 20% off, and the discount at which the product stops being worth selling.
When a delivery is late, the agent can draft the chase. The third message needs to be firmer without damaging the relationship: state the effect on your orders, ask for a date you can hold them to, and mention you're reviewing a second supplier without making it a threat. You copy it into your email and send it.
Running a sale, from brief to post-mortem
Weak promotions are usually vague before anyone builds them. Three weeks out, paste what's in stock, what isn't selling and how much margin you can give up, and ask for a one-page brief: the offer, who it's for, and which products would lose money if discounted.
If you plan several months at once, give it last year's sale dates, upcoming launches and the weeks when stock is tight. It can mark the weeks when a discount would be a mistake and say why, since discounting in the wrong week teaches buyers to wait.
For ads, give the product, the audience and three ads that worked last quarter. Ask for six variants (two leading with the problem, two with price, two with material) with headlines under 90 characters, labelled by angle so you can test them against each other.
After the sale, the question is whether it made money or just sold stock at a lower price. Paste orders, the total discount given, ad spend and the same week last month:
"We ran 15% off for five days. Did we make more margin than a normal week, or just sell at a lower price? Show the comparison."
You get the margin effect and a direct answer, which is the part most sellers never get round to working out.
Messages you still send yourself
Your buyers deal with you, and the agent stays behind the scenes. What it does is take the strain out of the messages that are hard to word, especially at 7am.
Returns decisions. Paste the buyer's message (no name or address) and your returns policy, and ask whether the case is covered and which clause applies. If it's borderline, ask for both options and what a goodwill exception would mean for future requests. You decide, then edit the draft and send it.
Complaints. A scratched item and a buyer who wants a refund today. Give the agent your policy and what you're willing to offer, and ask for a reply that apologises once, doesn't blame the courier and offers a replacement posted today. Ask for a shorter follow-up too, in case they reply angrily.
Delay updates. If a supplier pushes a product back ten days and eight orders are affected, ask for one base message with the new date first, an alternative at the same price and a clear way to cancel. Then adapt it for each order.
Marketplace disputes. These reward calm, dated facts. Paste the order timeline, tracking events and message history, and ask for a factual statement under 300 words that ends with what you did and what you're asking for, plus anything missing that would strengthen it.
Review replies. Public replies to poor reviews are read more by future buyers than by the reviewer. Ask for a reply that acknowledges the point, says what you've changed and doesn't argue.
It's also worth asking the agent to build an answer bank from the twelve questions you get most, on shipping, customs, sizing and materials, in your voice, with a short version of each. You keep it and paste from it yourself.
Your week in scheduled prompts
Able° can message you at fixed times and ask for what it needs, so the routine checks happen without you remembering.
- Daily, 8am. "Ask for yesterday's orders, revenue, returns and ad spend. Give me three lines: what's normal, what isn't, what to look at today."
- Monday, 9am. "Ask which listings changed in price, stock or photos last week, then tell me which descriptions now contradict the product."
- Friday, 3pm. "Ask for the week's numbers with the week before. Give me six bullets: what moved, what probably caused it, what to look at next week."
- First of the month. "Ask for last month's return reasons and complaints. Tell me which policy clause caused the most trouble and draft clearer wording."
Start with the daily and Friday prompts and add the others once those are useful.
Shop rules worth saving
Every time you correct a draft for the same reason, that correction belongs in a skill: a written method the agent follows each time. The most useful ones for a shop:
- Your reply voice. How you apologise, whether you use the buyer's name, how you sign off, and what you never say.
- The listing format. Description structure, how you give measurements, and the claims you're allowed to make.
- The returns decision tree. Your policy in order of precedence, the exceptions you grant and the ones you refuse, with an instruction to quote the clause every time.
- The weekly trading note. The same bullets in the same order with the same comparisons, so it takes ninety seconds to read.
Once a quarter, ask to see each skill and correct anything out of date. A skill that still follows last year's returns policy will give you confident, wrong answers.
Which decisions shouldn't an AI agent make for your shop?
Refunds outside policy. A goodwill refund weighs a customer against a margin and a precedent. Ask for options, then decide yourself.
Pricing and stock commitments. The agent can do the arithmetic. It doesn't know a competitor is about to undercut you, and committing cash to eight weeks of stock is your risk to take.
Supplier relationships. A firm message is fine. Knowing when firmness will cost you your allocation comes from your history with that supplier.
Product claims and compliance. Safety, materials, allergens, warranties and environmental claims need someone who has checked the rules in the markets you sell to. The agent can word a claim you've verified.
Escalations. Chargebacks, regulator contact, solicitors' letters and threats to post publicly are yours to handle directly.
Customer data and platform rules
A shop handles other people's personal data every day, which limits what belongs in a chat. This is general guidance, not legal advice.
None of the tasks on this page need a buyer's name, address, phone number or payment details. Use labels such as "Buyer A" and "order 1042" instead. Never paste card data, bank details or identity documents, even for a dispute.
Marketplaces have their own terms about where customer data can go, and running an order export through an outside tool may breach them even if you delete it afterwards. Check before you paste anything bulk.
If you sell to consumers in the UK or EU, the GDPR covers the personal data you hold; elsewhere, check your local data-protection law. Keep customer specifics out of the agent's memory: your policies belong there, an individual's complaint doesn't. How AI agent memory works explains how to review what's stored, and what happens to your data covers the wider questions. If someone else helps run the shop, agree together what may be pasted.
Getting started: what we set up, then your first week
We set Able° up for you and guide you through connecting it to Telegram or LINE. No new software goes near your shop. Then:
- Choose three tasks you did most often last week. Write down how you handle them now, including phrases you always use.
- Teach it your voice. Paste ten messages you've sent, ask the agent to describe your style as rules, correct them, and ask it to save them.
- Paste your policies on returns, shipping, customs and warranty. Check its summary against the real documents, because an agent working from a misread policy is confidently wrong.
- Set two scheduled prompts: the daily numbers and the Friday close.
- Take one real job from paste to done, such as a listing rewrite or a reorder, and turn every correction you make into a rule.
By Friday you should have three faster tasks and drafts that sound like you.
Common questions
Will it reply to buyers automatically?
No. It has no connection to your shop or your inbox, so every draft comes back to you to read, edit and send. With real money and public reviews involved, that check is worth keeping.
Can it update my listings or stock levels?
No. It writes the new listing text and works out what to reorder, and you make the change on your platform. It has no way to log in or confirm that a change went through.
Is it worth it for a small shop?
If you sell a handful of items a week, probably not as a daily habit. The time saved per task is small compared with the pasting and checking. An answer bank and an occasional listing rewrite are still worth doing.
How long before it's useful?
Most sellers have a few tasks working within a day, with the voice right after about a week. Saved skills start doing real work after a month. Most of the first week goes on explaining how your shop runs.