Will ChatGPT recommend my Malaysian brand to customers in Singapore or Indonesia?

Yes, ChatGPT names Malaysian brands for shoppers in Singapore and Indonesia: in our small test, almost every answer included one. But the link often went to a Singapore shop or a marketplace, not the brand. Where a brand's own page said it ships to that country, ChatGPT repeated that line, and for baju kurung it put that brand first.

So if you sell sambal, kopi or baju kurung and have customers across the Causeway or in Jakarta, being known is not the hard part. Being the obvious place to buy from that country is. In our Singapore answers, more than half of the sites ChatGPT linked were Singapore shops, supermarkets and local brands.

Which sites does ChatGPT link when shoppers in Singapore or Indonesia ask for Malaysian products?

ChatGPT linked mostly local shops for Singapore shoppers, and a mix of Malaysian brands' own sites and marketplaces for Indonesian shoppers. We asked five shopping questions from each country, twice each, and counted every site it cited, once per answer.

That's a different picture from home. When Malaysians asked where to buy local products, about half the links went to Shopee. Singapore shoppers were often pointed to Singapore products instead. For kaya, most of the brands named were from Singapore. For fresh kuih, both answers sent the shopper to Singapore bakers, and one named no Malaysian brand at all. A well-known Malaysian sambal was named twice, but linked through the Singapore shops that stock it.

The Indonesian row looks better for Malaysian brands, but 8 of its 14 brand sites came from one question, about baju kurung for Lebaran. Half the Indonesian answers linked only marketplace pages.

Does saying you ship to Singapore or Indonesia help ChatGPT recommend your Malaysian brand?

A clear shipping line gave ChatGPT something to say in our test. In 7 of the 10 Singapore answers, it repeated a shop's own line about delivering to Singapore when it recommended that shop. Some were Malaysian sellers shipping across the Causeway, others Singapore shops delivering islandwide.

For baju kurung, it called one brand it described as Malaysian "the clearest direct match from the search results", because the brand's site said it ships to Singapore.

The Indonesian answers had less to go on. Only 3 of 10 repeated a shop's line about delivering to Indonesia. In 7 of 10, ChatGPT warned that it couldn't confirm delivery to Indonesia for some shops it named, and told the shopper to check.

For baju kurung, a brand whose page listed Indonesia came first. Both baju kurung answers for Indonesia named the same Malaysian label first, pointing to the line on its site offering free shipping to Indonesia above a minimum spend. That minimum was quoted in ringgit, which an Indonesian shopper then has to convert.

Currency showed up on the Singapore side too. A Malaysian confectioner with a Singapore web store, prices in Singapore dollars and a free-shipping line from Malaysia was among the snack picks.

Keep that line current. OpenAI's help page on the shopping cards in the ChatGPT app warns: "When merchants update their pricing or shipping terms, there may be some delay before it is reflected in the information you see."¹

Why did ChatGPT link Shopee Malaysia pages for shoppers in Indonesia?

ChatGPT linked Shopee Malaysia shop pages in 4 of the 10 Indonesian answers, each time with its own caveat that the shopper should check whether the seller ships across the border. Shopee Indonesia product or search pages appeared in 3 of 10.

For Singapore shoppers, every Shopee link went to Shopee Singapore, in 8 of 10 answers, and none to Shopee Malaysia. Our reading: a Shopee Malaysia shop is fine for Malaysians, but on this evidence it gave Indonesian shoppers a page they may not be able to buy from.

How does ChatGPT know the shopper is in Singapore or Indonesia?

ChatGPT adds the shopper's country to its own web searches. Every search it ran for the Singapore questions included "Singapore", and most searches for the Indonesian questions included "Indonesia". Our questions named the country too, so this test doesn't show how much came from the location setting.

Many searches also asked for a brand's "official" store or website, or for "international shipping". Our city test found the same habit inside Malaysia, where the questions named no place.

The searches were all in English, even when the shopper asked in Indonesian. That's in line with our language test: your English page is the one most likely to be found.

What can't this test tell me about ChatGPT and Malaysian brands abroad?

• How common this is. It's 20 answers on one day: five product types, two runs each, through OpenAI's API rather than the ChatGPT app, which can also show product cards and uses chat history.
• Language versus country. We asked the Indonesian questions in Indonesian, so we can't separate the effect of language from location. Every question also named the shopper's country.
• Whether the shops really ship. We recorded what ChatGPT said each page claimed, not whether an order would arrive.

How do I get ChatGPT to recommend my Malaysian brand to shoppers in Singapore or Indonesia?

Make it easy for ChatGPT to say "this brand ships to you".

1. Request EasyFound's free check. See what ChatGPT says when a shopper asks something like "I'm in Singapore and want to order Malaysian white coffee online. Which brands are good and where can I buy them?" Then go through it with us on a free call.
2. Write an international shipping page, with a line for each country you deliver to, in plain text: "We ship to Singapore", how long it takes and who pays any import tax. The shipping lines ChatGPT repeated in our test sat on pages it could read, such as a site banner or a shipping page.
3. Name the country and the season in English, the language ChatGPT searched in: "ships to Singapore", "delivery to Indonesia", and the season, such as Hari Raya or Lebaran.
4. Say which currency you charge in, and show the shopper's own currency if you can.
5. If you sell through a marketplace abroad, list on that country's own Shopee, so the page ChatGPT links is one the shopper can buy from.

EasyFound is an AI SEO service for Malaysian businesses. We check what six AI tools say in English, Malay and Chinese, and do the work of putting your facts where they look. The free check below is the first step.