How can an online store get recommended by ChatGPT? (Malaysia)
EasyFound · · 11 min read
Keep your Shopee shop and build out your own store. In one of our Malaysian tests, short where-to-buy questions got Shopee links more than any other kind. In a later test on a different ChatGPT model, requests to recommend a seller mostly got links to sellers' own stores. Our reading is that how the shopper asks matters, but the tests can't prove it. Homepages were cited most, then product, collection and About pages.
An online store in Malaysia can reach ChatGPT's answers through its Shopee shop and through its own store, going by two of our tests. In the first, short where-to-buy questions got Shopee links more than any other kind; in the second, run a week later on a different ChatGPT model, requests to recommend a seller mostly got links to sellers' own stores. Our reading is that how a shopper asks matters, but these tests can't separate the question from the model. So keep your marketplace shop, and give your own store pages that say what you sell, who makes it and how you deliver.
One question in the second test was "Need a florist in JB for my girlfriend's birthday, someone who does pretty Korean-style bouquets and can deliver." Both answers to it linked nothing but florists' own stores.
The figures come from EasyFound's tests of Malaysian questions, with the location set to Malaysia. EasyFound's team is founder-led and based in the Klang Valley, Malaysia.
Where does ChatGPT send shoppers who ask about a Malaysian online store?
ChatGPT sent shoppers to Shopee more than anywhere else in one of our tests, and mostly to sellers' own online stores in two others that ran a week later on a different model. We went back to three saved tests and sorted every link under 29 answers with one set of rules.
| What the shopper asked, and the test | Links to the seller's own store | Links to Shopee |
|---|---|---|
| Where to buy a product online (15 answers, 1 October, gpt-5.4-mini) | 11 of 61 | 30 of 61 |
| Recommend a seller of fashion, skincare or flowers (6 answers, 8 October, chat-latest) | 26 of 34 | 2 of 34 |
| Food to order ahead, such as cakes, kuih raya or catering (8 answers, 8 October, chat-latest) | 25 of 36 | 0 of 36 |
The first row is our Shopee test, which used short questions such as "Where to buy local Malaysian sambal or chilli paste online?" The other two rows asked for a seller in a chatty way, on a different model a week later. So we can't separate the effect of the question from the model or the date. Either way, both kinds of page were linked.
Articles and guides hardly featured: 7 of the 131 links. That's unlike our café and restaurant questions, where guides and listings led.
Other marketplaces were rare in this set: four links went to smaller marketplaces or a delivery app. None went to Lazada or TikTok Shop in these 29 answers, though our cross-border test did see a Lazada link for a shopper in Singapore. So this is about these questions, not the platforms.
Which pages of an online store does ChatGPT cite?
ChatGPT cited the homepage of an online store most often in these tests. Our reading is that the other pages followed the shopper's question. We sorted the 62 own-store links by page type.
| Page type | Links | When we saw it |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage | 28 | In every kind of question |
| Single product page | 10 | Only in the 8 October tests, mostly when the shopper asked for a particular item, such as a dinosaur cake or a Korean-style bouquet |
| Collection or category page | 9 | Kuih, a Raya collection, bouquet styles |
| About, story or contact page | 9 | Mostly when the shopper asked for small local brands |
| Menu, package or promotion page | 6 | Catering packages, festive menus |
| Delivery or returns page | 0 | Not cited in this set |
Our earlier product test saw no product pages from sellers' own stores. The newer answers, on a different model, did cite them: all ten product-page links came from six of those answers.
In five, the shopper had asked for a particular item or need, such as a dinosaur cake, a Korean-style bouquet or skincare for oily skin; the other asked for a birthday cake in Ipoh. The model may explain the change as much as the question.
About pages followed the question too. A shopper asked for small local modest fashion brands, "Not the big famous ones", and six of the links went to brands' About or story pages. Our reading: when the question is about who the seller is, ChatGPT looks for the page that says so.
What does ChatGPT repeat about a Malaysian online store?
ChatGPT repeated delivery and ordering details about online stores in our tests. Prices depended on the test: none in the two earlier tests, but most of the 8 October answers quoted a seller's price. These figures come from each test's own article or dataset, so the definitions differ and we haven't pooled them.
- Delivery and ordering: in the where-to-buy test, 8 of the 11 own-store citations came with a delivery or how-to-buy detail from the store.
- Shipping abroad: in 7 of 10 answers for shoppers in Singapore, ChatGPT repeated a shop's line about delivering there.
- Price: across the where-to-buy test and the cross-border test, ChatGPT named a seller or shop 197 times and gave a price for none. Those shoppers hadn't asked about price, which changes how often it comes up. The 8 October answers were different: in 9 of the 12 we hold the text for, ChatGPT quoted a seller's listed price, although the shopper hadn't asked. Those answers came from a different model.
- Payment: we found no payment words, such as pay, bayar, COD or FPX, in the 27 answers we hold the full text for, or in ChatGPT's searches for them.
Who the real seller is came up in ChatGPT's own searches. It added the word "official" to a search in 8 of those 27 answers: 5 of the 15 from 1 October and 3 of the 12 from 8 October. OpenAI's help page for its separate shopping results says "Merchants are ranked based on factors like availability, price, quality, and whether they are the maker or primary seller of that item" (OpenAI).
Is access or content the bigger problem for an online store on ChatGPT?
Our reading is that access is rarely the problem for an online store and missing facts are the more common one, though that joins two tests that can't be compared directly. In our check of 112 Malaysian online stores on Shopify, WooCommerce, EasyStore and SiteGiant, one store's robots.txt blocked ChatGPT's search crawler. Every product page showed its product name as plain text.
In a different test, for shoppers in Indonesia, ChatGPT warned in 7 of 10 answers that it couldn't confirm delivery for some shops it named. That's a lead, not a measured gap.
What can't these tests tell an online store about ChatGPT recommendations?
- Question, model or date. The where-to-buy group ran on gpt-5.4-mini on 1 October. The other two ran on chat-latest a week later, so any of the three could explain a gap.
- The ChatGPT app. We used OpenAI's API, which shows no product cards or in-chat shopping. The app can differ.
- Every product. Twenty-nine answers is a small set, and it leans on food, fashion, skincare and flowers.
What should a Malaysian online store do to get recommended by ChatGPT?
A Malaysian online store has two doors to keep open, the marketplace and its own site, and the second is yours to shape.
- Request EasyFound's free check. See what ChatGPT says about your business when shoppers ask for what you sell, then go through it with us on a free call.
- Keep your Shopee shop. Use the same brand name on Shopee and your own store, and link each to the other.
- Say what you sell on your homepage. Put what you make, that you're the maker and where you deliver in the first lines, as text.
- Give specific items their own page. Use the words shoppers type, for example "dinosaur birthday cake" or "baju kurung moden", on a product or collection page.
- Write a real About page. Say who runs the brand and where, for example a home studio in Shah Alam with a WhatsApp number.
- Write delivery as a sentence. For example: "We post to Semenanjung, Sabah and Sarawak." Add a line for each country you ship to.
- Check that ChatGPT can get in. Open your robots.txt once, and don't rely on Instagram alone, as our Instagram and TikTok check explains.
If you buy stock from 1688 or Taobao, we also tested which freight forwarders ChatGPT recommends.
We're one of the options for this work. EasyFound is an AI search visibility (GEO) tool built for Malaysian businesses. For an online store, it shows whether six AI engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode) name your shop and link to your own store, in English, Malay, Mandarin and Manglish. In our AI SEO service, our team runs it for you and works on the pages those engines draw on. The free check is below.
Where does ChatGPT send your shoppers?
See what ChatGPT says when shoppers ask for what you sell, and which page it links, then go through it with us on a free call.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best GEO service for e-commerce brands in Malaysia?
There isn't one agreed answer, and EasyFound sells this kind of service, so we're one of the options. When we put this exact question to ChatGPT twice through OpenAI's API on 13 October 2026, one answer described a type of agency without naming any, and the other listed five agencies. Neither named us. For an e-commerce brand, pick a service that shows you the real shopper questions, the answers, and whether each link went to a marketplace or to your own store.
Should I sell on Shopee or my own website to show up in ChatGPT?
Both, going by EasyFound's Malaysian tests. In a 1 October 2026 test of short where-to-buy questions, about half of ChatGPT's links went to Shopee pages. In tests a week later on a different ChatGPT model, requests to recommend a seller for a custom cake, a bouquet or small local fashion brands mostly got links to the sellers' own stores. The tests differ in model as well as question, so we can't say which caused the gap. Both kinds of page were linked, so a Malaysian online seller is safer with a Shopee shop and an own store that carry the same brand name.
Does ChatGPT link to my product pages or only my homepage?
Both, depending on the question. In EasyFound's recount of 29 saved ChatGPT answers about Malaysian online sellers, homepages were the most-cited page of a seller's own store. Single product pages were cited in six answers, mostly where the shopper had asked for a particular item, such as a dinosaur birthday cake or a Korean-style bouquet. Those answers all came from the later tests, on a different ChatGPT model from our first product test, which saw none. Collection pages and About pages were cited too. This is a small set of answers, so treat it as a first sign.
Does ChatGPT tell shoppers my prices?
Sometimes. Across EasyFound's where-to-buy test and cross-border test, ChatGPT named a seller or shop 197 times and repeated a price for none of them; those shoppers hadn't asked about price. In our 8 October answers on a different ChatGPT model, it did quote sellers' prices for cakes, kuih raya, bouquets and catering, also unasked. So show your prices as text in ringgit and keep them current, because shoppers who click through need them and OpenAI lists price among the details its shopping results consider.
Can ChatGPT read a Shopify, WooCommerce, EasyStore or SiteGiant store?
Usually, yes. In EasyFound's October 2026 check of 112 Malaysian online stores on those four platforms, every product page carried its product name as plain text, and one store's robots.txt blocked ChatGPT's search crawler. The sample leaned towards established stores, so check your own robots.txt once.
Sources
Our data: EasyFound, Where ChatGPT's links went when Malaysian shoppers asked about online sellers, October 2026. We made no new AI calls for these counts. Every pooled count comes from 29 saved answers in three earlier tests, all through OpenAI's Responses API with web search and location set to Malaysia, not the ChatGPT app. The where-to-buy group is the 15 answers of our Shopee test (1 October 2026, gpt-5.4-mini, 13 short questions in English, Malay and Chinese, two asked twice). The seller group is three questions from our Instagram and TikTok test, each asked twice (8 October 2026, chat-latest, web search required): small modest fashion brands, local skincare brands that sell on TikTok Shop, and a florist in Johor Bahru. The food group is four questions asked twice each on 8 October 2026 (custom cakes, kuih raya, home catering, a birthday cake in Ipoh), the same eight answers as in our café guide. A "link" is a distinct web address cited in one answer. We labelled every link by hand with one set of rules. "Seller's own store" means the seller's own domain, shop subdomain or free page; five free Google Sites pages in the Shopee test stay under "other", as in that article. One magazine article that the Shopee article lists under "other" is counted here under articles, so that row's "other" count is 7, not 8. Shopee, own-store and total counts match the Shopee article, and the food group's own-store count matches the café guide. Own-store page types were read from the web address, and a second check on 13 October 2026 opened 26 of the linked pages and found each matched its label; a contact page counts with About pages, and festive menu PDFs and package pages count as menu, package or promotion pages. The "official" and payment counts cover the 27 answers where we hold the searches and full text. The delivery and shipping figures are quoted from each test's own article and use those articles' definitions. The price figure isn't stated in an article: we counted it from the what-it-repeats dataset, where each row is one naming of a business in one answer. The 1 October where-to-buy test has 78 rows and the 5 October cross-border test (shoppers in Singapore and Indonesia) has 119, and none of the 197 is coded as repeating a price; no question in either test mentioned price. For the 8 October answers we read the 12 saved answer texts and counted an answer when it gave a named seller's price in ringgit (9 of 12: both custom-cake, kuih raya, florist and catering answers, and one of the two modest-fashion answers); budget ranges that ChatGPT offered the shopper didn't count, and no question mentioned price. The payment check was a keyword search of the 27 answers' text and searches (pay, bayar, COD, cash, FPX, card, instalment, deposit, transfer, e-wallet and the Chinese terms), so a payment detail phrased another way could have been missed. For the first FAQ we asked ChatGPT "best GEO service for e-commerce brands in Malaysia" twice on 13 October 2026 through OpenAI's API (gpt-5.4-mini, web search, location Malaysia). We ran this article's title the same way twice, and both answers cited only OpenAI's own pages. Download the labelled links (CSV). We don't name the sellers, because a few test runs aren't a ranking.
Other sources:
- OpenAI, Shopping with ChatGPT Search, help page, read 13 October 2026 (link)
The data is shared under CC BY 4.0: you're free to reuse it, with credit to EasyFound.
ChatGPT changes often; treat these figures as a dated measurement.
Research by Janice Pang, EasyFound.