Price, stock and size questions: answering from your Shopify, WooCommerce, ikas or Ticimax catalogue
Product questions get late or wrong answers when the person replying does not have the store open. AdaptiveReply connects to Shopify, WooCommerce, ikas or Ticimax, keeps a synced copy of your products, and its AI assistant answers price, availability and variant questions from that catalogue in direct messages on every connected channel. Orders stay with your team.
By the AdaptiveReply teamPublished 8 min read
Key takeaways
- Product answers should come from the store itself. A copied price list is out of date soon after it is written; a synced catalogue follows the store.
- One connection serves every channel. The same catalogue answers on Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and web chat, and by email where you turn assistant replies on.
- Anything beyond product information goes to a person. The assistant records a purchase request for your team to confirm. It does not create orders, and it reports order status only through a read-only connection you set up.
Why do product answers go wrong?
Product answers go wrong because the facts live in one system and the conversation happens in another. The price, the sizes and whether an item is still on sale are in your store admin. The question arrives on Instagram at 22:40, to someone who does not have the admin open.
Most teams bridge the gap with copies: a price list pinned in a group chat, a saved reply from last season. Copies go stale quietly, and nobody notices until a customer is quoted last month’s price or offered a sold-out colour.
- Late answers. Someone has to open the store, find the product and type the reply. In the evening nobody does.
- Wrong answers. The reply is typed from memory or from an old list.
- Repeated answers. The same “how much is it?” is answered by hand again and again under one popular product.
The fix is not a faster typist. It is to let whoever answers first read the catalogue your store sells from, in the same inbox as every other channel.
What happens when you connect the store?
When you connect a store, AdaptiveReply copies your products into a catalogue in the panel and keeps that copy in sync. A synced catalogue is a copy of your store’s product list that is refreshed from the store, so the assistant reads the same names, prices and options the shop shows.
- Open Settings, then Connected Accounts, and find the Stores section.
- Choose Shopify, WooCommerce, ikas or Ticimax and enter the details the store asks for.
- Wait for the first sync. Products arrive with names, descriptions, prices, variant options and images; orders appear on the Orders screen.
- In the assistant editor, on the Sources tab, make sure the catalogue is ticked so the assistant may look things up in it.
- Publish. Changes to the assistant stay a draft until you do; customers keep talking to the live version.
| Store | Products and prices | Orders | Customers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| WooCommerce | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ikas | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ticimax | Yes | Yes | No |
What if you do not have an online store?
You do not need one. A catalogue in AdaptiveReply can be filled from a spreadsheet or by hand, and the assistant answers from it in the same way.
- Import from a file. On the Product Catalogs screen, create a catalogue, choose an Excel or CSV file, match its columns and import. The summary lists the rows that were skipped, and why.
- Add items one by one. Each item has a name, a description, a price, variants, images and up to three Purchase Links.
- Services count too. A clinic’s treatments or a studio’s packages can be catalogue items.
However the catalogue is filled, product images matter: they let the assistant recognise a product when a customer sends a photo instead of a question, as the guide to photo messages describes.
How does the assistant answer a product question?
The assistant searches the catalogue for each question and answers from what it finds. Product, price and availability facts come only from the catalogue and your business information. That is a fixed rule for every business, not a setting.
- Price. It names the product and its current catalogue price.
- Size, colour and other options. It lists the variants the item has and asks which one the customer wants.
- Availability. It offers items that are on sale and leaves out the ones that are not.
- Where to buy. If the item has a Purchase Link, it shares the link, and it can send the product photo from the catalogue.
The same applies when a customer replies to a post, a story or an ad, on one condition: that content must have products tagged, or notes added, in the panel. Untagged content is left to your team. Public comments are separate: they get keyword rules with fixed text you wrote, not AI replies, as the guide to comments explains.
Can the assistant answer order and shipping questions?
Only if you give it a way to read them. Synced orders appear on the Orders screen for your team, but the assistant does not read that list, has no built-in shipment tracking and cannot change an order.
For “where is my order?”, AdaptiveReply has API connections under Settings. An API connection lets the assistant ask one of your own systems a read-only question, called a lookup, such as an order status. It only reads; it never changes anything.
| Customer asks | Without an API connection | With a read-only lookup |
|---|---|---|
| Where is my order? | Handed to your team as a case | Answered from your system’s reply |
| An order that cannot be found or verified | Handed to your team as a case | Handed to your team automatically |
A case is a conversation the assistant has handed to your team, with a summary and an owner. While the case is open the assistant stays silent with that customer. The guide to handoffs covers this in detail.
Can customers buy inside the chat?
They can ask to buy, and the request is recorded for your team to confirm. AdaptiveReply’s assistant does not create an order in your store, take payment or reserve stock.
When a customer says they want the product, the assistant collects the details you require, for example name, phone and address, and records the request as a deal on your pipeline in Sales & Deals, with the products and the price it quoted. Without a pipeline, the request arrives in Customer Requests as a case instead.
A short checklist before you publish
- Connect the store or import the catalogue, then check ten products for the right price and options.
- Give best-sellers images and, where you want a link shared, a Purchase Link.
- Write shipping, returns and payment terms in the assistant’s Business info tab.
- Decide what happens to order questions: an API connection, or a handoff.
- Create a pipeline in Sales & Deals so purchase requests have somewhere to land.
- Try ten real questions in the preview, then publish.
Want to try it with your own products? Start on the free plan, or see how different businesses use it.
Frequently asked questions
Which stores can I connect?
AdaptiveReply connects to Shopify, WooCommerce, ikas and Ticimax. All four sync products, prices and orders into the panel; Shopify, WooCommerce and ikas also sync customers. Without one of these, you can import a spreadsheet or add items by hand, and the assistant answers from that catalogue in the same way.
Do I have to re-enter my products?
No. Once the store is connected, products arrive with their names, descriptions, prices, variant options and images, and the catalogue is refreshed from the store. A price changed in the store reaches the assistant at the next sync, or right away when you press Sync now.
Can the assistant create an order in my store?
No. AdaptiveReply’s assistant does not write to your store: it creates no orders, takes no payment and reserves no stock. When a customer wants to buy, it collects the details you ask for and records a purchase request, as a deal or a case, for your team to confirm.
Can it tell a customer where their order is?
Only if you set up a read-only API connection to a system that knows the order status. The assistant then asks that system and reports the answer. Without a connection, or when the lookup fails, the conversation is handed to your team as a case.
This guide is part of a series. Start with the overview: One inbox for Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, email and web chat: why scattered channels lose customers