How to Get Your Products Discovered in ChatGPT and Google AI

Introduction: The Distribution Problem You Didn't Know You Had

You solved the easy part: you built a beautiful online store. You have great products, fair prices, and decent photos. But here's the hard truth—your website is an island.

The average e-commerce site gets 70% of its traffic from social media ads. You're paying Meta and Google just to rent attention.

But something fundamental is shifting; a large number of buyers aren't starting their shopping journeys on Google Search anymore. They're starting them in conversations:

• "ChatGPT, find me a cruelty-free face cream that ships to Accra"
• "Where can I buy Kente fabric under $50?"
• "Copilot, order groceries for the week under my budget"
• "I'm graduating this week. Where can I get a Kente Sash?"

These aren't futuristic scenarios—they're happening now.

The question is: when AI assistants recommend products, will yours be in the room where the decision happens?

The New Storefronts: Understanding UCP (Without the Tech Jargon)

You don't need to care about "Agentic Commerce Protocols" or "AI Infrastructure." You need to care about DISCOVERABILITY.

Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)—which Bareconnect has integrated and is quite possibly the first to do so in Ghana and Africa —is simply a way for your existing store to talk to AI assistants. Think of it like this:

• Before: To sell on Instagram, you had to build an Instagram Shop. To sell on Amazon, you had to build an Amazon listing. Each new "marketplace" meant rebuilding your catalogue.
• With UCP: You maintain ONE store (your Bareconnect site). The protocol translates your products into a format that ChatGPT, Google AI, Microsoft Copilot, and future assistants can all understand.

The Logistics: When a customer asks ChatGPT for "handmade leather bags in Nairobi," the AI queries Bareconnect's UCP feed, sees your products match, and presents them—with your pricing, your images, and your shipping terms. You didn't build a ChatGPT plugin. You didn't hire an AI developer. Your products just became discoverable in the conversation, and all made possible with Bareconnect.

What This Actually Does For Your Business (The Practical Benefits)

Here's what Bareconnect's agentic storefront distribution means in real business terms:

1. Zero-Friction Discovery (The "Zero-Click" Sale).

Traditional e-commerce works; however, the funnel can sometimes be longer:

1. See ad → 2. Click link → 3. Load site → 4. Search product → 5. Add to cart → 6. Checkout

With conversational commerce via ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot:

1. Customer asks AI for product → 2. AI recommends yours → 3. Customer confirms → 4. Sale complete

The customer never "visited" your site, but they bought from you. The AI handled the comparison, the shipping calculation, and the checkout—using your rules and your payment gateway from your website on Bareconnect.

2. You Keep the Relationship (Not the Platform)

This is critical: unlike selling on Jumia, where the platform owns the customer, you remain the Merchant of Record.

• The customer data comes to you
• The payment hits your Paystack/Stripe account
• The order appears in your Bareconnect dashboard
• You handle fulfilment (or integrate with your existing logistics)

The AI is just the introducer. You're still the shop owner

3. 24/7 Sales Agent (Without the Salary)Your physical shop closes. Your website requires the customer to do the work (browse, compare, decide). But AI assistants are always on, always patient, and always ready to present your products when asked. Real-world scenario: A diaspora customer in London asks their phone on ChatGPT at 3 AM Ghana time: "Send my mom birthday flowers in Accra today." The AI finds your flower shop, checks your same-day delivery availability, processes payment, and sends you the order—all while you sleep

.4. Multi-Platform Presence (Without Multi-Platform Work)

UCP is backed by Google, Shopify, Walmart, and major payment processors. When you enable it on Bareconnect, you're not just getting ChatGPT access—you're preparing for:

• Google AI Mode in Search (already rolling out)
• Gemini app shopping
• Microsoft Copilot commerce
• Future WhatsApp AI assistants

One toggle. Every platform.

Why This Is Your Actual Competitive Moat. 

In Africa, everyone is competing on price. The moat is no longer "I have a website"—everyone has a website. The moat is distribution efficiency.The Early Advantage: Less than 1% of African e-commerce sites are UCP-ready. When customers start asking AI assistants for product recommendations (and they are—ChatGPT has 800 million weekly users), there will be two types of businesses:

1. Those who show up in the answer
2. Those who don't

Being in category 1—without having to rebuild your tech stack—is the moat.

The Logistics Advantage: UCP handles the complexity of African commerce:

• It understands your weight-based shipping to different regions
• It respects your inventory levels (no overselling)
• It supports your local payment methods (MoMo, etc.)
• It handles the idempotency (prevents duplicate orders during network retries—crucial for markets with connectivity issues)

How to Activate This on Bareconnect (The Non-Technical Version)You don't need to understand APIs. In your Bareconnect dashboard:

1. Go to Product, Add or Edit a new product
2. Toggle "Agentic Storefront" for products you want discoverable
3. That's it.

Your products are now published to the UCP feed. AI agents can discover them, check availability, and facilitate sales.

Which products to enable:

• High-margin items where discovery matters (unique crafts, fashion, beauty)
• Products with clear use cases (people ask AI for solutions, not SKUs)
• Items with reliable stock (since AI expects real-time availability)

The Bigger Picture: From Websites to Everywhere. 

The first era of e-commerce was about having a website. The current era is about having Instagram and TikTok shops. The next era is about being platform-agnostic—existing wherever the customer starts their journey. With Bareconnect's UCP integration, your business isn't trapped on a website waiting for traffic. You're distributed across the emerging conversational layer of the internet. While your competitors are optimising for Google Search rankings only (increasingly expensive, increasingly competitive), you're optimising for answer engines—the AIs that give direct recommendations.

Conclusion: Don't Build the Bridge. Cross It. You could spend six months and a lot of money building custom integrations with ChatGPT, Gemini, and whatever comes next. Or you could toggle a switch on Bareconnect and be there today. The infrastructure is already built. The protocol is already accepted by the major players.

The only question is whether your products will be in the conversation when it happens.

Don't just build a store. Be discoverable everywhere.

Enable Agentic Commerce on Bareconnect →