AI agents for online stores

A small online store ships physical goods, usually from Shopify or Square Online with Stripe or the platform's own payments. The owner is buyer, marketer and analyst at once. Someone answers order questions and return requests, someone picks, packs and labels, and someone keeps the product listings and the Google feed in shape. Often that is two or three people, or one.

The work that piles up is the exceptions. Return requests arrive through the returns page, email and chat, each needing the same checks. A chargeback lands with a short deadline and one chance to submit evidence. A supplier runs late and orders sit past the promised ship date. Products get disapproved on Google for a missing field and nobody notices until sales drop. Returned parcels stack up in a corner waiting to be graded.

The agent reads the store's orders, returns, inventory and messages and prepares the work for a person to finish.

• Sorts return requests against the store's own return rules: window, final sale, restocking fee, exchange or refund.
• Assembles the chargeback evidence packet from order, tracking, delivery and message records, before the deadline.
• Spots late orders and drafts delay notices that follow the FTC Mail Order Rule, with the option to cancel.
• Finds product feed gaps before Google disapproves listings.
• Writes product listings from supplier spec sheets and flags every claim the sheet does not support.
• Moderates reviews by neutral rules, never hiding honest negative ones.
• Builds a weekly margin-per-product report after fees, shipping, returns and disputes.

Whether to fight or accept a dispute, and the final submission, belong to the owner. So do refunds, return exceptions and the wording of any delay notice or customer message until a template is approved. Claims about origin, materials or safety, including "Made in USA", need a person and a reasonable basis. Sales tax registration is a decision for the store's accountant; the agent only tracks sales by state against thresholds the accountant supplies. Card numbers never pass through the agent, and the FTC's rule on reviews means no fake, incentivised or suppressed reviews. The agent drafts, the owner approves, and the records stay in the store's own platform.