Perplexity shopping for online stores: how products get picked and how to get in

By 7BE ResearchPublished 25 October 2026

Perplexity answers a shopping question by searching the web, writing a short answer that numbers its sources, and showing product cards for the items it picks. When it launched shopping in November 2024, Perplexity said those cards were not sponsored, and its merchant program was free. A store improves its chances in two ways: complete product data that Perplexity can read, and mentions on the pages Perplexity cites, such as reviews, buying guides and retailer listings.

Below: how the answers are built, what the merchant program offers, how to let Perplexity's crawler in, and what a Shopify or WooCommerce store can do. Perplexity has changed its shopping features more than once, so we give the date of each source.

How does Perplexity answer shopping questions?

For most questions Perplexity searches the web, reads the pages it finds and writes an answer with numbered citations. The list of sources sits under the answer, so you can see which pages it used.

For shopping questions it adds product cards. At launch, TechCrunch reported that each card showed product details, the price, the seller, a short description and pros and cons, and that tapping a card showed reviews and key features.

Perplexity's own launch post, Shop like a Pro (18 November 2024), added three things:

• Buy with Pro: one-click checkout on Perplexity for select products from select merchants, for Pro subscribers in the US, with free shipping on those orders. Where it was not available, the shopper went to the merchant's own site.
• Snap to Shop: a visual search that finds products from a photo.
• Product data from platforms: integrations, including Shopify, supplied recent product information from stores that sell and ship to the US.

The same post said the product cards "aren't sponsored" and are picked by its AI for the search. That is a statement about launch. We could not find a later Perplexity page that restates it.

Why Perplexity's cited sources matter for a store

Because Perplexity shows its sources, it is the easiest assistant to study. You can see the pages it read before it named a product, and those pages tell you where to work.

In our own scans of five independent stores on 24 October 2026, every Perplexity answer we received came with 10 sources. Perplexity named the scanned store in 3 of its 28 answers. Magazines and buying guides came up most, led by Allure (in 8 of the 28 answers) and Vogue (6), followed by retailers, review sites and brand sites. Reddit appeared in 3. None of the 280 sources was the scanned store's own site. The details are in our research post.

Five stores is a small sample. Still, the lesson is consistent with how Perplexity works: what other sites say about your products can count as much as your own pages.

What does the Perplexity merchant program offer?

At launch, Perplexity described a free program for merchants who share their product specs. It listed four benefits:

• a better chance of being a "recommended product", because your products sit in its index with full details;
• payment integration, so shoppers can buy your products with one-click checkout;
• free API access, which can be limited to your own products, to build search on your own site;
• a dashboard with search and shopping trends.

TechCrunch added that Perplexity took no affiliate cut from purchases "for now" and that shopping was separate from its ads, launched the week before as sponsored follow-up questions.

A June 2025 guide from WebFX describes the program as free, with no commission. It says merchants need to sell and ship to the US, and can apply through a short form or qualify through a PayPal integration, Shopify or BigCommerce. It also notes that links from Perplexity carry UTM parameters, so the visits show up in your analytics.

What has changed since the 2024 launch?

• November 2025: PayPal and Perplexity launched Instant Buy. PayPal said its merchants can become discoverable in Perplexity and US shoppers can check out inside the chat, with the retailer staying the merchant of record. Press reports at the time said Perplexity also opened its checkout to free US users.
• December 2025: Shopify's Agentic Storefronts announcement named Perplexity among the AI platforms that Shopify Catalog sends products to. Our Shopify post covers what that means in ChatGPT.

How do you get your products into Perplexity?

• Shopify: Perplexity has drawn on Shopify product data since launch, for stores that sell and ship to the US. In your Shopify admin, check which AI platforms your products are shared with; Shopify says merchants can switch each platform on or off.
• WooCommerce: nothing sends your catalog to Perplexity on its own. Apply through the merchant program form, and if you take payments with PayPal, ask PayPal whether its store sync for AI agents covers your store. Without either, Perplexity finds your products by crawling your pages, so crawler access and structured data matter even more. Our WooCommerce guide covers the setup.
• Any platform: apply through the merchant program form. Perplexity's launch post invited retailers to sign up this way, and the WebFX guide describes a short form for stores that sell and ship to the US.

Being in the index puts you on the long list. The answer still names a handful of products, and every competitor in your category can be in the same index.

How do you let PerplexityBot read your store?

Perplexity's crawler documentation names two user agents:

• PerplexityBot finds and links websites in Perplexity's search results. Perplexity says it is not used to crawl content for AI foundation models, and recommends allowing it in robots.txt.
• Perplexity-User visits a page when a user's question needs it. Because a person triggered the visit, Perplexity says it generally ignores robots.txt.

You do not need a rule for PerplexityBot if your User-agent: * rules already allow your product pages. If you do add a group for it, it follows that group instead, so repeat the paths you want to keep closed:

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /
Disallow: /cart
Disallow: /checkout

• Shopify: robots.txt can only be changed through a robots.txt.liquid template in your theme. If your theme has one, check it does not name PerplexityBot with Disallow: /.
• WooCommerce: check the robots.txt file in your site's root folder and any SEO plugin that edits it.
• Both: firewalls and bot settings can block crawlers that robots.txt allows. Perplexity publishes its IP ranges and suggests firewall rules that match both the user agent and those ranges. It says changes can take up to 24 hours to take effect.

The AI-readiness checklist covers crawler access for the other assistants too.

What can a Shopify or WooCommerce store improve?

1. Complete product data. A product type or category, brand, price, availability, variants, identifiers such as GTINs, several images and Product structured data on every product page. Write descriptions that say who the product is for and give the specs shoppers compare; our description guide shows how.
2. Clear policies. Publish shipping and returns pages and say where you ship. Shoppers ask about delivery and returns, and the merchant program at launch was limited to stores that sell and ship to the US. On Shopify, write both under Settings → Policies. On WooCommerce, publish both pages and link them from your footer.
3. Reviews on pages Perplexity can cite. Reviews that load only through a script may be missed. Use a review app that renders reviews in the page and adds a rating to your structured data. Reviews on marketplaces and review sites count too, because those pages can turn up in the source list.
4. A place on the sources it cites. Ask Perplexity the questions your shoppers ask and write down the domains under each answer. Then work on those sites: send products to the editors of the guides it cites, keep your listings complete on the retailers and marketplaces it cites, and answer questions in communities as yourself, saying who you are. This is slow, and no one can buy it for you.

Check what Perplexity says about your category today

The free 7BE scan asks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode 10 questions your shoppers might ask, shows which brands they name instead of you and the sites they relied on, and runs 8 readiness checks. The 7BE app, in early access, repeats the questions every week so you can see your shelf share move. Starter costs $49 a month; Growth, at $149, adds Gemini and Claude. Start with the fixes the scan ranks highest, then check again.