Ask the shop
Ask the shop is your store’s AI assistant. It is on as soon as your store is online: a button in the corner of every page opens a chat, and an Ask the shop section on a page opens the same one. It answers from what Tuppence holds about your store, and every conversation is in your inbox, so one it hands over is already where your team works.
- Shopper askson any page of your store
- It answersfrom what's on file, with sources
- Or hands overto your team, in the inbox
What it answers from
Section titled “What it answers from”- Products: your products’ facts, variants, all-in prices and stock, online and at each shop. A claim such as vegan or organic is made only when a fact on file backs it.
- Delivery: the delivery options your rates give for a postcode. It never names a date the delivery options did not give.
- Policies: your published returns, delivery and privacy policies.
- Offers: only the promotions and codes you set up for your online store. It can add an item or one of those codes to the shopper’s basket, shown with Undo, and never checks out.
- Orders: a shopper’s own orders and tracking, after a code sent to the email or phone on the order. A return goes through your returns policy, and the shopper confirms it in the chat.
Each answer shows chips naming where it came from. Before an answer is shown, Tuppence checks its dates, amounts and claims against what the assistant looked up in that turn; an answer that fails says what is on file and offers to ask your team instead.
What it never does
Section titled “What it never does”- Make up a discount, a delivery date, a price or a refund.
- Check out, or contact the shopper anywhere but the chat.
- Follow instructions in reviews, product text or anything a shopper pastes in.
Its first message says it is an AI assistant, and Talk to a person is always beside it.
When it hands over
Section titled “When it hands over”The conversation moves to Needs you in your inbox when the shopper asks for a person, when the assistant isn’t sure, when an answer fails its check twice, or when the day’s assistant budget for your store is used up. Your team is notified, and the shopper is told you’ll reply in the chat, or by email if they leave their address.
Switch it off, or keep it to product pages
Section titled “Switch it off, or keep it to product pages”Store › Settings › Assistant turns it off (shoppers see your contact details instead) or shows
it only on product pages. Over the API it is settings.assistant on your site:
curl -sS -X POST "https://api.tuppence.ai/v1/sites/site_…" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $TUPPENCE_SECRET_KEY" \ -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"settings": {"assistant": {"enabled": true, "scope": "products"}}}'| Field | Default | Is |
|---|---|---|
enabled | true | Ask the shop on your store |
scope | everywhere | everywhere, or products for product pages only |
disclosure | Tuppence’s wording | Your own first message, up to 300 characters. It must still say it is AI; {business} is your store’s name |
Limits
Section titled “Limits”A conversation’s first message passes a bot check. A conversation takes up to 30 messages an hour, and one address up to 60. In test mode your test store’s assistant answers from your test data.