Online shopping is convenient, but finding the right product can quickly become overwhelming when there is a sea of options. That’s where ChatGPT helps. It can narrow down choices, compare prices, and guide smarter decisions. Here are some practical ways I use ChatGPT as a shopping assistant to help me to shop smarter.
Table of Contents
- Determine the Right Products Based on Your Needs
- Curate Perfect Search Terms to Locate Products
- Pinpoint Brands Tailored to Your Needs
- Break Down Technical Jargon to Understand Product Descriptions
- Compare Products Side-by-Side
- Estimate Real-World Product Performance
- Analyze User Feedback on a Product’s Strengths and Weaknesses
- Save Money With Product-Specific Discount Tips
Determine the Right Products Based on Your Needs
Finding the right product for your specific needs can be difficult, as you need to check the description of each product to ensure it has the features you need. ChatGPT can make this process easier by automatically recommending products that fulfill all your requirements.
Just tell ChatGPT what you specifically need and it will recommend products that fulfill those needs. For example, you can type a prompt “I need a lightweight laptop that has at least 16GB of RAM and a long-lasting battery. My budget is around $1,200 and it must be from the recent 3 generations. Recommend me 5 laptops that best match this“.
This is what it returns:
If you don’t know much about the product’s expected features, you can get ChatGPT to ask you questions about what you need, and then you can reply for it to give you a recommendation. For example, “I’ll provide an item I want to buy and you ask me a list of questions about it based on user needs. Afterward, recommend me products based on my answers. Item: Hand Blender“
Curate Perfect Search Terms to Locate Products
The search bars on most websites aren’t very natural language friendly. They look for specific keywords in the phrases to find the right products. You can use ChatGPT to convert the product description from natural language to search bar friendly keywords. This will help you find products with better precision.
An example prompt would be “Suggest search phrases for Bluetooth headphones with noise-canceling and long battery life“. You can further enhance the prompt with words like budget headphones, durable headphones, or a specific type of headphones.
Pinpoint Brands Tailored to Your Needs
Most brands have a specific focus that sets them apart from others, such as durability, eco-friendly, budget-friendly, organic ingredients, etc. If you are looking for a product with a specific focus in mind, you can search for a brand that is specialized for it.
For example, you can ask “Which skincare brands focus on natural and organic ingredients and are also budget-friendly“. ChatGPT will provide a list of brands with this focus and also tell you what are their main products.
Break Down Technical Jargon to Understand Product Descriptions
Many products have technical language or industry-specific language – especially tech products – that might be hard to understand for regular users. Although searching online for a technical word can help with basic understanding, ChatGPT can help you understand its meaning in the context of the product.
Just ask ChatGPT the product you are buying and the feature you are having trouble understanding. For example, “What does HDR10+ mean in a TV description?“.
Furthermore, if there are too many technical details, you can just copy/paste the product details into ChatGPT and ask it to explain all in easy-to-understand language. For example, “Explain the description of this Dehydrator in a way that is easy for a non-technical person to understand (copy/paste the description)“. Don’t worry about formatting, ChatGPT can understand even if formatting gets messed up during copy/pasting.
Compare Products Side-by-Side
With ChatGPT, you won’t need a shopping extension to compare products. It can not only compare different products but also customize the explanation according to your needs. Since it can access information about most products anyway, you can name two products and get it to do a comparison.
For example, “Compare the MacBook Air M2 and Dell XPS 13 in terms of performance, display, and price“. You can also go beyond technical features and ask about how each product will compare in real-world usage, which it will reply based on customer feedback. Like you can ask about durability, life expectancy, ease of use, etc.
Furthermore, it can compare custom products or used products based on the descriptions provided. For instance, you can compare a second-hand flagship phone with a new mid-range phone to see which one will be the best bang for your buck. Just provide the description, condition, and price of each product and ChatGPT will return with the pros/cons.
Estimate Real-World Product Performance
The claims made in product descriptions are usually based on ideal situations. In real-life usage, the performance and life expectancy vary based on usage and environment. You can tell ChatGPT the exact purpose you are buying the product and how you will use it, and it can give an estimate of how well the product will perform.
For example, you can ask “How well would the Dreame L20 Ultra robot vacuum handle a house with both carpet and hardwood floors, plus pet hair?” or “If I use the Vitamix A3500 blender to make smoothies every morning and evening, how easy would it be to clean and maintain?“.
This is especially useful for items with limited life expectancy based on usage, like a computer mouse (limited clicks), or SSDs (limited read/write cycles).
Analyze User Feedback on a Product’s Strengths and Weaknesses
When understanding user feedback, don’t limit yourself to reviews and ratings on an e-commerce website. ChatGPT can scour the internet for you and provide user feedback from all platforms on a particular product including reviews, forum discussions, social media, and anywhere else the product is discussed.
You can use it to better gauge the strengths and weaknesses of a product based on how it performs in real-world usage. For example, “what do users say about Xiaomi Mi Electric Scooter on the internet, like reviews, Reddit discussions, social media, etc? Tell me about its pros/cons and common complaints based on user feedback“.
Furthermore, if you are concerned about specific aspects of a product, you can ask ChatGPT to tell if users had any issues or not. For example, if you see a laptop with powerful specs, it might concern you how the cooling system handles the powerful components. You can ask ChatGPT if the laptop’s users complain about heating issues or not.
Save Money With Product-Specific Discount Tips
While there are many general ways to find great deals to save money, ChatGPT can offer tailored discount tips based on the exact product you want to buy. Just tell ChatGPT which product you intend to buy and ask for tips that will help get it cheaper.
For instance, ask “give me discount tips to save money on my Macbook Air M2 purchase“. The tips provided will focus on getting discounts on Macbook Air M2, like Apple’s back-to-school promotions, sales events, Apple’s refurbished store, etc. You can also learn more about how to execute a specific discount by asking further.
If you have specific limitations or preferences, you can let ChatGPT know so it may curate tips accordingly. For example, you can tell it you are only looking for a brand-new product, or you can’t wait more than 1 week if you need to buy it for an occasion.
These are some of the ways ChatGPT can help you make informed decisions and nail the best deals. If you aren’t satisfied with the results, you can also use hacks to further improve ChatGPT results. Needless to say, these methods work with other AI chatbots as well, but the results may vary.
Image credit: Vecteezy. All screenshots by Karrar Haider.
