Run your shop by chat

You can connect your own Claude or ChatGPT to your shop and just talk to it — "are we out of ribeye?", "accept the Johnson order", "set lamb chops to $18 a pound." Your assistant does the clicking for you. No new app to learn, no dashboard to hunt through. Just say what you want.

This guide gets you set up once, then shows you exactly what to say.

The one thing to remember first: your link is your password

When we set you up, we'll give you a private web link — your connector URL. It ends in a long secret key and looks like this shape:

.../api/mcp/<your-secret-key>

We'll send you the exact link to paste in. Treat that whole link like the key to your shop. Anyone who has it can do everything you can do by chat — change your stock, accept or decline orders, mark orders paid, change your prices, add or remove products, and message customers about order changes. There's no extra password or login behind it.

So:

• Don't text it, email it, or post it anywhere you wouldn't post your safe combination.
• Don't read it out loud where it can be overheard or screen-shared.
• If you ever think it's been seen by the wrong person — tell us right away. We can swap it for a fresh link in seconds, and the old one stops working immediately (it just goes dead — a "404").

That's the whole safety rule. Keep the link to yourself.

One-time setup (do this part on a computer)

Here's the catch, and it's a small one: neither Claude nor ChatGPT lets you add a new connection from the phone app. You have to add it once on a website. The good news — after you add it on the website, it shows up on your phone automatically and you can use it from your pocket all day.

So: set it up once at a computer (or in your phone's web browser, not the app), then use it from the phone app forever after.

Pick whichever assistant you use:

If you use Claude (recommended — works on a free account)

1. On a computer, go to claude.ai and sign in.
2. Open Settings → Connectors (it may be under Customize → Connectors).
3. Click Add custom connector.
4. Give it a name like "My Shop" and paste in the connector URL we gave you.
5. Leave the advanced / login boxes blank — there's nothing to fill in there.
6. Click Add, then Connect.
7. Now open the Claude app on your phone and sign in. Your shop is already there. In a chat, turn it on from the tools menu and try: "Using My Shop, is the ribeye in stock?"

A free Claude account lets you add one custom connector, which is all you need.

If you use ChatGPT (needs a paid plan)

1. On a computer, go to chatgpt.com and sign in to a paid account (the free plan can't do this).
2. Open Settings → Connectors → Advanced and turn on Developer mode, then accept the warning.
3. Go to Settings → Connectors → Create / Add custom connector.
4. Give it a name, paste the connector URL we gave you, choose No authentication, confirm the "unverified connector" notice, and Save.
5. In a chat, turn the connector on and ask about your shop. On iPhone this works well. On Android it's currently unreliable — use an iPhone, or just use Claude instead.

Tip: In any chat, it helps to say the connector's name — "Using My Shop, …" — so the assistant knows to use your shop and not guess.

How a chat actually goes

Before your assistant changes anything, it does two friendly things:

1. It looks it up first — so it changes the right product or order, not one with a similar name.
2. It reads it back and asks you to confirm. You'll see something like "Accept BTC-04827193 for Pat Johnson — adjust or cancel?" Just say yes (or tap Allow if ChatGPT pops up a confirmation). If it misheard you, say cancel and nothing changes.

Nothing happens behind your back. Every change is shown to you first.

A couple of things to know up front, because this is how your shop works:

• Orders are pickup-only, and every order is a request until you accept it. Customers don't get a guaranteed slot just by ordering — you, the Head Butcher, decide.
• Payment happens at pickup. Marking an order "paid" means you took payment in person, in the shop. There's no online payment and no card on file.

Stock — "are we out?" and "we're back in"

This is the everyday one.

To check if something's in stock, say:

• "Is New York strip in stock?"
• "What's out of stock right now?"

To mark something out of stock, just say:

• "We're out of New York strip."
• "Mark the lamb chops unavailable."

The product stays on your storefront, badged Out of stock, so customers can see it but can't order it.

To bring it back, say:

• "New York strip is back in."
• "Put the lamb chops back in stock."

Nothing is ever deleted by marking it out of stock — it pops right back the moment you mark it in.

The order queue — accept, move along, take payment

Your pickup orders come in as requests waiting for your okay. Here's the whole flow by chat.

To see what's waiting, say:

• "What orders are waiting?"
• "Show me today's pickup orders."
• "Find the Johnson order."

You'll get each one by its reference (like BTC-04827193), the customer's name, the pickup date and time window, the status, and the total. The queue shows your active orders — the ones that are Pending Review, Accepted, In Progress, or Ready. (Customer phone numbers are never sent to the assistant — your customers' contact details stay private.)

To get a quick count, say:

• "How many orders are waiting on me?" — you'll get a tally by status (how many Pending Review, Accepted, In Progress, Ready).

To accept an order, say:

• "Accept BTC-04827193."
• "Accept the Johnson order."

It reads it back, you confirm, and it moves from Pending Review to Accepted — you've committed to fill it.

To move an order forward, say:

• "Mark BTC-04827193 in progress."
• "BTC-04827193 is ready for pickup."

Orders move forward one step at a time: Accepted → In Progress → Ready. The assistant won't let you skip a step, and it'll tell you what the next step is if you ask for one too far ahead. Moving forward stops at Ready — the final step is taking payment, which finishes the order.

To finish an order at pickup, say:

• "Mark BTC-04827193 paid."

When the customer comes in and you hand it over, this one step does it all: it records that you took payment in person and marks the order Picked Up — done. There's no separate "mark it picked up" step. (You mark it paid once it's Ready.)

Saying no, or changing an order

Sometimes you can't fill an order as it came in. You have two choices, and both only work while an order is still in Pending Review (before you've accepted it):

To turn an order down, say:

• "Decline BTC-04827193."
• "Decline the Johnson order — we're out of brisket." (You can give a reason for your own records; the customer isn't shown your wording.)

Declining is final and frees up that pickup slot. Use it deliberately — once you decline, the order is closed.

To offer the customer a change instead of declining, say:

• "Propose changing BTC-04827193 to 2 pounds instead of 3."
• "Adjust the Johnson order — bump that roast to $24 a pound."

A proposed change can adjust a line's weight, quantity, or price (changing the pickup date isn't supported yet). This sends the customer the proposal, and they decide whether to accept it through their own link. Only one proposed change can be out at a time per order.

A quick heads-up — these two reach your customer. Declining an order and proposing a change are the two actions that actually affect a customer's order or send them a message. (Everything else — stock, prices, your catalog — is just your side of the shop.) The assistant always reads these back to you first, but it's worth a second look before you say yes.

Prices and seasonal availability

To change a price, say:

• "Set ribeye to $32 a pound."
• "Make the whole chickens $14 each."

The assistant knows whether a product is priced per pound or per each and sets the right one. It'll read back the old price and the new one before changing it.

To mark something seasonal, say:

• "Mark venison as in season June 1 through September 30 only."
• "Set the fresh corn to in-season May 1 through October 15."

You give it a start and end month-and-day. Outside that window the product shows as out of season automatically, every year — you don't have to remember to flip it.

To make something available year-round again, say:

• "Venison's available year-round now."
• "Clear the seasonal window on the corn."

Your catalog — adding and removing products

To add a new product, say:

• "Add a new product: dry-aged tomahawk steak, counter, sold by the pound."
• "Create a product called house sausage, made to order, sold each, $9 each."

A few helpful defaults so nothing goes wrong:

• A brand-new product starts OUT of stock. That way a half-set-up product is never accidentally orderable. When it's ready, just say "put the tomahawk in stock."
• Every product needs a classification — counter, made-to-order, special-order-only, or supplier-provided — and whether it's sold by the pound or each. Just say it in plain words and the assistant picks the right setting.
• You can set a price and a category as you create it, but the category has to already exist (see the next section). If it doesn't, the assistant will tell you to make the category first.
• If you accidentally try to add the same product twice, nothing breaks — it just tells you it's already there. (If you reuse a name but with different details, it'll flag that so two products don't collide.)

To remove a product, say:

• "Archive the tomahawk steak."
• "Take house sausage off the menu."

Archiving hides it from customers so it can't be ordered. Existing orders that already include it are untouched — you'll still fill those. It's a tidy "remove from the menu," not a hard delete.

To change the order products show in, say:

• "Put ribeye at the top of the list." (or give it a position number, like "set ribeye to display order 1.")

Lower numbers show first. If you pick a spot another product is already using, it'll ask you to pick a different one.

Categories — grouping your products

Categories are the sections customers browse (like "Beef," "Poultry," "Specials").

To see your categories, say:

• "What categories do I have?"

To make a new one, say:

• "Create a category called Holiday Roasts."

To rename one, say:

• "Rename 'Specials' to 'This Week's Specials.'"

(The customer-facing web address for a category stays the same when you rename, so links don't break.)

To change the order categories show in, say:

• "Put Beef first, then Poultry, then Specials."

To put a product into a category, say:

• "Put the tomahawk steak in the Beef category."

Your numbers — quick insights

These are read-only and never include any customer names or details — just counts and dollar totals you can ask about out loud.

To see how busy you've been, say:

• "How many orders did we have this month?"
• "How many pickups per day over the last two weeks?"

To see money collected, say:

• "How much did we take in last month?"
• "What was our daily revenue for the last 30 days?" (This counts only orders that were both picked up and paid.)

To see what's selling, say:

• "What are my top sellers this month?"
• "Top products from June 1 to June 30?" (You'll get up to your ten best sellers, by units sold and by revenue.)

If you don't give dates, it uses the last 30 days by default. You can ask for any range up to about a year.

Troubleshooting

"It says it can't connect" / nothing loads. If you just got your link, give it a few minutes — sometimes we're still switching it on. If it keeps failing, send us a message and we'll check it.

The assistant won't use my shop. Two things to check: make sure the connector is turned on for that conversation (in the tools/connectors menu), and name it in your message — "Using My Shop, what orders are waiting?"

It changed the wrong thing / I want to undo it. Most things are easy to put back: stock, prices, seasonal windows, categories, archiving, and display order can all be reversed by just asking for the opposite ("put it back in stock," "set the price back to…", "un-archive…"). The two to be careful with are declining an order (that's final) and proposing a change to a customer (that goes to them) — which is exactly why the assistant reads those back before doing them.

On Android it's flaky. ChatGPT custom connectors are unreliable on Android right now. Use an iPhone, or use Claude, which works on a free account.

I think someone saw my link. Tell us immediately. We'll issue a fresh link and kill the old one on the spot.

Questions, or want your link rotated? Just reach out — we're happy to help.