Shopify lets AI agents find physical retail stores

Shopify has added retail location discovery to its Universal Commerce Protocol support. The 22 October release lets compatible agents find a merchant’s shops by name, city or distance and check which locations carry requested products.

Eligible locations must be active, managed by the merchant, configured for in person selling and enabled as a Physical storefront. Stores without a qualifying retail location do not advertise the capability. Agents also need to support and request it; the announcement does not establish support in every shopping assistant.

A store match is not a pickup booking

Shopify explicitly distinguishes an item match from a stock count, reservation or pickup promise. Checkout for pickup at a selected location is not supported. Hours and amenities filters are also unavailable.

For distance searches, the buyer must choose to share a location. Shopify says it does not infer the search centre from context or an IP address.

Put your location records on the review list

Our recommendation for merchants is to check the customer facing details of each physical shop before relying on agent discovery. Compare the name and address with your own store locator and make sure the correct branches are enabled for in person selling. Ask the person responsible for inventory to review product availability separately.

When testing, record which assistant or integration you used, the product variant, the requested area and the response. A successful discovery response is useful evidence about that particular journey, not proof that all assistants can find every branch. Avoid advertising an agent powered pickup service until the fulfilment journey actually supports it.