Did you know that you can use artificial intelligence (AI) to make your online store smarter by showing customers exactly what they want, right when they want it? That’s right, and now more than ever, small and midsize businesses (SMBs) have an opportunity to stay ahead of the competition with the power of AI.
Our research shows that 78% of SMB leaders believe that AI will change their tech game. And, 40% of growing SMB leaders say AI capabilities are extremely important. Clearly, SMB owners just like you are now realizing how effective AI is in growing business.
To help your small business reach new heights, we’re going to explore eight proven AI prompts specifically designed for small business commerce:
What we’ll cover:
What is an AI prompt?
An AI prompt is a specific instruction you give to an AI system, which triggers a particular action or response. They’re inputs provided by a user to a large language model (LLM) to generate a specific output. The more specific the AI prompts are, the better outputs you get. For example, an AI service prompt ”Create a 5-question survey to understand a customer’s recent service experience and offer a 10% discount code for completing it” will give you better result than a generic prompt like “Create a survey to collect customer feedback.”
Benefits of AI prompts for small business commerce
Let’s look at how AI prompts can benefit small business commerce:
More Commerce Resources For Your SMB
Boost operational efficiency
Thanks to AI, 9 out of 10 SMBs experience more efficient operations. AI interactions lead to quicker and more accurate task performance. AI is a big deal for businesses having less resources but aiming to scale big and grow exponentially.
Source: Small and Medium Business Trends Report
Having AI is like having a robotic staff at your disposal. The only difference between AI and, instead of having your team answering calls and emails, tools like Agentforce can handle these queries instantly, saving time and energy for your customers and service team. Unlike human beings, Agentforce runs 24/7, and can handle mundane and repetitive tasks while your team focuses on more strategic tasks.
Reduce manual intervention
AI prompts can minimize the need for manual input in various processes, allowing staff to concentrate on higher-level tasks. AI will give you responses as per your instructions, automate repetitive tasks, and simplify workflows. This leads to better resource allocation within the organization and help you increase productivity.
Improve your sales pipeline
46% of SMB owners have experienced improvement in their revenue with AI. AI doesn’t have fixed working hours. It can operate 24*7, enabling customers to shop at their time as per their convenience. This constant availability leads to higher sales opportunities compared to traditional brick-and-mortar stores.
Source: Small and Medium Business Trends Report
Get ahead of your competitors
By leveraging AI technologies through well-crafted prompts, small businesses can gain a competitive edge in their market. You can use AI data analysis and insights to respond to consumer trends and preferences, thus staying ahead of competitors who are slower to adopt AI technologies.
Win customers with personalized offers
65% of customers expect businesses to understand their needs. AI prompts enable businesses to analyze customer data and tailor interactions based on individual preferences and behaviors. You can use that data to observe purchase history and come up with promotional marketing strategies that reflect their interests.
Reach wider audiences
Having an online ecommerce storefront means allowing your customers to search, choose, and purchase your products or services seamlessly. No complaints, no waiting time, and no geographical constraints. And, creating an online storefront also saves the overhead costs of having a physical location.
Eight AI prompts for small business commerce
You can’t just sit and wait for AI to do all the magic. You need to put AI to work. This is where AI prompts come into play. Let’s look at these eight proven AI prompts with some specific examples that work for commerce teams:
Prompt 1: Optimize your storefront for SEO
How it helps: If you’re selling directly to consumers, optimizing your storefront for search engine optimization (SEO) can improve your visibility, drive more organic traffic to your website, and boost conversion rates. By implementing effective SEO strategies, you can improve your search engine rankings, making it easy for potential customers to find your products or services.
Example prompt: “Generate a comprehensive SEO plan for optimizing [website.com] including tips on keyword research, meta descriptions, and strategies to sell more on my digital storefront as well as achieve higher website rankings.”
Prompt 2: Product description generator
How it helps: A well-written product description informs your customers, improves search visibility, and persuades them to purchase. Imagine you’re launching a new line of eco-friendly kitchenware. Instead of spending hours writing descriptions for each product, you can use an AI prompt to generate engaging content that highlights unique features, such as sustainability and design.
Example prompt: “Generate five compelling product descriptions for my new line of eco-friendly kitchenware, emphasizing unique features like biodegradable materials and modern design aesthetics.”
Prompt 3: Pricing strategy
How it helps: With fluctuating market conditions, SMBs need a dynamic and competitive pricing strategy that responds to supply and demand. And that is incomplete if you’ve broken payment links or bad checkout experiences. Say you’re in the fashion industry — an AI prompt can help you analyze competitor prices, give exact words to use for payment links, assess customer demand, and seasonal trends to suggest optimal pricing.
Example prompt: “Based on current market demand in [industry] create a pricing strategy for that beats my current competitors for [website.com]. Draft an email for this checkout process using these payment links.””
Prompt 4: Scripted service requests
How it helps: An AI-generated script can help your customer service team handle purchase requests smoothly. Imagine receiving a return request for a pair of shoes. Having an AI-generated response can make the return and refund process easier, and decrease the chances of negative reviews.
Example prompt: “Generate a scripted response to handle a refund request efficiently and fairly for a customer who purchased shoes but received the wrong size. Suggest alternatives or offer 10% discount for future purchases. Include the purchase details…”
Prompt 5: Review request generator
How it helps: Asking customers for reviews helps you understand product performance and customer experience. A well-crafted AI review request message can encourage customers to share their experiences, whether through a survey or a Google review. You can use those reviews as testimonials or as feedback to improve your products.
Example prompt: “Generate a friendly message to request reviews from customers who recently purchased from my [industry] store [mywebsite.com] on Google or through a short survey.”
Just get started.
No matter where you are on your journey as a small business owner, you can get started with Starter Suite — the all-in-one AI CRM your SMB needs.
Prompt 6: Commerce abandoned cart email
How it helps: You can recover lost sales and nurture customer relationships by having the right abandoned cart email strategy. A series of automated email nudges created by AI can effectively reel them back in.
Example prompt: ”Create a series of automated abandoned cart emails for my online store [mywebsite.com] that includes personalized product recommendations, discount offers, and engaging copy to encourage customers to complete their purchases. Use data from recent customer interactions to tailor the messaging and timing of each email in the sequence. [Add customer interaction details]”
Prompt 7: Create a promotional code
How it helps: Promotional codes, when catered to individual customer interests can boost your sales. By studying purchase histories and shopping behaviors, you can identify what’s popular and push offers to make it more accessible. For example, if a customer is interested in a beauty product, they might have an interest in getting a buy-one-get-one (BOGO) offer.
Example prompt: ”Generate a social media post including relevant hashtags and SEO-optimized key terms to promote a discount code of BOGO2025 for my online beauty store [mywebsite.com] when they sign up to my newsletter at https://www.salesforce.com/blog/ai-prompts-for-small-business-commerce/.”
Prompt 8: Commerce analytics
How it helps: Monitoring commerce analytics can help you gain valuable insights into your performance. By analyzing the latest or monthly purchase data, you can identify trends, understand customer preferences, and optimize inventory management. For example, if your analytics reveal a consistent increase in demand for summer apparel every June, you can proactively adjust your inventory levels to ensure you have the right products available when customers are ready to buy.
Example prompt: “Analyze the latest monthly purchase data for my clothing brand and provide performance insights based on the following sales data and market trends: [insert sales data].”
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AI prompts for small business commerce FTW
As a small business owner, you need to take care of your online storefront, track payment links and transactions, and check analytics to make decisions. It’s a lot of work. That’s why we created small business commerce. A one-stop solution place for all your commerce problems. From easy setup and management, built-in analytics tools and AI to building an easy-to-use digital storefront, we’ve got it all covered. It all starts with Starter Suite.
