Set up and run AI Parts Finder
Everything you need to install the app, add the search widget to your storefront, style it to your brand, and get the most out of it — from your first install to daily use. No coding required.
What the AI Parts Finder does
AI Parts Finder adds a chat-style search box to your storefront. Customers describe the part they need in plain English — a model number, a symptom like “my pilot light won’t stay lit,” or a description — or they can upload a photo of the part or its nameplate and the AI reads the brand, part number, and specs off the image. Either way the AI searches your own product catalog and replies with the matching product and a direct link to buy it.
Recommends from your catalog only
It never sends a customer to Amazon, eBay, a competitor, or a manufacturer’s site — and it never reveals where you source inventory.
Honest when there’s no match
If nothing fits, it says so and points the customer to your store rather than inventing a product.
Reads products only
Read-only access to your product catalog. It never touches customers, orders, or checkout, and can’t change anything in your store.
Works alongside your search
Drops onto any page next to your existing storefront search — nothing to rip out or re-platform.
1. Installing the app
Install from the App Store
Add AI Parts Finder from the Shopify App Store (or your install link) and approve the permission request — the app asks only to read your products.
Land on the dashboard
You arrive at the app dashboard right away — explore it, configure the widget on the Settings page, and try the finder with 10 free test questions before committing to anything.
Choose a plan to activate
To turn the finder on for shoppers on your storefront, pick a plan to start your 14-day free trial. Every plan includes the same finder; tiers differ by catalog size and monthly search volume. Shopify handles billing — the charge appears on your regular Shopify invoice, and you can change or cancel anytime. Until a plan is active, the widget stays hidden on your storefront.
2. Adding the finder to your storefront
The finder is a theme block you place with Shopify’s theme editor — no code.
Open the theme editor
In your Shopify admin go to Online Store → Themes → Customize.
Add the block
Navigate to the page where you want the finder (home page, a dedicated “Parts Finder” page, a collection page — any page works). Click Add section or Add block, open the Apps tab, and choose AI Parts Finder.
Save
Click Save in the theme editor. The widget is now live — it works on desktop and mobile, supports follow-up questions, remembers the conversation while a shopper browses (for 30 minutes), and has a Start over button in the header.
Or add a floating chat bubble. Prefer a chat launcher in the corner of every page instead of (or in addition to) placing the finder on a page? In the theme editor’s left panel open App embeds, turn on AI Parts Finder Bubble, and click Save. A “Find a part” launcher floats site-wide and opens the same finder in a pop-up — with its own position, title, greeting, and accent-color settings. Use the inline block, the bubble, or both.
Add to cart, right from the chat. Once the finder matches a part, its product card shows an Add to cart button so shoppers can buy in one tap without leaving the conversation. To keep it unambiguous, the button appears only for single-variant, in-stock products — anything with options to choose or that’s out of stock links to the product page instead. Built in, nothing to configure.
Which title and greeting win? The block’s own title, greeting, and accent color act as defaults. Once you customize any of them in the app’s Settings page (below), the app values take over on the storefront. Leave the “API URL (advanced)” block setting blank — the widget connects automatically.
Make it yours. Both the inline block and the bubble are deeply customizable from the theme editor: your own input placeholder, an optional pre-filled search (the box starts already filled in), up to 3 suggested questions shown as tappable chips (one tap asks), plus colors for the header text, background, answer bubbles, and customer bubbles, corner radius, and text size. The bubble adds launcher size, side/bottom offsets, panel width, and a launcher icon choice (chat, magnifier, or bolt).
3. Settings & appearance
Open the app (Apps → Arcturus AI Parts Finder) and go to Settings.
Widget configuration
Widget status
Enable or disable the finder. When disabled, the widget stops answering and hides itself on your storefront — shoppers won’t see the box. (In the theme editor it stays visible so you can still manage it.)
Widget title & greeting
The title is prefilled with your store’s name so the finder is branded out of the box — edit it to anything you like. Changes update the storefront widget on the next page load, overriding the theme-editor block values.
“Powered by Arcturus” footer
On the Enterprise plan you can hide the footer to white-label the widget. On other plans this control is locked.
Max products in context
How many catalog matches the AI weighs per question (5–100, default 30). Higher can improve results on catalogs with many similar variants; lower is slightly faster.
Order status page URL (optional)
When a shopper asks “where’s my order?”, the assistant points them to this page — your order-lookup or Track Order page. Leave blank to use your store account page. The finder never reads your order data; it only routes the shopper, and won’t guess shipping cost or delivery time.
Appearance
Style the widget to match your brand with a live preview — no theme editing needed:
- Accent color — paints the header, your customers’ message bubbles, and the send button. Choose Theme editor setting to keep the block’s color, or Custom to control it here.
- Header text, message text, assistant bubble background & text, widget background — five more colors, each with a picker.
- Corner radius, widget height, and text size — simple presets.
- Input placeholder — the hint text inside the message box.
- Reset appearance to defaults puts everything back in one click.
Changes apply to your storefront within about a minute of saving. Only valid colors are ever sent to your storefront.
4. Customer-service instructions
Under AI behavior, the Customer-service instructions box is how your assistant talks to customers. It comes prefilled with a ready-to-use customer-service agent — warm tone, leads with the answer, asks a clarifying question when a detail is missing, explains why a part fits, and handles out-of-stock and no-match gracefully.
You don’t have to touch it — it works out of the box. Edit it to match your store’s voice, policies, or specialties, for example:
- “We’re a steam-heat specialist — mention our one-pipe vs. two-pipe guide.”
- “Always mention our 30-day return policy.”
- “Prefer in-stock items; note lead time for special orders.”
Your product catalog is always searched automatically — these instructions set the tone and behavior on top. Clear the box and save to restore the default. Click Save and changes apply to the very next customer question.
5. The dashboard
The app home screen shows, at a glance:
- See it work on your products — click “Generate examples from my catalog” and the app reads your own products and shows three real example searches (a plain-English shopper question → the exact product it matches). See the finder work on your store in seconds — no plan needed to preview.
- Try it yourself — type any question and run it through the same pipeline your storefront widget uses. Before you pick a plan you get 10 free test questions; with an active plan, test questions count as real searches against your monthly allowance.
- Widget status — Active, Disabled, or (before you pick a plan) Not activated, with a link to Settings.
- Finder impact (last 30 days) — the funnel that proves the finder is working: how many searches came in, how many found a match, and how many parts shoppers added to cart right from the finder — plus the total add-to-cart value those represent (influenced revenue, not confirmed orders).
- Usage this month — searches used vs. your plan’s monthly allowance, with a color-coded meter, plus your all-time total. Resets on the 1st of each month.
- Recent queries — the last 10 customer searches with how many catalog matches each found, response time, and date. Export query log (CSV) downloads the last 90 days for a spreadsheet.
- No-match searches — searches where nothing in your catalog matched. This is your demand signal: parts customers wanted that you don’t list (or list under names they don’t use). Review it weekly.
- Plan — your current plan, with a Manage plan button.
- Setup checklist — install, choose a plan to activate, add the widget, first search received, customize text.
Customer queries are logged for these analytics and automatically deleted after 90 days. They are not linked to customer accounts.
6. Billing & plans
Each plan includes a monthly search allowance (Starter 1,000 · Growth 5,000 · Pro 20,000 · Enterprise unlimited). When a store reaches its allowance, the finder politely asks shoppers to contact the store directly until the 1st of the next month — upgrade anytime for a higher allowance. Your dashboard’s usage meter shows where you stand.
You don’t need a plan to explore the app. The dashboard and settings are available as soon as you install, and the dashboard’s Try it yourself console includes 10 free test questions so you can experience the finder on your own catalog first — choosing a plan is what turns the finder on for shoppers. Until then it stays hidden on your storefront.
- View or change plan: Dashboard → Manage plan, or Shopify admin → Settings → Apps and sales channels.
- Free trial: 14 days on every plan; you’re only charged after the trial.
- Cancel: uninstalling the app cancels the subscription automatically, or cancel from the plan page. When the subscription ends, the widget automatically hides itself on your storefront — shoppers simply don’t see it (no error message), so you don’t have to remove the theme block. Re-activating a plan brings it right back.
7. Test your setup (5 minutes)
- Open the storefront page with the widget (use an incognito window to see it as a customer).
- Ask about a product you know you stock, by name — expect a recommendation with a clickable link.
- Ask a symptom-style question (“my furnace igniter clicks but won’t light”) — expect a relevant match or an honest “contact the store.”
- Ask a follow-up (“which is cheapest?”) — the finder remembers the conversation.
- Click Start over — the chat resets.
- Check the app dashboard — your test queries appear under Recent queries.
FAQ & troubleshooting
The widget says “Sorry, something went wrong.”
Usually a brief AI-service hiccup — retry in a minute. If shoppers send messages very fast they’ll see a “please wait a moment” note instead. If it persists, check your plan is active in Dashboard → Plan, or email support@arcturus-consulting.com.
The finder says we have no matching products, but we do.
Newly added or edited products can take a few minutes to appear in Shopify’s search index; the finder has a fallback but very new items may briefly be missed. If every query claims the catalog is empty, contact support — the app’s connection to your store may need re-authorizing (opening the app in your admin refreshes it).
I changed the title or greeting in the app but the storefront didn’t change.
App Settings override the theme-block values on the next page load. Reload the storefront page (or open it in a new tab). If you set them only in the theme editor, edit them there instead — the app values win once you customize them in Settings.
Can customers see my supplier or cost data?
No. The AI is explicitly instructed never to reveal sourcing, and it only sees product title, price, SKU, availability, and description — data already public on your storefront.
Does it store my customers’ personal data?
It doesn’t access Shopify customer records at all. Because shoppers type free text, a customer could type personal details into the chat; those queries are stored for your dashboard for 90 days and sent to our AI provider (OpenAI) to generate the answer, and aren’t linked to any customer account. See the Privacy Policy.
How do I remove the finder?
Set Settings → Widget status to Disabled to stop it answering and hide the box, and/or remove the block in the theme editor. Uninstalling the app cancels billing and deletes your stored data.
Something’s broken, or I want a new feature. How do I reach you?
Open Get help in the app’s top nav, pick a category (Something’s broken / Feature request / Question), and send. Your shop, plan, and app version are attached automatically, and everything you send is saved on that page with our reply shown inline. We read every message and reply by email — or reach us directly at support@arcturus-consulting.com.
Still stuck? Contact support — a real person replies within one business day.