How Copilot Shopping Works for Australian Retailers

Copilot shopping turns a customer’s product question into suggestions drawn from the web and merchant product data. Australian retailers can prepare that data through Microsoft Merchant Center. Checkout inside Copilot has a separate restriction: Microsoft limits it to English-language merchants selling to US buyers in US dollars.

A product appearing in a shopping answer, an approved feed and an enabled checkout are different results. Start with the catalogue connection, then assess checkout against the market you sell to.

What Copilot Shopping Shows

Copilot shows product options in response to a shopping question, with more details when the customer selects a product image. Microsoft describes sizes, review summaries, retailer options and price history among those details. A Buy action can take the customer to the retailer’s purchase page. See Microsoft’s shopping instructions.

Customers can refine a request or ask Copilot to compare products. For example, a hypothetical customer choosing walking shoes could ask for a lighter pair after seeing the first options. Product information supplied by the merchant affects what Copilot can show.

Australian users can use Copilot’s ordinary text conversations, including product questions. Microsoft’s regional guidance separates general availability from individual feature rollouts. General access doesn’t mean every account gets dedicated shopping cards or price alerts.

Microsoft’s Edge shopping guidance describes product comparisons, price history and price tracking through the Copilot sidebar. It identifies the US as the rollout market, with other markets to follow. Don’t treat those Edge features as an Australian rollout announcement.

How the Copilot Merchant Program Works

The Copilot Merchant Program connects retailers’ product information to Microsoft’s shopping experience. Microsoft’s current merchant guidance directs retailers to Microsoft Merchant Center for their feed and store settings.

To prepare a store through Microsoft Advertising:

1. Sign in to Microsoft Advertising and open Tools, then Merchant Center.
2. Create a store and validate the website domain. Microsoft documents validation through Bing Webmaster Tools or an existing Universal Event Tracking tag.
3. Supply the store details and submit the store for approval.
4. Create or import a product feed for the country and language you sell in.

The store needs its website address and product data. Microsoft reviews the store separately from the individual offers. Its store creation guide explains domain validation and approval.

For Copilot Checkout, the eligible buyer country Microsoft names is the United States, with English-language merchants and US-dollar transactions. That restriction belongs to checkout. It doesn’t make every country supported by Microsoft Advertising a Copilot Checkout country.

Shopify merchants can also reach Copilot through Shopify’s connection, described in our guide to Shopify’s AI channel connections.

Microsoft Merchant Center Feeds for Copilot

Microsoft Merchant Center feeds supply product details that Copilot can use in organic shopping results. You can import an existing Google Merchant Center feed instead of creating a second catalogue export. Microsoft’s feed setup guidance includes the Google import route.

Bing Merchant Center is the older name for Microsoft Merchant Center. Microsoft’s table of renamed tools confirms that both names describe the same tool. Older guides can still use the previous name and older navigation labels.

Prioritise fields that identify the product and describe the offer accurately.

Feed field	What to supply	Why it affects the product shown
Title	The product name with distinguishing details, such as model or colour	Helps distinguish one product or variant from another.
Price	The selling price and matching currency	Describes the offer the customer can buy.
Availability	The current stock status	Separates available products from out-of-stock items.
Global Trade Item Number (GTIN)	The manufacturer’s assigned identifier, where one exists	Identifies the product across stores.
Image	A working image URL for the product	Supplies the visual product reference.
Product link	The matching product page	Gives the customer a destination for the exact offer.

Microsoft’s feed attribute reference defines these attributes. Use the manufacturer’s GTIN, not a made-up identifier. Keep the feed’s price and stock consistent with the product page. Our guide to improving product feeds covers improvements across AI channels.

Before expecting products in Copilot answers, open the correct store in Merchant Center and inspect its feed and product offers. Confirm that the store is active and that the intended offers are approved. If offers are rejected, inspect their reported issues, correct the source data and submit the updated feed. An uploaded file alone doesn’t establish approval.

Microsoft’s delivery diagnostics distinguish rejected stores from stores containing approved offers. Approval clears that hurdle. It doesn’t guarantee Copilot will choose your product for a particular question.

Checkout Inside Copilot

Copilot Checkout lets eligible customers complete a purchase inside Copilot, with the retailer remaining the merchant of record. Microsoft lists PayPal, Shopify and Stripe as its commerce partners. PayPal and Stripe participation needs onboarding, so having an account with either provider doesn’t automatically enable Copilot Checkout.

Microsoft’s checkout eligibility limits the experience to English-language merchants selling to US buyers in US dollars. It doesn’t support a domestic Australian-dollar checkout for Australian shoppers.

An Australian retailer selling to US buyers must still meet the onboarding requirements. Being based in Australia alone isn’t the country test Microsoft publishes. Assess the buyer market and currency before treating a Copilot option in your account as checkout access for your Australian store.

Where Copilot Traffic Comes From

Copilot shopping uses information found on the web alongside merchant feeds. Bing’s web results and Microsoft Merchant Center product data therefore give it different ways to find an offer. Microsoft says product selection also depends on the customer’s request and other relevance signals.

Use referral analytics to measure visits that reach your site from Copilot. In Microsoft Clarity:

1. Open your project dashboard and find the Referrer card.
2. Switch to the Channels tab and select AIPlatform.
3. Inspect the referring source for Microsoft Copilot and compare those sessions with other traffic.
4. Review the landing products and purchase events to see what those visitors do next.

Clarity’s AI channel documentation identifies standalone Copilot referrals, including copilot.microsoft.com. Hidden referrers can appear as Direct traffic. Its AIPlatform group excludes AI features embedded in search engines and office tools, so it doesn’t measure every possible Copilot interaction.

Use the guide to ChatGPT shopping to compare another AI shopping channel, or return to our AI shopping channel guides. For Copilot, track approved product offers and referred sessions separately: the first shows catalogue eligibility, while the second shows customers arriving at your store.