Frequently asked questions
The basics
What problem does this solve?
Shoppers increasingly ask AI assistants what to buy. Those systems depend on structured product data with published requirements. A product that misses one is excluded from the feed entirely, so no assistant can recommend it, regardless of how good the product page is. Endcap finds those products.
Is this different from an SEO app?
Yes, in kind rather than degree. SEO is about ranking pages for crawlers. Shopify Catalog is pass or fail: a zero-priced product or one with no image is not ranked lower, it is absent. We check the requirements first, then the fields that affect how well an assistant can match your product to what a shopper described.
How many checks are there?
27 in total: 22 that run against each product, and 5 that run once across the store. All are derived from Shopify's published documentation, and every finding links to the page it came from.
Trust and safety
Will it change my products without asking?
Never. Bulk fixes show the current value and the proposed one side by side, you select what to apply, and every applied change stores its previous value so a batch reverts in one click.
Which fields can it write?
Only vendor, product type and description. Barcodes, prices and identifiers are deliberately excluded: those are facts about the world, and generating them would quietly corrupt your catalog in a way that is expensive to detect later.
Do generated descriptions invent things?
They are written strictly from the product's own fields, and the instruction forbids inventing materials, measurements, certifications, origins or ingredients. Each draft shows how many real facts it was given. You review every one before it is applied.
Will it slow down my store?
No. Endcap adds no script tags, no web pixels and no theme code. It never touches your storefront.
What permissions does it ask for?
Products, and read access to your published legal policies so it can check they exist. It does not request any customer permission, which is why it has no ability to read customers or orders. See the privacy policy.
Catalog readiness and answer checks
What is a good readiness score?
The score is a triage tool, not a ranking guarantee. Start with anything that blocks a product from Shopify Catalog, then fix weak matching data such as missing descriptions, vendor and product type. Every finding links back to the Shopify document behind it.
What is unbranded share of voice?
The share of buying questions where an assistant names your store when the shopper never typed your brand. Questions that already contain your brand are reported separately, because being named after someone types your name proves nothing.
What does an observed answer position mean in Endcap?
It means observed position in a completed answer check. Endcap asks a measured answer channel a frozen shopper question and stores where your store appeared in that answer. If your store was not named, the result says Not named instead of rank zero.
Which AI answer channels does Endcap measure?
Endcap can measure configured OpenAI web search, Perplexity and Gemini grounded-search channels. Channel rows appear from completed runs. If a channel is not configured or has not run, Endcap does not render it as zero.
Does Endcap measure Google AI Overview or AI Mode?
Not yet. Those surfaces need a validated SERP measurement provider before they can be shown honestly. Endcap does not list Google AI Overview or AI Mode as supported product channels until that exists.
What are cited pages?
Some answer channels return the URLs they used as sources. When that happens, Endcap stores the cited URLs and counts distinct cited pages. If a run only returned domains or no URL metadata, the app says cited pages are unavailable rather than reporting zero.
What are opportunity cards?
Opportunity cards are missed unbranded questions from a measured ranking check. They show which channel missed you, which brand was named first when available, and which catalog findings or products are worth inspecting next. They do not promise a future ranking.
Where do the questions come from?
They are derived from your own catalog: your product types, price bands and brand. The set is then frozen and reused, because a tracker whose questions change every run produces a trend line that means nothing.
Why does my report exclude some products?
Real catalogs contain items that are not products: content blocks used to build landing pages, test rows, and zero-priced helper products created by bundle apps. Counting those as broken would be noise, so they are classified as housekeeping, excluded from your score, and listed separately with the reason.
Billing
Is there really a free plan?
Yes, permanently. It scans your whole catalog, applies vendor and product type fixes in bulk with undo, and runs a monthly visibility check. AI-written descriptions and more visibility scans are what Growth unlocks.
How does billing work?
Through Shopify, so charges appear on your normal Shopify invoice. Change or cancel from your Shopify admin at any time.
Still stuck?
Email [email protected] or read the documentation.