Ask Sparkie
How it works
Ask Sparkie works like a chat. Ask a question, such as "Which price lists do I have?", and it reads your store and answers, often with a table. Describe a change, such as "Create a price list 30% off retail for Gift Shops", and it prepares a proposal. That's a card that shows exactly what will change.
The proposal waits for you. Check it, then click Apply to live or Apply to test. Until you do, nothing on your store changes.
Ask
Review
Approve
Logged
Ask Sparkie can make mistakes, so check each change before you apply it. See Review and apply changes.
Open Ask Sparkie
- Go to Ask SparkLayer. In the SparkLayer Dashboard it's in the sidebar, marked NEW.
- Or start from Home (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab). Type in the box under How can we help grow your wholesale today? and press Enter, or click one of the suggestions under it. Ask Sparkie opens and runs your request.
Click + in the message box to insert the exact name of a price list, customer group or product SKU. To start again, click New chat.
More detail
- Enter sends your message and Shift+Enter starts a new line. Press ↑ in an empty box to bring back your last message, and Esc (or the stop button) to stop a reply.
- Hover over a message you sent and click Edit and resend to change it.
- While Ask Sparkie works, you see Working on it. When it's done, the line says how many SparkLayer tools it used, such as Used 3 SparkLayer tools. Click it to see each step.
- To go back to an earlier conversation, click the conversation's title at the top and choose it under Recent.
Other ways in
Many screens have a button that opens Ask Sparkie with the request already written. It still shows you the change before anything is saved.
| Screen | Button |
|---|---|
| Home,Setup (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab) | Check my setup with Ask Sparkie, and Do it with Ask Sparkie on the price list steps |
| Pricing,Price lists (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab) | Fix with Ask Sparkie on a tip, such as a customer group with no price list; Edit with Ask Sparkie in a price list's ⋯ menu; the suggestions under Common tasks |
| The Create price list form | Describe it instead |
| Pricing,Price editor (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab) | Ask Sparkie, for changing lots of prices at once |
| Customers,Groups (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab) | Edit with Ask Sparkie in a group's More actions menu; the suggestions under Common tasks |
What it can do
To see this summary in the app, click What can it do? under the message box.
| What it does | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Reads | Your store setup, price lists and customer groups. |
| Proposes | New or changed price lists (by a rule, such as 30% off retail, or by SKU) and customer groups (their price list and minimum order). |
| Applies | Only after you approve, on the store and environment shown at the top of the chat. |
| Can't do | See orders, shipping or payment terms; search for products or customers; delete price lists or customer groups. |
| Hands over to your dashboard | Inviting buyers, so they get a proper email and trade account. |
Asking questions is never limited. Applying changes has a daily limit, and some changes need a paid plan. See Limits.
Things to try
Write requests the way you'd say them. Use the exact name of a price list or customer group, in quotes if it has spaces or numbers. For a single product, use its SKU.
Ask SparkLayer
Walk through a working copy of Ask SparkLayer, step by step. Nothing you do here changes your store.
Questions
Changes
More detail
- Changing a whole price list by a percentage changes the list's rule, not every price one by one, so one proposal covers your whole catalogue.
- Setting SKU prices changes only the SKUs you name. To put a SKU back on the list's rule, ask to remove it, for example "Remove ESP-1KG from "Trade 20%"". One proposal can hold up to 500 SKU prices.
- If something's missing, Ask Sparkie asks. For example, "Create a price list for Gift Shops" gets the question of how much off retail, with 20%, 30% and 40% to choose from.
Set up your wholesale in 3 questions
New to SparkLayer? Ask Sparkie can set up your first price list and customer group with you. Type Set up my wholesale, or click Set up my wholesale on Home. Home shows the button until your first wholesale order.
1. Trade discount
2. Your buyers
3. Minimum order
Two proposals
Click an answer to each question. Ask Sparkie then prepares 2 changes:
- A price list called "Trade" and your percentage, for example Trade 25%: that much off retail on all your products.
- A customer group that uses it, with your minimum order. It's called Retailers, Distributors or Trade, depending on who your buyers are.
Check both, then click Apply both to live (or Apply both to test). You confirm once for both, or you can apply them one at a time.
Next, click Invite my first buyer. Ask Sparkie doesn't send invites itself. It opens the Invite a buyer form, so the buyer gets a proper email and trade account. See Invite a buyer.
More detail
- If you already have a price list with that name, Ask Sparkie uses it rather than creating a second one, so you get one proposal instead of two.
- If you already have a customer group with that name, the proposal changes that group's price list and minimum order instead of creating a new group.
- On a Shopify store, see Set up your wholesale with Ask Sparkie for the whole journey from install to first buyer.
Check your setup
Ask "Is my wholesale setup complete?", or click Check my setup on Home. Home shows the button after your first wholesale order. Ask Sparkie reads your store and answers with a table:
| Check | What it looks at | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Products | How many products have synced to SparkLayer | Good |
| Price lists | How many price lists you have | Good, or Needs one if you have none |
| Customer groups | How many customer groups you have | Good, or Needs one if you have none |
| Groups without a price list | Customer groups with no price list of their own | Good, or Needs attention: those buyers see retail prices |
When something needs attention, Ask Sparkie suggests the fix, such as giving a group a price list, for you to click and review.
This check covers pricing and customer groups. For every step to start selling, including inviting a buyer and adding SparkLayer to your theme, see Home,Setup (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab).
What it can't do
Ask Sparkie tells you when something is outside what it can do, rather than guessing.
| You ask it to… | What happens |
|---|---|
| Delete a price list or customer group | It won't. Deleting is kept to the dashboard on purpose, so nothing disappears from a chat. It can remove specific SKUs from a price list, or change a group's price list instead. |
| Look at orders, sales, shipping, invoices, payment terms or quotes | It can't see them. Your sales are on Home (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab) and Orders (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab). |
| Find a product or customer | It can't search. Name the SKU and the exact price list or customer group. |
| Invite a buyer | It opens the Invite a buyer form for you to send. |
| Anything else, such as discounts or storefront settings | It explains what it can help with. Make those changes in the dashboard. |
Your store stays safe
- You approve every change. Ask Sparkie only prepares proposals. Nothing is saved until you click apply, or save it in the form.
- Live changes ask first. Applying to your live store needs a second click to confirm. You can try changes on your test store first. See Live and Test.
- Proposals expire. A proposal you don't apply expires after 24 hours.
- There's a daily limit. You can apply up to 25 changes a day on each environment. This protects your store from an AI app making changes in a loop.
- Changes can be undone. A change to an existing price list or customer group can be reversed from the chat with Undo this change.
- Everything is logged. The activity log shows every proposal and applied change, who approved it and which app made it. See Activity and connected AI apps.
FAQs
No. Ask Sparkie answers questions and makes changes. On Shopify, Sidekick can answer questions about your SparkLayer price lists and customer groups from any page in Shopify admin, but it can't change anything. See Shopify Sidekick.
You can connect other AI apps to SparkLayer and choose what each one can do. Their changes still go through the same proposals, limits and activity log. See Connected AI apps.
Click one of the answers it offers, or type your own. It asks when your request is missing something it needs, such as the percentage for a new price list or which price list you meant.
No. Only applied changes count. You can ask as many questions as you like.
Yes, straight away. A change you apply to your live store shows on Pricing,Price lists (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab) and Customers,Groups (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab). Ask Sparkie works on the same price lists and customer groups as the rest of SparkLayer.
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