In 2023, I launched a Shopify store with my mom. She handled operations; I took care of the tech, managing Shopify, processing orders, and replying to customer support emails.
Of all those jobs, I hated customer support the most. Replying to the same questions over and over, “do you ship to X?”, “how long does delivery take to Y?”, was boring and frustrating in a way nothing else was. It never felt like real work, but it also could never wait.
Back then, ChatGPT was only a few months old and nowhere near good enough to help. So I typed every reply myself.
AI today is a different thing entirely. It can reliably handle the repetitive, basic support emails. For most stores, that's 60–80% of the inbox. That leaves you with the small share of tickets that actually need a human: the judgment calls, the upset customers, the exceptions.
So I made it my mission to make sure store owners in 2026 don't go through what I went through in 2023.
vai@efficialabs.com. Replies read by me, which is rather the point.