OpenAI Goes Shopping: The E-Commerce Revolution Begins | Fast Five Shorts
This segment from the Omni Talk Retail Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and Quorso, explores OpenAI's game-changing announcement: ChatGPT Instant Checkout.
Users can now purchase items directly from Etsy sellers and over 1 million Shopify merchants without ever leaving ChatGPT. Chris and Anne debate whether retailers should embrace or block bot traffic, discuss the implications for traditional e-commerce funnels, and explore what "GEO optimization" means in an agentic AI world. With Etsy stock jumping 16% and Shopify up 6%, this feature could reshape how consumers discover and buy products forever.
Is this the Google of 2025? Will retailers prepare for agentic shopping experiences or get left behind? Tune in for expert analysis on the biggest e-commerce shift in years.
🔔 Subscribe for more retail insights!
For the full episode head here
#openai #ChatGPT #InstantCheckout #Etsy #Shopify #EcommerceTrends #AIinRetail #AgenticAI #RetailTech #ConversationalCommerce
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Transcript
OpenAI announced ChatGPT Instant Checkout.
Speaker A:According to CNBC, the new feature will allow users to make single item purchases directly from merchants through ChatGPT.
Speaker A:Instant Checkout initially supports single item purchases from US Etsy sellers, and more than 1 million Shopify merchants are coming soon.
Speaker A:The feature is available to us ChatGPT+Pro and free users, and OpenAI plans to expand regional availability in the future.
Speaker A:Also of note, shares of Etsy closed up new nearly 16% on Monday with the news and Shopify stock closed up more than 6%.
Speaker A:Chris this is also not surprisingly the A and M put you on the spot question.
Speaker A:They want to know.
Speaker B:Geez, let's make my brain work today.
Speaker A:Yes, yes.
Speaker A:Every, every headline, every time we come to you, it's going to be a zinger.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:Chris, A and M wants to know.
Speaker A:Allowing shoppers to discover and buy products in ChatGPT without leaving the chat should steamroll the classic E Comm funnel from Search Cart to check out in one fell swoop.
Speaker A:What are the biggest challenges brands and retailers face in making their online content and product categories agent friendly versus just consumer friendly?
Speaker B:Well, oh my God, there's so much to that question.
Speaker B:All right, well, the first thing I would say is the first thing that the retailers and the brands have to ask themselves is do they want to make their, you know, content agent friendly at all?
Speaker B:You know, we heard from David Dorff on the five insightful minutes last week, which is a great interview, folks.
Speaker B:If you have not listened to that yet, stop what you're doing right now, hit pause and go back to last week's episode and listen to what David had to say because it was very, very insightful.
Speaker B:But we learned from him.
Speaker B:You know, basically have two options.
Speaker B:You can either block the bots or you can let them in.
Speaker B:And if you want to accept them, then you have to get your site Geo optimized and everyone's trying to figure out what the heck that means.
Speaker B:That's been a very big topic of conversation here at Grocery Shop.
Speaker B:And then it sounds like if, if you're okay with that, then you also, it sounds like have to plug into Chat GPT for checkout in some way, shape or form too.
Speaker B:So if you want to start experimenting with that, you want to start understanding what your customer sees from that experience and what you can offer them up to close the deal.
Speaker B:I think that's the, that's the key thing here, that that's what you have to start experimenting with.
Speaker B:We heard Lauren Steinberg of Loblaw who was incredibly impressive when we interviewed her.
Speaker B:And she was very open with it.
Speaker B:She said, yeah, we're experimenting.
Speaker B:We're welcoming it.
Speaker B:We're experimenting with.
Speaker B:We don't know what it is until we try it.
Speaker B:So we're not going to, you know, we're not going to close ourselves down.
Speaker B:We're going to try to think and think and experiment our way through this.
Speaker B:So, net.
Speaker B:Net.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:I mean, things are changing so fricking fast that I think that's the approach.
Speaker B:But I do wonder for me, and I just don't know, like, is there a Trojan horse here?
Speaker B:Is this Pandora's box?
Speaker B:How many people will retrench and just try to thwart all bots from going to their site?
Speaker B:Which I don't know.
Speaker B:I'd like to actually think about this in a boardroom with people to say, what are all the different, you know, outcomes that could happen?
Speaker B:And like we said with Tim, which ones are more probable that they are going to happen?
Speaker B:Because I do worry about the Trojan horse effect here too, that all this will just end up fueling OpenAI and anyone else that tries to do this in the long run.
Speaker B:So I don't know.
Speaker B:I honestly have no idea.
Speaker B:I mean, that's.
Speaker B:That's my big takeaway here.
Speaker A:Yeah, I don't think anybody does.
Speaker A:I mean, that is resoundingly clear among all of the retailers and brands that I feel like we've come across in the last few days in Vegas at grocery shop.
Speaker A: , you know, the Google of, of: Speaker B:Lean heavier.
Speaker A:Which way I think I would lean heavier in preparing for bot traffic because there's a study that just came out from similar web that says that consumers that use search platforms like, like ChatGPT are seven times more likely to convert.
Speaker A:So I think retailers have to come up for a plan of how to do both, how to sell to agents, how to show up in those searches, and then figuring out how to still manage and create a desirable experience for the consumers that are coming directly to their site.
Speaker A:But I think there's two things that have to happen for or that retailers should be focused on for them to be successful.
Speaker A:In addition to, you know, just starting to test, like Lauren Steinberg was talking about from loblaws, the first thing, I think it's cultural changes, including, including, like, new teams.
Speaker A:I know back a few weeks ago When Lululemon hired their chief AI officer, we were kind of like, does that make sense?
Speaker B:But yeah, David Dorff said that too.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:I actually think that the more that we're hearing about this from retailers, it's going to require this creation of a cross functional team that kind of helps think about this outside of the silos.
Speaker A:And then the second thing is, is I think they're going to have to rely more heavily on third party content from both creators and, and retailers are going to have to rely on brands for that content so that they can start testing this and so that they can start showing up more readily in some of those agentic type searches.
Speaker A:So there is a lot ahead for consumers, there's a lot ahead for the retailers and brands in this space.
Speaker A:But it's here now, like this is, this is the headline to me that says that like there's no more like consideration.
Speaker A:It's here, you have to be testing it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And Etsy is a perfect partner too because what did David say?
Speaker B:And he said that we're going to start to see this explode at the holiday season because you can literally and you know, Etsy is perfect for that because you're like, hey, I want to get a cool, you know, unique gift for my wife or my, you know, girlfriend or whatever.
Speaker B:And now I can put that in a chatgpt.
Speaker B:They can help me even like potentially, you know, refine that search and then Etsy will pop up and you know, give me something really unique.
Speaker A:It's so easy.
Speaker A:I just posted a video last night to LinkedIn of my search and in a matter of seconds I have the click to buy and I have a gift from Etsy.
Speaker A:Like it was so smooth.
Speaker A:So check out that video.
Speaker A:Try it out for yourself.
Speaker A:It's live now.
Speaker A:You can see, you can just see how, how this is really going to redefine how we find and discover products.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:The other part about it too is like the Shopify angle.
Speaker B:So Shopify is coming, right?
Speaker B:Like the thing for me is like why would Shopify do this?
Speaker B:Because can't chat gbt end up becoming Shopify in the long run, like an easy way to stand up site.
Speaker B:So that's where I'm like the Trojan horse dynamics here are craz.
Speaker B:Is Shopify working some deal on the back end with open air?
Speaker B:Who the hell knows?
Speaker B:But anyway, it's fun to watch and scary too.
