Is ChatGPT The New Amazon?

In case you’ve been away on a digital detox in the mountains over the last few days, OpenAI just made the biggest shift in ecommerce in some time official.

Instant Checkout means customers can buy directly from ChatGPT searches. They search for what they want to buy, and instead of following a link to buy the product from the merchant’s site, they’ll be able to buy from a Stripe checkout embedded in ChatGPT.

You keep the customer’s details, handle fulfillment, process the payment. But the customer never leaves the platform.

This is a giant moment for online shopping. What it means for your brand, though, is still unclear.

On one hand, this (currently, at least) is a free sales channel — zero CAC, ready-to-buy customers finding you on their own.

On the other, it’s unpredictable and out of your control, and presents a threat for brands that are over-reliant on organic acquisition.

This makes AI optimization non-negotiable. But it also makes it so much more important to build and nurture other aspects of the customer journey.

Let’s dive deeper. Here are 10 takeaways that came to mind for me over the last few days.

Before BFCM Hits…

The year’s biggest shopping shopping moment is coming.

If you’re like most brands, you’ll let it be just that — a moment.

If you’re interested in making it more than just a short-term spike, you’ll get strategic about your offers, your targeting, the channels you double down on, and how you approach the post-BFCM period.

We covered all of this in our new BFCM Strategy Report. It’s got all you need to know to turn your BFCM spike into real, lasting momentum.

There’s still time to prep and make this year a major inflection point for your brand. Get the report to learn how.

10 ChatGPT Instant Checkout takeaways (what it means for your brand & what to do now)

1. Treat it like a real channel

ChatGPT needs to be treated like a serious acquisition channel.

It now drives 20% of Walmart’s referral traffic and fields 50 million shopping queries every day.

That 50M number is just 2% of ChatGPT’s 2.5 billion daily prompts, which means it’s still early — there’s room to grow by orders of magnitude.

Treat it the same way you would any new platform that can drive meaningful sales: track it, test it, and figure out where it fits in your mix.

But you cannot ignore it. If you do, you’re handing customers to your competitors.

2. It’s a major shift… but still just one channel

Instant Checkout is a big moment for ecommerce. And you can’t afford to ignore it.

But at the same time, don’t expect ecommerce to change entirely overnight.

Just like ecommerce didn’t make retail obsolete, this will live alongside other channels. Some buyers will adopt quickly, others will drag their feet.

Expect ChatGPT to capture 10–20% of spending over the next few years, not 100%. Your website, your marketplace presence, your ads, all still matter.

3. Who loses market share?

The first instinct is to compare ChatGPT to Google. If shoppers search there instead of on Google, organic traffic drops.

But thinking more about it, ChatGPT feels like an Amazon competitor. It’s going to become the default destination for “I need X now” shopping.

ChatGPT can replicate that seamless experience you get on Amazon, with a more conversational interface. And that’s a good thing for brands — with fewer fees, and more access to the customer.

4. Meta-data is your new SEO

The way people search for things in AI is different than Google or Amazon.

Shoppers don’t type “blue sneakers.” They ask, “durable trail runners under $300 that ship fast.”

ChatGPT breaks that query into structured fields: category, description, price, delivery.

If your product feed isn’t packed with granular details (materials, weight, variants, shipping options) you’re invisible.

Similarly, your PDPs need to give enough information to speak to super specific, context-rich, conversational queries.

5. You’re losing control of the journey

The most notable thing that comes to mind for me is the declining control you have over the customer journey.

With ChatGPT in the middle, you don’t control who finds you, what they see, or how you’re compared to competitors.

And it’s volatile. AI recommendations literally change from one identical query to the next, and from one account to the next.

That makes optimization significantly less predictable than Google or Amazon SEO.

The upside is real: zero CAC sales when you rank. But the downside is there’s no guarantee you’ll show up again tomorrow. Prepare for more fluctuation.

6. Owned touchpoints matter more than ever

With higher volatility, it becomes so much more important to build and nurture touchpoints where you have control.

If a customer buys through ChatGPT, don’t assume they’ll come back. AI isn’t interested in giving you a repeat customer; they’ll serve the customer with whatever product they think is best (which might not be yours).

You need reliable channels that you control, driving repeat purchases.

Email, apps, loyalty programs, communities… these are table stakes.

Without control over how you re-engage customers, you’re playing ChatGPT roulette.

7. Rethink your post-purchase strategy

I found this line in OpenAI’s announcement interesting:

While I’m not exactly sure how this works in practice (you still have the customer’s contact details for order fulfillment), if you take it at its word, your post-sale strat needs a rethink.

You’re not converting leads into buyers anymore. You’re converting buyers into leads.

Post-purchase, you need to educate people about your brand, get customers invested, and set the stage for the next sale (including, potentially, getting their permission to follow up with marketing material).

Buyers may not even know who you are when they make a purchase. In their mind, they didn’t buy from you. They bought from ChatGPT.

If you’re not intentional about how you approach the next stage, you risk being forgotten by your own customers.

8. CX is your moat

Convenience is no longer a moat for retention. Familiarity is no longer a moat.

If you’re relying on people re-ordering your products just because that’s what they know, or because they haven’t bothered to look for alternatives, you’re in for it.

ChatGPT is the convenient option. Get ChatGPT to find it. Get an agent to buy it.

You need a great CX if you’re going to stand out. You need to be memorable.

AI will always recommend the “best option.” Your brand has to make people want you specifically.

9. Ads are coming

Right now, it’s a free channel (other than transaction fees & fulfillment). But it almost certainly won’t be like that forever.

There’s just too much monetization potential here. Whether it’s from fees, or (most likely) ads, expect traffic and/or margins to go down in time.

That just makes reliable retention, and getting people to reorder from your own channels, again so much more important.

10. Automated agentic commerce is the next step

In-chat buying is the start. Fully autonomous shopping agents is the logical next step.

This requires a bigger leap in trust from shoppers, so it’s a longer way off. But I have no doubt that, eventually, agents will search and purchase for us.

Visa, Mastercard, Google have all been laying the groundwork for agentic shopping systems.

Either these heavyweight companies are all wrong — or they’re letting you know what’s next.

The bottom line

You can pass this ChatGPT announcement off as hype if you want. But that means making the decision to ignore the future.

I liken it to a retail store, 20 or so years ago, ignoring ecommerce. You’re putting yourself several steps behind the competition.

There are two broad takeaways I want you to remember.

One: make sure you’re discoverable in AI. Don’t ignore it.

Two: see the wider implications. You’re going to have less control over the customers you acquire, unless you’re intentional about building strong retention channels.

See these channels, and your CX in general, as the last real moat you have.

On the Pod

This week we hosted Isaac Lewin from Country Life Natural Foods on the Retention Edge podcast.

It was an awesome conversation with someone who’s doing great things to grow and scale a small business in a tough industry.

We talked about how he got over their Facebook ad account getting banned, their successful Amazon Prime/Costco-style membership program, and how their app fits into the picture.

I loved this. Actionable and entertaining.

Check out the conversation below (or on Spotify, if you prefer).

Quick Hits

How AI Search is Rewriting Shopping Discovery

Great breakdown here of the changing face of search & discovery.

Page One used to be the be all and end all. But that’s disappearing now. In some ways, discovery is getting harder, in some ways it’s easier, as now you don’t need to occupy the #1 spot for any hope of getting the sale.

In a nutshell, organic discovery is a whole lot more complex than it used to be. Time to take note.

Read more →

Supreme Court Hearing Tariffs Case

In about a month, the US supreme court will hear arguments on whether Trump’s sweeping tariffs are legal.

If they agree, 2026 could be lining up to be a bumper year for ecommerce.

Read more →

TikTok Deal

In more Trump news, the president signed an executive order that looks set to keep TikTok operating in the US.

The platform’s US operations will be sold to a group of US investors — welcome news for any brands relying on the channel.

Read more →

TikTok Shop Encouraging Weekend Livestreams

TikTok is trying to push sellers on TikTok Shop to run more weekend live shopping events, specifically in the US market.

They’re looking to replicate a format that’s huge in Asian markets, like China and Vietnam. It remains to be seen whether this will kick on in the US.

Read more →

AppLovin Open to All DTC Brands

The doors of mobile gaming ads channel AppLovin are now officially open. DTC brands can sign up and start advertising on the channel, which is divisive, but offers huge potential according to many early users.

Read more →

Tips to Succeed on AppLovin

You can’t approach AppLovin the same way as channels like Meta or Google or TikTok. New platform = new strategy.

This thread has some tips to take on board.

Read more →

30 Lessons from 60M Units Sold

Simple Modern have sold over 60M units in the 10 years they’ve been operating, across multiple channels.

Co-Founder Brian Porter shares 30 rapid-fire lessons they’ve learned over this time. Give it a read — just a couple of minutes of your time, and there are some gems in there.

Read more →

That’s all for now.

We’ll be back next week, with more of what you need to know to unlock sustainable growth for your brand.

If there’s any topic you’d like to see us dive into, for either the newsletter or the podcast, just shoot me a message here.

Until next time,

Pietro and The Retention Edge Team

PS: want to boost retention, revenue and profitability? If so, launching your own app could be the best move you make this year.

See how: go to our website to get a preview of your app for free, or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn to talk about it.