I’ve been running e-commerce systems for 30 years (tech, marketing, etc). This was going to fail from the start for one reason: intent.
Most people using AI chat are exploring ideas and solutions. They’re doodling, not shopping. Or in old timey parlance, they’re looky-loos or tire kickers at best.
Anyone who’s had to justify ad spend in e-commerce can tell you that some sources produce huge traffic with absolutely terrible conversion. Reddit and Pinterest pretty much blow for this reason, with limited exceptions. It’s also why TikTok and other influencer platforms really work.
Conversion requires a mental shift from discovery to demand.
Also, really hate summaries like this without the actual source so here are the main points from the actual source (WIRED https://archive.is/7DuEV):
1. Instant Checkout inside ChatGPT performed poorly, with conversion about one-third of Walmart’s normal site.
2. The experience failed largely because it forced single-item purchases instead of letting users build a cart.
3. Walmart is shifting to embedding its own assistant, Sparky, inside ChatGPT and keeping checkout on its own system.
4. ChatGPT is still valuable because it’s driving significantly more new customer traffic than search.
5. Purchases that did work were mostly practical, problem-solving items like supplements and tools.
6. Fully automated “agentic shopping” is still unlikely in the near term because people want control over purchases.
7. OpenAI is moving away from in-chat checkout and focusing on helping users research while merchants handle transactions.
In short, AI is useful for discovery, but traditional e-commerce flows still outperform it at closing sales.
Would be interesting to know for other retailers though and how much of this is down to what Walmart sells?
I'm confused by the comment that it failed because it forced single item purchases. Most of my "ecommerce" use is researching and buying one item at a time.
I think in large part the average Walmart consumer does not shop like the average Amazon consumer. They load up a big cart over time rather than pull the trigger on lots of smaller, convenience-driven purchases. So Walmart is going to view a smaller cart size as a potential failure primarily because their operations are not optimized the same way that Amazon is.
It's a failure for e-commerce vendors because it's a spectacular success for shoppers, and the relationship between sellers and buyers is almost always adversarial.
When I had my first real programming gig in the early 90s, I worked 14+ hours a day and ate fast food exclusively (often in very large quantities). My weight ballooned to nearly 400 pounds.
Then I got sick…
I couldn’t eat anything with fat. Just the thought of it made me physically ill. I ended up dropping half my body weight in 18 months.
What I learned is that it is possible to break your body in many ways.
That’s not something you’re going to hear from someone in their 20s or 30s, even a few decades ago. This is an attitude that you develop as you get older and become more experienced. It also helps if you’ve already checked a lot of boxes along the way (family, success, and so on).
Sure, Chang was the right person at the right place at the right time, but TSMC could only be built by someone in their 50s. Someone who understood from experience that the work is more important than the accolades because they lived it.
Well, I suppose opening an essay with a compound gerund is close enough to the prose equivalent of premature optimization to suggest they may be onto something. However, aside from both processes optionally using keyboards for efficiency, code and prose really couldn’t be more different.
My first rented office was a single room that measured less than 50 square feet. I was able to get a desk and a chair in there but that was it. It had one of those old time doors, half frosted glass. I felt like a noir private eye.
There’s so much more to soil conservation. Our reliance on manmade chemicals over good stewardship of the land has resulted in so many problems.
Highly recommend looking into Louis Bromfield. A very accessible book: The Planter of Modern Life: How an Ohio Farm Boy Conquered Literary Paris, Fed the Lost Generation, and Sowed the Seeds of the Organic Food Movement
Most people using AI chat are exploring ideas and solutions. They’re doodling, not shopping. Or in old timey parlance, they’re looky-loos or tire kickers at best.
Anyone who’s had to justify ad spend in e-commerce can tell you that some sources produce huge traffic with absolutely terrible conversion. Reddit and Pinterest pretty much blow for this reason, with limited exceptions. It’s also why TikTok and other influencer platforms really work.
Conversion requires a mental shift from discovery to demand.
Also, really hate summaries like this without the actual source so here are the main points from the actual source (WIRED https://archive.is/7DuEV):
1. Instant Checkout inside ChatGPT performed poorly, with conversion about one-third of Walmart’s normal site.
2. The experience failed largely because it forced single-item purchases instead of letting users build a cart.
3. Walmart is shifting to embedding its own assistant, Sparky, inside ChatGPT and keeping checkout on its own system.
4. ChatGPT is still valuable because it’s driving significantly more new customer traffic than search.
5. Purchases that did work were mostly practical, problem-solving items like supplements and tools.
6. Fully automated “agentic shopping” is still unlikely in the near term because people want control over purchases.
7. OpenAI is moving away from in-chat checkout and focusing on helping users research while merchants handle transactions.
In short, AI is useful for discovery, but traditional e-commerce flows still outperform it at closing sales.