Retailers are racing to appear in chatbot results while resisting efforts to cede customer data that underpin online sales. Growing online traffic from AI platforms has pushed retailers including Walmart, Ulta Beauty and Wayfair to update their websites so their products rank highly in chatbot searches.
Defending Their Turf
Executives argue that retailers retain an edge because they know far more about customer preferences than general-purpose AI tools do. When a shopper completes a purchase on a brand’s own site, the retailer maintains a direct relationship with that customer, said Vince Koh, global head of digital commerce at Amazon Web Services.
Ulta Beauty’s head of digital and e-commerce, Josh Friedman, said the retailer would prefer customers complete transactions on Ulta’s website. Ulta is seeing double the conversion and intent from shoppers finding its products through Gemini and ChatGPT.
Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
