This article from The Information citing a scaleback of Shopping in ChatGpt is not surprising but the title is a little misleading. What it should really say is the scale back is in Instant Checkout, not in Shopping overall and that in fact ChatGPT apps are becoming the new storefronts.
I have always felt that Instant Checkout by itself would be challenging because the requirement for retailers and brands to integrate product catalogs and payment methods puts a big burden on brands and retailers and adoption will be slow and also many retailers I have spoken to — some much more forcefully than others have said that they prefer to have customers transact on their sites vs on LLMs. In addition, checkout comes only after strong discovery and while ChatGPT is excellent at discovery, a more refined and curated form of discovery can be best achieved by a ChatGPT app.
The article does point to something very important and probably should have been the headline. ChatGPT apps are the new storefront. It is in these apps that shopping will occur and depending on the sophistication of the app, the app either integrates with retailers commerce systems or provides options like nearest store location or handsoff to the retailers eCommerce site. Lets remember over 70% of shopping still happens in physical stores.
What the app does which is probably the most important function of the app is to aid discovery by presenting options, answering questions curating lifestyle content etc. all of which get the consumer comfortable about making the purchase.
Every brand and retailer therefore should and will invest in such Shopping Apps — which enable brands and retailers to have a shopping presence in ChatGPT — how the final transaction happens will be up to the brand or retailer and will also depend in the level of integration the brand or retailer is willing to invest in with their commerce engine.
Bottom line — ChatGPT apps are the new way for consumers to shop on ChatGPT. This is already happening with storefronts from Instacart, Target, Booking.com and others — I predict that every brand or retailer will have their own storefront in the form of a ChatGPT app to engage and enable consumers with their discovery on ChatGPT and provide various options to buy.