{"id":4328503,"date":"2025-10-02T18:02:48","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T16:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deptagency.com\/insight\/chatgpt-commerce-has-made-its-debut-what-brands-need-to-know\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T16:56:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T14:56:16","slug":"chatgpt-commerce-has-made-its-debut-what-brands-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.deptagency.com\/en-nl\/insight\/chatgpt-commerce-has-made-its-debut-what-brands-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"ChatGPT commerce has made its debut: What brands need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/mask><\/g><\/svg>\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tInsights\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\tChatGPT commerce has made its debut: What brands need to know<\/h1>
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\n\t\tSander Blokker\t\t
\n\t\tHead of Strategy\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tDate\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tOctober 2, 2025\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n<\/div>\n\n\n\tOn September 29, OpenAI announced an early access programme enabling a select group of U.S. merchants to sell products directly through ChatGPT.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\tIt\u2019s a milestone in the AI roadmap and a shift we\u2019ve been calling agentic commerce<\/a>, where AI acts as a shopper\u2019s personal assistant, browsing, comparing, and purchasing on their behalf.

This is no longer a futuristic scenario. Conversational buying is here, embedded directly into the customer journey. The real question for brands isn\u2019t if their products will appear in AI-driven commerce, but whether they\u2019ll be discoverable, trusted, and purchased.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\tWhy this matters: Part of a bigger commerce shift<\/h2>\n\tThis launch doesn\u2019t live in isolation; it\u2019s the next wave of a broader trend. For years, commerce has been fragmenting across the platforms where consumers spend their time:<\/p>\n\n\t
  • First, marketplaces<\/strong> (Amazon and eBay)<\/li>
  • Then, social<\/strong> commerce<\/strong> (TikTok Shop and Instagram Checkout)<\/li>
  • And now, AI-powered assistants<\/strong> like ChatGPT<\/li><\/ul>\n\nWith each wave, brands that moved first captured outsized benefits. For example, when TikTok Shop launched, DEPT\u00ae helped a skincare brand enter early, resulting in 48% of total sales from TikTok over several months. Today, social commerce already makes up 17.1% of global e-commerce, projected to grow to 18.1% by 2029<\/a>.

    The point? Early movers win. Brands that make their products shoppable in ChatGPT before competitors will capture mindshare and market share.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\tWhat we know about the ChatGPT rollout<\/h2>\n\t\n\n\t
  • Etsy is first<\/strong>: U.S. Etsy sellers are already enabled for direct purchases in ChatGPT.<\/li>
  • Shopify is next<\/strong>: U.S. merchants using Shopify Payments will gain access soon.<\/li>
  • Other platforms will follow<\/strong>: Salesforce, Adobe, and others are expected to adopt OpenAI\u2019s open Agentic Commerce Protocol in the future.<\/li>
  • Merchants keep control<\/strong>: Sellers remain responsible for fulfillment, returns, and customer data, including emails and shipping details.<\/li><\/ul>\n\nFor anyone selling anything on the internet, the signal is clear: the pilot is small now, but expansion is inevitable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\tHow to prepare for agentic commerce<\/h2>\n\t\nMake data discoverable<\/h3>\n\nChatGPT isn\u2019t clicking through carousels like a human. It\u2019s parsing structured product data. That means:<\/p>\n\n\n\t
  • Taxonomy and tagging must be bulletproof<\/strong>: Products need clear categories, attributes, and variants.<\/li>
  • Feeds must be richer than before and machine-readable<\/strong>: Dimensions, materials, inventory, shipping, and returns should be fully structured. The number of fields is much wider and better suited to GPT-led questions than a generic shopping feed.<\/li>
  • Consumer intent should guide feeds<\/strong>: Map content to actual shopper queries (e.g., \u201cbest backpack under $150\u201d), informed by SEO insights.<\/li><\/ul>\n\nThink of this as moving from SEO to GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation). Just as SEO was about being visible on Google, GEO is about being surfaced by AI agents<\/a>.<\/p>\n\nA world of comparisons<\/h3>\n\nChatGPT excels at side-by-side recommendations. For example, \u201cWhich sneakers are better for running, Brand A or Brand B?\u201d\u00a0

    This means brands must be ready for constant comparison. Authentic reviews will play a critical role, with volume, recency, and positivity influencing whether your products are surfaced and trusted. At the same time, brands should anticipate potential weaknesses and clearly frame their value proposition, whether that\u2019s durability, customer service, or flexible return policies.\u00a0

    And it\u2019s not just your own channels that matter: external trust signals like Wikipedia pages, Reddit discussions, and third-party reviews all shape how AI evaluates and positions your brand. In other words, comparison is the new battleground.<\/p>\n\nConversational brand voice<\/h3>\n\nWith no website design to lean on, your tone and clarity must come through in the answers ChatGPT provides:<\/p>\n\n\n\t
  • Build structured Q&A data for common shopper questions.<\/li>
  • Make sure your brand voice is concise, clear, and consistent across all feeds.<\/li>
  • Put governance in place so AI-driven recommendations align with your brand promise.<\/li><\/ul>\n\nTreat ChatGPT like your newest sales associate and train it well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\tMeasurement & economics<\/h2>\n\tConversational commerce changes how performance is measured:<\/p>\n\n\t
  • Attribution<\/strong>: Shopify will tag AI-driven orders, but new tracking frameworks will emerge.<\/li>
  • Margins and returns<\/strong>: AI may attract more first-time buyers. Brands should monitor return rates closely.<\/li>
  • Customer service<\/strong>: Expect higher volumes of conversational inquiries and plan resourcing.<\/li>
  • Upsell opportunities<\/strong>: Test prompts and feeds that encourage basket growth, not just single-item checkouts.<\/li>
  • Lifetime value<\/strong>: Since merchants retain customer data, ChatGPT commerce can become a powerful acquisition engine if paired with strong retention strategies.<\/li><\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\tLooking ahead<\/h2>\n\tBeyond Shopify and Etsy, the Agentic Commerce Protocol is open-sourced, meaning other platforms will soon integrate. Google\u2019s ecosystem is already moving this way, with Merchant Center data feeding its algorithms. Gemini-powered direct purchases may not be far off.

    For brands, this is the next evolution of digital shelves. The winners will be those who:<\/p>\n\n\t
  • Pilot early, with clean, discoverable product data<\/li>
  • Test conversational readiness against real shopper prompts<\/li>
  • Iterate product feeds as living datasets<\/li>
  • Integrate ChatGPT commerce into broader channel strategy<\/li>
  • Expand as the ecosystem scales<\/li><\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\tAgentic commerce is now operational. And it\u2019s happening inside ChatGPT.<\/h2>\n\tWhat makes this different from marketplace integrations is the ownership of the customer relationship. With Shopify ensuring merchants keep their customer data, brands can build long-term value instead of chasing one-off sales.

    The brands should act now by optimising product feeds, strengthening reviews, preparing conversational answers, and aligning measurement frameworks to make it easy for consumers to discover, trust, and buy from them in this new era of     AI-driven commerce<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n
    \n\tOn our MIND<\/span><\/h2>\n\tVIEW ALL INSIGHTS<\/a>\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
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