The context
Following the optimisation of content (GEO), retailers can now generate sales through Search engines. The first step is to appear in recommendations by making a site data-crawlable. This allows their catalogues and product sheets to be readable by conversational engines. The second step is how a user clicks the link and purchases on a retailer site. Alternatively, in the U.S.A., the purchase can be made natively on the AI engine, a feature that is not yet available for Europe.
At the end of 2025, ChatGPT controlled a 61.3% market share of AI search engines in the U.S.A., compared to 14.1% for Copilot, 13.4% for Gemini and 6.4% for Perplexity. On ChatGPT, at the end of June 2025, 10% of queries were related to shopping. However, for retailers, the share of online traffic coming from LLMs remains low, representing “less than 2% in September 2025 for Kingfisher” Group, according to Romain Roulleau, Chief Digital Officer.
The strong and weak signals
GEO strategies in full consolidation. For most retailers, projects to structure product sheets, customer reviews and presence on Reddit were well advanced last year. The goal is to ensure open access to websites by AI engines. Many startups and SEO agencies are structed around this development.
Journaliste économique pour mind Retail depuis 2024, j’analyse la transformation digitale du commerce.
