Since September, a new sales channel has emerged, disintermediating online retailers and transforming the customer experience. Instant purchasing within AI search engines is advancing rapidly. In the U.S.A., more and more retailers are interfacing with the Instant Checkout agent, which allows users to buy products directly in ChatGPT (free or pro version). On October 14, Walmart announced the upcoming integration of this service. “For many years, online shopping has been limited to a search bar and a long list of results”, said Doug McMillon, C.E.O of Walmart. “This is about to change. A native experience based on multimedia AI, personalised and contextual, is emerging”. This instant purchase feature is already active for sellers on the Etsy platform and will soon be enabled for US e-commerce sites using Shopify such as Glossier, Vuori, Spanx and Skims. Instacart makes the catalogue searchable in ChatGPT via open APIs.
This agent acts like a personal shopper. “When a ChatGPT user is ready to buy a product, a payment interface managed by Stripe is presented within the conversation”, explained Charles Delaville, Director of Communication at Stripe, to mind Retail. After using their preferred payment method, Stripe issues a Shared Payment Token”, a new payment component that allows ChatGPT to initiate a transaction. This is valid for a single retailer and does not expose the buyer’s payment information. ChatGPT then sends this token to the retailer’s systems via an API.
Journaliste économique pour mind Retail depuis 2024, j’analyse la transformation digitale du commerce.