GEOly Research · Monthly · 2026-11-03
Who owns the AI shopping shelf? Where 695,137 ChatGPT shopping cards send the click
When ChatGPT answers a shopping question it often shows product cards — and each card links somewhere to buy. We looked at every card in one full weekly run of GEOly’s US shopping prompts and recorded where the link goes: the brand’s own site, or a retailer.
Key findings
- 17.5%of ChatGPT shopping cards link to the brand’s own site. The other 82.5% send the shopper to a retailer or marketplace.
- 54.7%of card links go to just ten retailers, led by Walmart (17.3%) and Home Depot (11.6%).
- ≤3of 695,137 cards linked to Amazon (amzn.com) in this run — the largest US retailer is effectively absent from ChatGPT’s shopping shelf.
- 13.8%is the median own-site share across 317 categories; it ranges from under 1% (laser levels) to 75% (motorized shades).
- linked cards
- 695,137
- answers
- 167,154
- topics
- 25,585
- destination domains
- 28,246
Ten retailers take more than half of the clicks
Share of all linked ChatGPT shopping cards by destination domain. 28,246 distinct domains appear; the ten largest take 54.7%.
| Destination | Share of cards | Linked cards |
|---|---|---|
| Brand’s own site (all) | 17.5% | — |
| walmart.com | 17.3% | 120,356 |
| homedepot.com | 11.6% | 80,393 |
| target.com | 5.7% | 39,593 |
| bestbuy.com | 4.9% | 33,809 |
| wayfair.com | 3.9% | 26,910 |
| nordstrom.com | 3.7% | 26,007 |
| ulta.com | 2.8% | 19,547 |
| chewy.com | 1.9% | 13,421 |
| lowes.com | 1.7% | 11,910 |
| bhphotovideo.com | 1.2% | 8,305 |
| backcountry.com | 1.0% | 7,170 |
| scheels.com | 1.0% | 6,925 |
| staples.com | 1.0% | 6,886 |
| etsy.com | 0.5% | 3,681 |
Who wins the click depends on the category
Share of cards linking to the brand’s own site, in categories with at least 500 linked cards (317 categories). Direct-to-consumer apparel and made-to-measure home goods are the most direct; tools, home improvement, beauty staples and musical gear go almost entirely through retailers.
| Category | Own-site share | Linked cards |
|---|---|---|
| Motorized shades | 75.4% | 528 |
| Silk robes | 75.0% | 503 |
| Silk pajamas | 74.0% | 645 |
| Shapewear | 66.2% | 547 |
| Smart blinds | 61.7% | 596 |
| Balaclavas | 60.7% | 853 |
| Long johns | 57.1% | 525 |
| Pajama sets | 56.8% | 1,024 |
| Category | Own-site share | Linked cards |
|---|---|---|
| Laser levels | 0.7% | 588 |
| Ventilation fans | 1.0% | 572 |
| Audio interfaces | 1.5% | 581 |
| Facial cleansers | 1.7% | 867 |
| Bathroom sinks | 2.1% | 654 |
| Snack foods | 2.2% | 556 |
| Guitar pedals | 2.2% | 679 |
| Eyebrow pencils | 2.3% | 740 |
What brands should do
1. Treat retailer listings as AI-facing pages
For most categories the click lands on Walmart, Home Depot, Target or Best Buy, not on you. Title, specs, price and availability on those listings are what the shopper sees next.
2. Make your own product pages eligible
Brands that win the card link tend to sell direct with complete product data. Server-rendered product pages with Product structured data, price and stock give the engine a direct destination.
3. Do not assume Amazon covers you
In this run at most 3 of 695,137 cards linked to Amazon. A brand that sells mainly through Amazon needs a second retail partner or a direct channel to be clickable in ChatGPT shopping.
4. Measure Share of Card, not just mentions
A brand can win the recommendation and lose the transaction to a retailer. Track who owns your product cards alongside Share of Model.
See who owns your product cards
GEOly tracks Share of Card — which brands and retailers own the product cards in AI answers for your category — alongside Share of Model and AIGVR.
Methodology
- Snapshot: the ChatGPT weekly run of September 4, 2026 — the first run in which GEOly recorded each card’s link domain (97% of cards carry one). 713,457 shopping cards in 167,154 answers to 25,585 US-English shopping topics; 695,137 cards with a link.
- Each card is matched to a brand by its product title. "Own site" means the link domain equals or is a subdomain of a domain mapped to that brand. Brands without a mapped domain count as not own-site, so own-site shares are lower bounds.
- This is one run; retailer mix can change week to week as engines change partners. Google AI Mode cards are not included: their link domains are not yet recorded at this scale.
- GEOly tracks ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Microsoft Copilot.
How to cite
GEOly, "Who owns the AI shopping shelf? Where 695,137 ChatGPT shopping cards send the click", published 2026-11-03, https://www.geoly.ai/research/ai-shopping-shelf