None of 7,048 ChatGPT Product Cards Send Shoppers to Amazon

Ask ChatGPT for the best stroller, blender or pair of running shoes and the answer usually arrives with a row of product cards: a photo, a price and the name of a store, one click away from a checkout page. For physical products that row is now the norm, and it turns a chatbot answer into a shopping page.

That matters to anyone who sells online, because the store named on the card is the store that gets the visit. A shopper who asks ChatGPT what to buy and clicks a card never sees a search results page or a marketplace listing. The retailers that appear on the cards are the ones collecting that demand.

ChatGPT shows product cards in 45% of its answers to "best product or service" questions, and in more than nine in ten answers about apparel, gaming, kitchen and kids' products. The stores on those cards are Walmart, Best Buy, Target and specialty retailers. Across all 7,048 cards, Amazon, the default for so much online shopping, is the merchant on none.

On September 23, 2026 we asked ChatGPT 2,000 questions of the form "best [product or service]", such as "best air fryer" or "best travel credit card", across 20 categories from apparel and kitchen to insurance and travel. Each question was asked twice from a US location, giving 4,000 answers. We also collected 5,968 ChatGPT answers to general, everyday questions for comparison. Together those answers showed 7,048 product cards, and we recorded each card's product, store, price and rating.

A product card is the shopping box ChatGPT shows inside an answer: a product name and image, a price, the store selling it (the merchant) and sometimes a star rating, with a link to buy. An answer counts as showing cards when it includes at least one. Merchant shares are shares of all 7,048 cards, so a store shown on ten cards counts ten times.

ChatGPT's 45% average hides two different behaviors. For physical goods, cards are close to guaranteed: 96.5% of apparel answers include them, gaming 92%, and kitchen and kids' products 90.5% each. Office (85.5%) and home (85%) products follow. When an answer shows cards, it shows 3.9 products on average, a short list that reads like a shelf in a store.

Services never get cards. Insurance, finance, services and travel questions showed none, and software showed cards in 0.5% of answers. Cars (12%) and health (5%) sit close to zero too. Cards also depend on the question being a buying question: on general, everyday questions, 0.4% of ChatGPT answers include product cards. ChatGPT shows cards when someone is choosing a product to buy, and almost never otherwise.

Big-box retailers dominate the cards. Walmart is the store on 15.8% of ChatGPT product cards, about one in six, followed by Best Buy at 11.9% and Target at 10.3%. Those three fill 38% of all cards. Specialty retailers come next: Dick's Sporting Goods (6.7%), Nordstrom (5%), The Home Depot (4.8%), Chewy and Wayfair (2.5% each) and Ulta Beauty (2.4%).

Amazon does not appear as the merchant on any of the 7,048 cards, in any form. The field behind the leaders is wide: 530 different merchants appear, including brands selling direct such as Nike at 1.9%. For shoppers who buy through ChatGPT's cards, the path to purchase runs through a different set of stores than many sellers expect. Product cards are a different surface from the retailer links AI engines cite as sources in their answer text, where Amazon does appear, so a store can be cited in an answer without showing up on its cards.

The median product on a ChatGPT product card costs $249.99, and the average is $684, pulled up by a smaller number of high-ticket items. These are considered purchases, the kind a shopper researches before buying.

Star ratings are rare on the cards: 2.8% of ChatGPT product cards display one. The card itself shows the product, the price and the store, and the persuasion happens in ChatGPT's written answer next to it. For a brand, that puts the weight on what the answer says about the product, and on the product details the retailer publishes, rather than on a star score.

If you sell physical products, treat ChatGPT as a storefront. The retailers on its cards win the click, so make sure your products are listed at Walmart, Best Buy, Target and the specialty retailers in your category, with accurate prices, stock status and images. Brands that sell mostly through Amazon should give those other retail listings extra attention, since none of ChatGPT's cards sent shoppers to Amazon.

If you sell direct from your own store, keep your product feed and product pages complete: a clear product name, price, availability, images and specifications. That is the information a card displays, and 530 merchants show it is not a closed list. Our ecommerce seo services help brands tighten product feeds and product pages for AI shopping.

If you sell services, software, insurance or financial products, do not expect product cards. ChatGPT answers those questions in text and sources, so the work is being named and cited in the answer itself.

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