TLDR: Over Black Friday 2025, a billion dollar luxury handbag business saw conversion rates of 30 to 45% from shoppers who arrived via AI search. That figure comes from the brand’s CTO, shared with Jim Herbert, CEO of Patchworks, on a recent episode of Leaders on Shopify.
The lesson for Shopify brands is that the AI opportunity worth chasing today isn’t robots buying on your behalf, it’s shoppers using ChatGPT to find what they want, then landing on your site ready to buy.
What is agentic commerce, and is it overhyped?
Agentic commerce is when an AI agent independently buys products on a shopper’s behalf, from finding the item to completing checkout. Jim’s view is that it’s overhyped – it’s coming, but it’s not here yet.
He says he’s seen this hype cycle before. Around 2005, the industry said ecommerce would destroy the high street. Jim points out that roughly 83% of US commerce last year still happened in store.
The standards are still settling too. Patchworks is part of the Commerce Operations Foundation, which created an agentic commerce standard two months before Google and Shopify announced their own at NRF in January. That’s three standards already.
Jim says that agentic will be another channel, not the only way people buy.
Why ChatGPT shoppers convert so well
Shoppers are already using AI to find products. They upload a photo of a bag they like and ask ChatGPT what it is and where to buy it.
By the time they click through, that research is already done, they’ve found the exact product and decided they want it. For a considered purchase like a luxury handbag, that’s why conversion hit 30 to 45% depending on the day.
For context, Dynamic Yield’s global benchmark puts average ecommerce conversion at 2.72% (source, checked September 2026). The AI search traffic in this example converted at more than ten times that rate.
How to get your products found in ChatGPT
AI search has an immediate impact on how you structure your data, your product data needs to be complete, and you need to be visible in LLMs right now.
In practice, that starts with:
- Complete product data on every listing, so an LLM can match a shopper’s question to your exact product
- Accurate stock and pricing synced in real time across your systems, so the product a shopper finds is one they can actually buy
- Clean integrations between Shopify, your ERP and your other tools, so data doesn’t break or go stale as you scale
Then take these four steps:
- Get your Shopify catalog right: OpenAI says Shopify merchants’ product data already feeds into ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog, so complete product data there pays off directly (OpenAI)
- Let OpenAI’s crawler in: OAI-SearchBot crawls sites for ChatGPT search, so check your robots.txt doesn’t block it
- Add Product schema markup: AI crawlers fetch your HTML without running JavaScript, so put name, price, image and availability in structured data on the page (Vercel)
- Track ChatGPT traffic: ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to outbound links, so you can measure visits and revenue in your analytics
Larger merchants can also apply to OpenAI for direct product feed access, which keeps ChatGPT in sync with your latest product information. Product results in ChatGPT aren’t ads, so placement is earned through data quality, not budget.
What to prioritise before AI
Jim puts true agentic buying maybe a year away. In the meantime, these channels are already delivering for Patchworks customers:
- TikTok Shop and marketplaces: brands are seeing big impacts, so explore these if you’re not on them yet
- YouTube: younger audiences now watch YouTube on the TV, and it’s an affordable way to get eyeballs on your brand
- Conversion rate: host John points out that fixing your basket and checkout is often the biggest lever you can pull right now
And none of it works without a good product. Jim has watched a high street name go bust despite a much better website, because the product had slipped.
FAQ
What is agentic commerce? Agentic commerce is when an AI agent independently buys products on a shopper’s behalf.
Is agentic commerce worth investing in now? Jim expects it to become another sales channel, roughly a year away. AI search is delivering results today.
Does AI search traffic convert better? It can. According to Jim, one billion-dollar luxury handbag brand saw 30 to 45% conversion from AI search traffic over Black Friday 2025.
How do I get my products to show up in ChatGPT? Start with complete, accurate product data that stays in sync across your systems. LLMs can only recommend what they can read and match.
Listen to the full episode of Leaders on Shopify with Jim Herbert, CEO of Patchworks. Listen on Apple Podcasts
