The Growing Impact of ChatGPT on E-commerce During the Holiday Season

Rising ChatGPT Referrals to Retail Apps

Recent Report: Reveals the growing impact of ChatGPT as a major referral source for e-commerce applications and websites, noting that its market share is still limited.

According to a new analysis by Apptopia, a mobile app analytics firm, ChatGPT referrals to mobile retail apps rose by 28% year-over-year during the Black Friday shopping period, which included the days from Thanksgiving Thursday through Sunday.

Dominance of Large Retailers in Referrals

Giant Preference: Small retail companies may not benefit as much from using ChatGPT compared to e-commerce giants like Amazon and Walmart.

Amazon's share of ChatGPT referrals grew to 54% this year, up from 40.5% in 2024. Meanwhile, Walmart's share increased from 2.7% last year to 14.9% currently, highlighting the significant concentration of referrals on major market players.

Data Collection: This data was collected by Apptopia's US panel, which relies on observed consumer activity on mobile devices. Apptopia, as a leading mobile app analytics company, uses a sophisticated statistical model to collect data on downloads, usage, revenue, and app performance for iOS and Android systems. Their system continuously scans app stores like the iOS App Store and Google Play hourly to gather public data points, including rankings, ratings, and prices, in over 150 countries. Additionally, the company tracks thousands of Software Development Kits (SDKs) across millions of apps to provide accurate and up-to-date insights. As these are not direct data, their figures are estimates based on comprehensive analyses.

Referral Session Definition: In this analysis, the company defined a referral session as a mobile retail app session that immediately follows (within 30 seconds) a ChatGPT session.

Limited Market Share Despite Significant Growth

Total Referral Market: Despite this significant jump in referrals from 2024, consumer use of AI bots to find e-commerce deals still represents a small portion of the overall referral market, as Apptopia noted.

Last year, ChatGPT referrals to e-commerce apps accounted for only 0.64% of total ChatGPT sessions on Black Friday, and this figure rose slightly to 0.82% this year.

Referral Mechanism: In these cases, a referral session occurred when ChatGPT presented a shopping idea to the user, or when the user clicked a link directly from their chat session that led them to the relevant retail app.

Adobe's Insights on the Impact of AI

AI Impact: Apptopia is not the only company tracking how AI is influencing the retail sector during the busy holiday shopping season.

Adobe also reported this week that AI traffic to US retail sites (measured by shopper clicks on links) increased by 805% year-over-year on Black Friday, and that shoppers arriving at a retail site from an AI bot were 38% more likely to make a purchase.

Momentum Continues on Cyber Monday and During the Holiday Season

Continuous Ascent: Additionally, Adobe reported that AI traffic to US retail sites on Cyber Monday increased by 670%.

And in the holiday shopping season so far (November 1 to December 1), AI traffic saw a massive increase of 760%, underscoring the growing importance of these technologies in driving digital sales.