ChatGPT Agentic Commerce User Behavior Study Deep Dive with AI Search and SEO Researcher, Erik Van Buskirk

This week is a research deep dive. ReFiBuy commissioned a behavioral study of how real people shop inside ChatGPT and Google's AI Mode, and Scot sat down with the researcher who ran it to walk through what was found. The full study is published today This is the conversation behind the numbers.

Highlights:

𝟴𝟰% 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝗮 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱: About 84% of product choices in the study came from a product card. That's 83.7%, and Scot rounds it up "if you allow."𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝘄𝗼: The first card wins by a wide margin, with roughly 43% of picks. But card three outperformed card two in both ChatGPT and AI Mode. Eric's take is that "it's not really a ranking." Scot's guess is curiosity, because card three is only partly visible in the carousel.𝗣𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝘀: About 75% of shoppers skipped the AI's written answer and went straight to the product cards. They'd come back to the text later, but only as a second step.𝟵𝟴% 𝗼𝗳 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀: Purchase-intent prompts like "I want to buy X today" brought up product cards almost every time.𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝘀: When shoppers had to click out to a retailer, they leaned even harder toward the first offer than toward the first product card. The likeliest path is first card, first offer.𝗔𝗱𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲: About 6 in 10 free-plan users saw ads or sponsored content on a task. 71% rated them at least as useful as Google search ads, and about 35% said an ad influenced what they considered buying.𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗼𝘅: Reviews were the main reason for a pick only 2% of the time. Afterward, about 75% said reviews mattered. Scot's explanation is that nobody reads them, but everyone takes the 4.8 over the 3.2.𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁, 𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗹 𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝘀: Eric says the biggest surprise after two years of these studies is "the extent to which people trust, even when they say they don't." A mismatched price or a wrong spec breaks that trust quickly.𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗸𝗲𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗷𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗲𝗿𝗮: Scot compares 20 years of chasing "men's running shoe" on Google with a world where shoppers let the AI choose for them.𝟰𝟬 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲, 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸: The study had 40 remote participants doing 30-minute think-aloud sessions on screen recordings. The team logged small behaviors down to seconds spent and scroll percentages.Scot came out of the A