Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website • Hacker News Board

Re: Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website

#131

Post by ImPostingOnHN » Mon, Mar 23, 2026, 1:15 PM UTC

darthoctopus wrote: post #70

petcat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not that interested in getting good at it I think they're interested in getting good at it. They just don't want to put in the human time and effort to do so. They expect their many failures and short-comings to be shored up by continuous model training. But that, of course, means that in the meantime it will suck and nobody will use it.

> don't want to put in the human time and effort to do so In most circles, that is "not that interested in getting good at it".

Maybe in yours?

Someone can want a thing, even very badly, without wanting to put in the work for it.

Conversely, someone can work very hard for something they do not want.

The linkage between wanting a thing and wanting to do the work to get it is not absolute, or necessary there at all.

Re: Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website

#132

Post by boringg » Mon, Mar 23, 2026, 1:16 PM UTC

janalsncm wrote: post #15

This is from one of the links in the article > Why this is happening. Two forces are slowing agentic commerce, according to Leigh McKenzie, director of online visibility at Semrush: infrastructure and trust. Real-time catalog normalization across tens of millions of SKUs is a decade-scale problem Google already solved with Merchant Center, and consumers still default to checkout flows they trust — Apple Pay, Google W…

30 years? E-commerce hasn't been around that long - try 5 years of optimization MAX.

FWIW OpenAI is desperately trying to monetize and they think e-commerce is a "simple" problem to solve. I mean they do need to convert their funnel without alienating their users. I assume they are going to have some big payouts for agentic purchases gone awry or leave merchants on the hook.

Re: Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website

#133

Post by skywhopper » Mon, Mar 23, 2026, 1:19 PM UTC

__alexs wrote: post #5

(Good) E-commerce has been ruthlessly optimised to get shoppers to products they'll actually buy and then remove all distractions from buying. A chat interface is just fundamentally incompatible with this. The agent makes it too easy to ask questions and comparison shop.

Where are these sites? Everywhere I shop online is full of distractions and attempts to funnel me away from what I wanted and confuse me along the way.

Not that a chat interface would be an improvement.

Re: Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website

#134

Post by fc417fc802 » Mon, Mar 23, 2026, 1:20 PM UTC

rune-dev wrote: post #108

TeMPOraL wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By embracing adversarial interoperability - instead of chasing hundreds of integration deals across industries that put LLMs in products, they focused fully on integrating product access into chat, by combination of business deals, apps/MCPs, and engineer/designer support for users, all directed towards the goal of having the LLM become the "superapp" where work is done, gradually replacing product classes in order o…

They can’t even deliver their own flagship products without bugs, and terrible UX. So I’m doubtful of their abilities. These are also the same companies allowing their AI to make decisions in war, have no qualms about the mental issues they’re causing in people, and have abused workers in 3rd world countries for years. But you think they’re holding out on “destroying the software industry” out of the goodness of thei…

I think his reasoning was pretty clearly presented as not the goodness of their heart but rather the medium to long term predicted outcome on their bottom line. Ultimately failing or getting tangled up with regulators any more than necessary is to be avoided. If you move too early and it chases people away from your platform which undermines your ability to keep innovating then a competitor who held back will ultimately eat your lunch.

Re: Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website

#135

Post by nope1000 » Mon, Mar 23, 2026, 1:20 PM UTC

holografix wrote: post #102

Wow the sceptics really came out in force for this one. I’m currently using Gemini to research components for a remote controlled plane. I have the frame of the plane and now need to buy correctly specced servo motors, an engine, battery, etc etc. It has saved me so much time and educated me tremendously on how the different components interact and the options available. If I could just press “buy” from within Gemini…

I would assume the average purchase in Walmart is significantly more low-tech than this though

Re: Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website

#136

Post by everdrive » Mon, Mar 23, 2026, 1:20 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #30

everdrive wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I sort of trust them to make product recommendations Never, ever.

I trust them as much as any other online source, which is to say, sort of, but only as a starting point for research. Do you have a better alternative?

It depends. For home improvement projects, you can see what tools people are using. If a home repair channel is trustworthy, that may be a good start. General market research can help as well. For instance, post-China-buyout Craftsman should be avoided. For nearly anything else, it really depends. Name-brand electronics are usually safe unless they're small items (eg, power adapters, USB cords. Batteries are nearly impossible to purchase online without getting ripped off.) For clothing, I would just generally recommend only buying from thrift stores. For a lot of physical items (eg: door knobs, fuel hoses, etc.) it is actually quite difficult to purchase online. In person, we can tell a lot about quality just by touching the object with your hands. (eg: a flimsy shelf is not self-evident online, but is obvious in the hardware store.)

I suppose that's a long-winded way of saying that nearly every category of item requires its own strategy. For a brief period consumers were winning the information war and you could just go to Amazon, read the reviews, and get a superior product for cheap. We're now in a modern-but-old-fashioned situation. It's quite difficult to know if you're going to get ripped off, and you're forced to rely on more blunt heuristics. (eg: trust specific brands, buy things in person, etc.) None of these are perfect, but they are quickly becoming the best of some bad options.

Re: Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website

#137

Post by butlike » Mon, Mar 23, 2026, 1:21 PM UTC

boringg wrote: post #132

janalsncm wrote: post #15

This is from one of the links in the article > Why this is happening. Two forces are slowing agentic commerce, according to Leigh McKenzie, director of online visibility at Semrush: infrastructure and trust. Real-time catalog normalization across tens of millions of SKUs is a decade-scale problem Google already solved with Merchant Center, and consumers still default to checkout flows they trust — Apple Pay, Google W…

30 years? E-commerce hasn't been around that long - try 5 years of optimization MAX. FWIW OpenAI is desperately trying to monetize and they think e-commerce is a "simple" problem to solve. I mean they do need to convert their funnel without alienating their users. I assume they are going to have some big payouts for agentic purchases gone awry or leave merchants on the hook.

30 years ago is 1996. Amazon had been around for 2 years (they were incorporated in 1994).

Re: Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website

#138

Post by sarbanharble » Mon, Mar 23, 2026, 1:23 PM UTC

The shift to AI is currently a boon to consumer. Penny’s has obviously done this, as they have had a $119 Man U jersey ring up at $19 for a week now, with many of my mates having bought one. It’s unbelievable that anyone thinks gutting human oversight builds a better company.

Re: Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website

#139

Post by jazzypants » Mon, Mar 23, 2026, 1:24 PM UTC

boringg wrote: post #132

janalsncm wrote: post #15

This is from one of the links in the article > Why this is happening. Two forces are slowing agentic commerce, according to Leigh McKenzie, director of online visibility at Semrush: infrastructure and trust. Real-time catalog normalization across tens of millions of SKUs is a decade-scale problem Google already solved with Merchant Center, and consumers still default to checkout flows they trust — Apple Pay, Google W…

30 years? E-commerce hasn't been around that long - try 5 years of optimization MAX. FWIW OpenAI is desperately trying to monetize and they think e-commerce is a "simple" problem to solve. I mean they do need to convert their funnel without alienating their users. I assume they are going to have some big payouts for agentic purchases gone awry or leave merchants on the hook.

This is a very confusing comment to me. How were people buying books from Amazon in the 90s if it wasn't e-commerce?

Re: Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website

#140

Post by skywhopper » Mon, Mar 23, 2026, 1:24 PM UTC

pluc wrote: post #88

You can either have AI be honest or AI become a marketing tool. The two are fundamentally incompatible. You won't get it to push your products when users ask what's the best XYZ - either because it'll be too honest to lie or because it'll be too expensive for you.

LLMs do not have a concept of “honesty”. Nothing they say is honest or dishonest. Anyway, “What’s the best XYZ?” is not a question that has a definitive answer for most XYZs.