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Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website

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

#241

Post by lossyalgo »

Auracle wrote: post #199
TitaRusell wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the hell would AI even bring to the table here? Already your favourite e commerce site has all your data. You can switch on the "buy this automatically" feature.

If I can tell ChatGPT to order me what I need to replace the bottom element on my water heater, and here’s a picture of the ridiculously long model number, that saves me quite a bit of time. I used that as an example because I did that last week, apart from me just going to the store to get the links that it brought up.

Of course anecdotal but 2 months ago I tried to do that for a missing bolt in a popular scooter (roughly 7 years old, bought 2nd hand so didn't know exact specs). I fed it various images that I took + internet images. It found a bunch of local shops but always found the wrong part (but very similar looking). I double-checked everything multiple times, via multiple contexts, even different pre-prompts from various sources, and asking plenty of questions. We chatted in thinking mode for what felt like ages, and according to paragraphs explaining why it HAD to be the right one, multiple times, with evidence that it sometimes gladly generated in image form (often completely garbage imagery e.g. with half-drawn bolts extruding from multiple surfaces). Eventually it found something very plausible which I ordered. It was the wrong part.

I had to get someone on the phone to help me find and order the right part (which was on their website, for many years according to waybackmachien).

I love LLMs but it's still totally hit/miss what you get. I'd rather not give it write-access to my bank account just yet.

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

#242

Post by keeda »

oofbaroomf wrote: post #223

ChatGPT recommended me some good hard drives for price per TB, and one particularly cheap one had direct checkout with Walmart, so I tried it, because why not? It let me get all the way to the payment step before it told me it was out of stock. Walmart's website told me it was out of stock when I decided to click on the link. This is probably part of why it doesn't convert.

On a related note, I think that's a good monetization vector for chatbots. Long back I asked ChatGPT to recommend a few USB hard drives with very specific requirements -- including a small size and weight ("can be duct-taped to a tablet form-factor device without being obtrusive and constantly falling off"), low cost, and speed fast enough to boot an OS from. After a pretty technical conversation, it came up with 3 very specific products, one which ended up being the start point of the one I actually purchased on Amazon.

I came away thinking if those were presented as affiliated links, that conversation could have been monetized in a mutually beneficial way.

I keep thinking of that interaction whenever the discussion of ads on chatbots crops up. In an ideal world, model providers could better capture the value they provide. Unfortunately, I suspect such conversations are too rare, and often harder to monetize. (Like that time free tier ChatGPT helped me recover $500 in compensation for an airline delay. Great value for me, but no upside for OpenAI.)

Unfortunately given the amounts and timelines of returns that investors expect from OpenAI, and their scale, and with ChatGPT constrained to its “Free Consumer-facing Internet App” form factor, they are doomed to have to trade in the reserve currency of the web: ads.

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

#244

Post by satvikpendem »

keeda wrote: post #242
oofbaroomf wrote: post #223

ChatGPT recommended me some good hard drives for price per TB, and one particularly cheap one had direct checkout with Walmart, so I tried it, because why not? It let me get all the way to the payment step before it told me it was out of stock. Walmart's website told me it was out of stock when I decided to click on the link. This is probably part of why it doesn't convert.

On a related note, I think that's a good monetization vector for chatbots. Long back I asked ChatGPT to recommend a few USB hard drives with very specific requirements -- including a small size and weight ("can be duct-taped to a tablet form-factor device without being obtrusive and constantly falling off"), low cost, and speed fast enough to boot an OS from. After a pretty technical conversation, it came up with 3 v…

Gemini does this, it has Google Shopping links.

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

#245

Post by brookst »

jborden13 wrote: post #240
oofbaroomf wrote: post #223

ChatGPT recommended me some good hard drives for price per TB, and one particularly cheap one had direct checkout with Walmart, so I tried it, because why not? It let me get all the way to the payment step before it told me it was out of stock. Walmart's website told me it was out of stock when I decided to click on the link. This is probably part of why it doesn't convert.

Sounds like an opportunity for a live inventory context layer before an LLM makes recommendations

Check out UCP

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

#246

Post by hadlock »

infamous-oven wrote: post #158
darthoctopus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

It's really hard to be a generalist and better than all the specialists at everything. OpenAI wants to focus on the G in AGI, and optimizing for ecommerce is just not that interesting to them, so of course it can't compete with Walmart.

openai has.... I'm not sure but let's say 500m free users, and it's not unreasonable to assume they eventually hit 1b. That is a lot of advertising revenue, which is what powers companies like Google and even smaller companies with only 300m users like Twitter. If ecommerce isn't a major focus for OpenAI then their board members are asleep at the wheel.

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

#248

Post by pluc »

Zambyte wrote: post #197
sumeno wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering you can't have chat bots be honest even if you don't make them marketing tools I suspect I know which way companies are going to go

Honesty implies intent. People can use LLMs to amplify dishonest messages (see: marketing), but I don't think it's reasonable to claim that LLMs are lying to describe when they produce incorrect information against the will of both the creator and operator.

We'll see once they pipe ads in there if they'll limit themselves to relevant ads or of they'll toss all pretense of caring out the window

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

#249

Post by StilesCrisis »

janalsncm wrote: post #215
StilesCrisis wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a way to measure users "making the best choice?" You could measure the amount of time spent comparison-shopping, but most people are terrible at that anyway; it's an acquired skill for sure. Besides a willingness to spend time, it seems like an impossible-to-quantify metric even in the abstract.

Maybe the best proxy metric is whether the customer returns the product. But the store will also be willing to eat more returns on a higher margin item if they make more profit at the end of the day.

I don't think I agree. If I overpay by 10%, I'll never know it and probably wouldn't return it even if I did know--once the shrinkwrap is off, too late. If a superior product exists but I don't find it, by definition I wouldn't know and wouldn't return the thing I did buy.

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

#250

Post by janalsncm »

jborichevskiy wrote: post #230
janalsncm wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just had a horrible thought. Maybe online stores will just take away the ability for customers to see the full inventory and force you to go through the chatbot. This will allow them to fully control the shopping experience even more. If you want running shoes, you have to go through their chatbot. Amazon might already have the monopoly power to do this. They would just need to swap out the search bar for a chat bo…

It's possible, but then wouldn't retailers who don't force their customers to crawl through an LLM maze eat their lunch? Natural economics at play would still happen I think

Maybe. In a world where people are already vendor locked to Prime or Walmart there’s a nonzero switching cost. Amazon product search already has a ton of problems but they get away with it because of free 2 day shipping.
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