AI agents now compare your offer before shoppers reach your site

Welcome to the fourth edition of Retail Best Pricing.

Retailers are preparing promotions. Shoppers are gaining another way to compare them.

The battle remains between retailers. But the first buying decision can now happen before shoppers ever visit their websites.

1AI agents are changing how shoppers choose

Less than three years. Already a new way to shop. Amazon introduced Rufus in February 2024. Perplexity launched integrated shopping in November 2024. ChatGPT added Instant Checkout for eligible purchases in September 2025.

These launches show how recently AI shopping interfaces emerged. Yet AI-driven traffic to US retail websites grew 693% during the 2025 holiday season — almost eight times the previous year's level. Adobe notes that the user base remained modest.

Among AI-search users surveyed by McKinsey, 44% preferred AI as their main information source, compared with 31% for traditional search and just 9% for retailer or brand websites. The US survey covered 1,927 consumers in August 2025, and measures AI-assisted search, not exclusively autonomous shopping agents.

Retailers do not need to wait for AI to buy. It is already helping shoppers choose.

Sources: Adobe Analytics, January 2026; McKinsey — New Front Door to the Internet.

2Your price image is no longer yours to control

Only 22% of respondents in Simon-Kucher's 2026 Holiday Shopping Study fully trust advertised savings. Your discount message already faces scrutiny.

An AI assistant can add another comparison: the exact product, the seller, stock and total delivered price. Consider the same headphones, available from two retailers:

Retailer A looks cheaper. Retailer B costs 4 € less delivered. OpenAI says merchant rankings consider availability, price and quality, among other factors — and warns that prices can lag behind updates.

Paying to look cheap is less useful if the comparison says otherwise.

Sources: Simon-Kucher — 2026 Holiday Shopping Study; OpenAI — Shopping with ChatGPT. Figures are illustrative.

3Retail media: who pays for ads shoppers never see?

Bain found that around 80% of consumers relied on search answers without clicking through to another website in at least 40% of their searches. Published in February 2025, this covers search generally — not shopping alone or sponsored-link losses.

For retail, the risk is clear: a shopper may choose an offer through an assistant without ever seeing competing retailers' banners or sponsored product placements. Yet European Retail Media spending reached €16.9 billion in 2025, with IAB Europe forecasting €32.7 billion by 2030. The market is growing.

The risk is a shift in attention — not proof that Retail Media is dead.

Sources: Bain — Goodbye Clicks, Hello AI (February 2025); IAB Europe, September 2026.

4Storefronts: still there, but still in control?

Accenture's 2026 research found 32% of consumers open to letting AI decide what to buy while they make the payment. Only 9% were open to fully autonomous purchasing. These are willingness measures, not adoption rates.

A retailer can therefore lose influence over product selection even when the shopper still completes the purchase. For eligible products and merchants, OpenAI also offers checkout within ChatGPT — a capability Best Buy announced for the 2026 holiday season.

Website investment should reflect this shift: review projects against their expected contribution to sales, service and accurate product information.

Your website can survive while more of the buying decision happens elsewhere.

Sources: Accenture — Talk to My AI Agent; Best Buy, September 2026.

5Five ways to get ready for Black Friday and Christmas

1 — Focus on the products that matter. Monitor competitor prices, promotions and stock on the products that drive sales and price image. Increase monitoring around major promotions.

2 — Compare what shoppers can actually buy. Match the exact model and pack size. Separate new, refurbished, bundles and member-only offers. Include delivery costs and local availability.

3 — Make your product data complete. Use your PIM — your product information system — to keep product pages complete and consistent: model numbers, product codes, specifications, sizes, colours and quantities, connected to current prices, stock and delivery terms. McKinsey identifies structured product information and PIM quality as foundations for visibility in AI-led shopping. (Source: McKinsey — Europe's Agentic Commerce Moment.)

4 — Compare your offers with all marketplace sellers. Include other sellers on your website and competing marketplaces in your monitoring, comparing total price, stock and delivery time. Consider selling on more marketplaces to reach more shoppers; if your range has important gaps, assess opening your own marketplace — after checking expected profit and your ability to manage seller quality.

5 — Move media budget into competitive intelligence. Best Buy reported $861 million in advertising costs for fiscal 2026; Zalando reported €1.125 billion in marketing costs for 2025. You do not need their scale to test a change: for a retailer spending €5 million a year on advertising, reallocating just 1% would provide €50,000 for competitive intelligence. Start with low-performing campaigns, use competitor price, promotion and stock data to improve offers, protect margin and choose which deals to promote — then measure additional profit. (Source: Best Buy — SEC filing. The reallocation is an illustrative calculation, not a proven saving or a service price.)

6Pricing Fight Club: Best Buy 🇺🇸 vs. MediaMarkt 🇩🇪

Who gives shoppers more reasons to buy? Price is only part of the offer. Choice, reputation, pickup and returns all deserve a comparison.

Round 1 — Assortment. Best Buy now offers nearly 1 million products and more than 5,000 brands on BestBuy.com, including marketplace offers. MediaMarktSaturn reports around 4 million products from more than 2,600 marketplace sellers across its European marketplace operations. These figures cover different geographic markets — MediaMarktSaturn's four million products are not all available on MediaMarkt.de. Verdict: no direct winner — both are expanding choice through third-party sellers.

Round 2 — Reputation. On Trustpilot, MediaMarkt Germany has a score of approximately 3.7/5, compared with 1.4/5 for Best Buy (profiles checked October 22, 2026). These are not representative satisfaction surveys — review volumes and collection methods differ. Verdict: MediaMarkt leads on the displayed Trustpilot score.

Round 3 — Pickup. MediaMarkt Germany advertises 30-minute express pickup for eligible products in selected stores. Best Buy offers in-store and curbside pickup, with availability depending on the product and store. Verdict: MediaMarkt has the stronger published express-pickup promise — actual times were not tested.

Round 4 — Returns. Best Buy's standard return window is 15 days for most products; eligible My Best Buy Plus and Total members receive 60 days, though the extended window does not apply to marketplace purchases. MediaMarkt Germany offers its own voluntary return conditions for eligible direct purchases, subject to exclusions. Verdict: Best Buy offers eligible members a longer window, but 3P marketplace purchases are excluded.

MediaMarkt leads on the displayed reputation score and its advertised express-pickup promise. Best Buy offers eligible members a longer return period and is expanding its marketplace and AI shopping options. Neither can be declared the overall price winner from these criteria. And there is a new question for Black Friday 2026:

A discount may win the click. Service and trust help win the sale.

Sources: Best Buy, September 2026; CECONOMY, H1 FY2025/26; Trustpilot profiles; Best Buy return policy.

Your next move

AI agents do not make advertising useless. They make the offer behind the advertising harder to ignore.

For Black Friday and Christmas, are you investing enough in understanding the market — not just buying attention?

Before paying more to promote your offer, make sure it is the best offer to promote.

Retail Best Pricing is an independent retail pricing community. Published on PAARLY.com with permission from Retail Best Pricing. © Retail Best Pricing™ / Anthony Garnier.