In conversations, retailers tell us that they’re losing site traffic — anywhere from 15% to half over the past year. Reasons vary: One retailer asked us how to adapt to AI-integrated search, attributing their fall to conversational search features like Google’s AI Overviews displacing clicks that would, pre-ChatGPT, have landed on their site. Another attributed their site traffic’s decline to a powerful confluence of shifting search behaviors, macroeconomic uncertainty, and consumers’ persistent fickleness. These retailers, along with many like them, are on to something.
Site traffic (and sales) are falling because:
AI-integrated search facilitates zero-click searches. Conversational search features like Perplexity’s benefit consumers at retailers’ expense. Thirty-seven percent of consumers surveyed in Forrester’s Market Research Online Community already use conversational search features whenever they can. Scores of shoppers across America discover, compare, and commit to products and services without clicking through to retailers’ sites. As conversational search progresses to agentic search, where bots become sites’ main visitors, site traffic will fall further.
Boycotts are impacting traffic and spend. Google Trends shows that the term “Target boycott” first spiked in popularity at the end of January, when Target announced the rollback of its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Retail Brew reports that Placer.ai data shows that Target’s year-over-year weekly foot traffic is down as much as 8.8% and was down the week of March 31 for the ninth week in a row. The terms “Amazon boycott” and “Walmart boycott” are spiking, too. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon stated that customers are exhibiting “stressed behaviors,” which has already cut more than $20 billion from the company’s valuation.
US consumers are cautious due to economic uncertainty. Other movements such as “no buy 2025” are also limiting retailers’ traffic. US retail and food services sales were up slightly in February of this year (3.1%) versus the previous year, but the increase is almost equivalent to the rate of inflation over that time (2.8%). Consumers aren’t necessarily purchasing more, but they’re paying more.
What to do about it:
Play to your strengths. Market the areas of your assortment that are less commoditized or more essential to consumers. Do you have products “made in the USA”? Are you the exclusive distributor of certain product lines? Shift your focus to goods that are essential, specialized, or less competitive.
Rethink search marketing measurement. The days of goaling search marketers on increasing traffic are over. Focus less on ranking, average position, and clickthrough rate. Measure search engine results page saturation, brand visibility, share of search, and share of web. Maximize real estate across search experiences by developing increasingly specific content, doubling down on E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) and upskilling SEO.
Incentivize the win-win.
Do some payment methods cost you less to process? Incentivize those — including cash. Make them more appealing by passing on discounts to consumers who use those methods. (Shout out to Lily Varon for this tip!)
Are some fulfillment methods less expensive for you? Incentivize those — including customer pickup. Offer quick turnaround (such as providing same-day pickup if consumers order by a certain time) and make sure the curbside, locker, or in-store pickup experience is fast and easy. If you can skip fulfillment and shipping costs, share the benefits with customers.
Dial back genAI if the short-term impact isn’t clear. This one is controversial, we know. Where else in commerce tech is anyone talking about less AI?! But … it’s expensive. While many retailers try to justify retaining their tech, vendors will have to provide cost concessions to win retention. Throttling down (but not eliminating) the use of genAI is one way to manage costs at a time when cash flow is in sharp focus.
And remember, you don’t have to go it alone. We’re here for you. Book a guidance session with Nikhil Lai for your performance marketing (including SEM and SEO) needs and Emily Pfeiffer for your commerce, site search, and order management questions.
