Welcome to this issue of The DTC Insider newsletter. 👋
Q4 is here! It’s officially game time. 🏁
For most brands, these next 90 days aren’t just another quarter…they’re THE quarter. The one where you either hit the accelerator and close the year strong, or get buried under the noise, promos, and rising ad costs.
I’m fired up for it. Are you?
Because Q4 isn’t about who spends the most, it’s about who’s most prepared: the brand that knows its customers, its offers, and its customer journey inside out.
Those are the brands that don’t just survive Q4…they dominate it.
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Let's dive in!
Topics we'll cover today:
💠 Breaking: You Can Now Buy in ChatGPT
💠 ChatGPT is Now 20% of Walmart’s Referral Traffic
💠 Our Most-Listened Podcast Episodes
Breaking: You Can Now Buy in ChatGPT
This is probably the biggest announcement of the year.
On Monday, Shopify revealed a new partnership with OpenAI to bring commerce directly into ChatGPT.
You’ll soon be able to ask for product recommendations, shop around, and...
Drums please… 🥁
Check out, without leaving the chat!
Here’s what’s really happening 👇
→ Shopify merchants will be able to sell directly in ChatGPT. No links, no redirects, just seamless transactions.
→ Behind the scenes: Shopify maps real-time data (inventory, prices, images, variants) so AI understands it as commerce.
→ When a shopper asks ChatGPT for a product, they’ll see inventory from millions of Shopify merchants, all inside the conversation.
→ Merchants remain fully in control: your brand shows up, orders flow into Shopify admin with attribution, you stay merchant of record, and you decide checkout experience.
→ Shopify calls this “agentic commerce”, turning AI conversations into direct commerce moments, not detours.
🚀 Why this matters to you:
→ If your store is on Shopify, you’ll be discoverable alongside the biggest brands.
→ The friction of redirects and lost conversions? Gone.
→ And Shopify says this is rolling out “very, very soon.”
→ A new frontier: product discovery is moving inside AI chats instead of search engines or ads.
Welcome to a new era of e-commerce.
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Follow me on LinkedIn for more growth marketing content in the e-commerce space.
ChatGPT is Now 20% of Walmart’s Referral Traffic
The Shopify x OpenAI announcement I shared earlier wasn’t just a shiny press release. The ripple effects are already showing up in real-world data.
📊 In August, 20% of Walmart’s referral traffic came from ChatGPT. That’s up 15% from July. Etsy saw more than 20%. Target nearly 15%. Even eBay hit 10%.
Now, to be clear, referrals are still a tiny slice of total traffic (less than 5% overall). But the speed at which AI chat has cracked into the top tier of traffic sources is staggering.
Think about what this means:
👉 Consumers are clicking through links in AI responses, instead of searching on Google.
👉 Shopping intent inside ChatGPT is real: around 50M shopping queries a day.
👉 Nearly 60% of U.S. consumers have already used a GenAI tool for shopping help.
Meanwhile, the two giants are taking opposite paths:
→ Walmart, Etsy, Target: wide open to AI, letting ChatGPT surface their products.
→ Amazon: blocking AI crawlers to protect its $56B ad business, while pushing its own bot, Rufus.
My take?
Amazon is betting on control, Walmart on distribution.
And Shopify just gave millions of independent merchants a ticket to play in this new AI-driven discovery funnel, as we covered in the previous section.
That’s why this is bigger than “just another announcement.”
This is the new front door to e-commerce.
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Follow me on LinkedIn for more growth marketing content in the e-commerce space.
Promote your Business to 11,000+ People in the DTC Space
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The DTC Insider (newsletter + podcast) reaches a highly qualified audience of DTC founders, directors, and marketers. Learn more about the sponsorship opportunities we offer for your business.
Our Most-Listened Podcast Episodes
This week I took a break from new episodes on The DTC Insider podcast (we'll be back this Friday!).
In the meantime, you can enjoy some AMAZING conversations I've had with super successful brands:
Also Happening in the DTC Space
📰 White House Says TikTok Deal Will Be Signed This Week
📰 YouTube Enables Users to Generate Alternative Endings for Shorts with AI
📰 Meta to Offer Subscription for No Ads in the UK
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About The Writer
Brian Roisentul is the founder & CEO of BSR Digital, a growth marketing agency he started in 2013 to help e-commerce brands unlock hidden revenue by identifying misalignments between their marketing and customer behavior. He is also the host of The DTC Insider podcast, where he interviews thought leaders, founders, and directors in the e-commerce space.
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The DTC Insider (newsletter + podcast) reaches a highly qualified audience of DTC founders, directors, and marketers. Learn more about the sponsorship opportunities we offer for your business. If you’d like to become a sponsor, apply here.