AI Search Is Coming for Your Ecommerce Traffic (Here's How to Prepare)

If you're running a Shopify store right now and you're not paying attention to what's happening with AI search, you're sleepwalking into a traffic cliff.

I'm not being dramatic. I've spent 12 years building ecommerce stores — over 500 of them — and I've seen every major shift in how people find and buy products online. The move from desktop to mobile. The rise of Instagram shopping. iOS 14 killing Facebook ads overnight. Each time, the store owners who saw it coming and adapted early won. The ones who ignored it got hammered.

What's happening right now with AI search is bigger than all of those combined.

Let me explain what I mean, and more importantly, what you should actually do about it.

The Shift That's Already Happening

Here's the reality: the way people search for products is fundamentally changing.

Google AI Overviews now appear on roughly 30-40% of search queries. ChatGPT has built-in search. Perplexity is growing like mad. Even Amazon has rolled out AI-powered shopping assistants.

What does this mean for your Shopify store? It means that the traditional path — someone types "best running shoes for flat feet" into Google, clicks a blue link, lands on your collection page — is being disrupted.

Instead, here's what's increasingly happening:

1. Someone asks ChatGPT: "What are the best running shoes for flat feet under £150?"
2. ChatGPT gives them a curated answer with 4-5 product recommendations
3. They either click through to buy or they've already made their decision before they ever see your site

Or with Google AI Overviews:

1. Someone searches "best organic skincare for sensitive skin"
2. Google shows an AI-generated summary at the top of the results
3. That summary might mention your brand, or it might not
4. Either way, the click-through rate to individual websites drops significantly

We're seeing this play out across the 500+ stores we work with at Eastside Co. Organic traffic patterns are shifting. Not crashing — not yet — but the composition is changing. Branded searches are holding steady. Non-branded informational queries? Those are getting eaten.

One of our clients in the health and wellness space saw a 23% drop in organic traffic from informational blog content over the last 6 months. Their conversion-focused pages held up, but the top-of-funnel content that used to drive email signups and first-time visitors? AI Overviews are answering those questions directly in the SERP.

This isn't a blip. This is the new reality.

Why Most Shopify Stores Aren't Ready

I audit Shopify stores for a living. Hundreds of them every year. And I can tell you that the vast majority are not prepared for this shift. Here's why:

They're still playing the old SEO game. Writing 1,500-word blog posts stuffed with keywords, hoping to rank on page one. That worked in 2019. In 2026, that blog post gets summarised by an AI Overview and nobody clicks through to read it.

Their product pages are thin. Most Shopify product pages I see have a title, a few bullet points, maybe a paragraph of description, and some photos. That's not enough information for AI systems to understand, recommend, or cite your product.

They have zero structured data. I'd estimate that 80% of the Shopify stores I look at have either no structured data or broken structured data. AI systems rely heavily on structured data to understand what your products are, what they cost, what people think of them. If you're not feeding that data properly, you're invisible.

They've built no brand. This is the big one. When AI systems recommend products, they lean heavily on brand authority and reputation. If you're a generic dropshipping store with no brand presence, no reviews aggregated across platforms, no mentions in editorial content — AI search simply won't recommend you.

What to Actually Do About It

Right, enough doom and gloom. Let me walk you through what we're actually advising our clients to do. These are the strategies we're implementing across our portfolio of 500+ stores.

1. Fix Your Structured Data (Yesterday)

This is table stakes. If you do nothing else from this article, do this.

Structured data (also called Schema markup) is how you tell search engines and AI systems exactly what's on your page. Product name, price, availability, reviews, images, brand — all in a format that machines can read perfectly.

Here's what your product pages should have at minimum:

• Product schema — name, description, SKU, brand, price, currency, availability
• Review/Rating schema — aggregate rating, review count, individual reviews
• Offer schema — price, price currency, availability, seller
• Breadcrumb schema — so AI understands your site hierarchy
• FAQ schema — on any page where you answer common questions
• Organisation schema — on your homepage, establishing your brand entity

Most Shopify themes include basic product schema, but it's often incomplete or outdated. I'd say 6 out of 10 stores I audit have schema errors when you run them through Google's Rich Results Test.

Action step: Run every key page through Google's Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator. Fix what's broken. Add what's missing. If you're not technical, get your developer on it — this is a few hours of work that will pay dividends for years.

We had a client selling premium kitchenware who implemented comprehensive structured data across their entire catalogue. Within 3 months, they started appearing in Google AI Overviews for comparison queries like "best cast iron pans UK" and "Le Creuset alternatives." Their organic traffic from these queries actually increased by 15% whilst competitors saw declines. The difference was that Google's AI could actually understand their products properly.

2. Make Your Product Pages AI-Readable

Here's something most people don't think about: AI systems don't just read your product title and price. They're trying to understand what your product actually is, who it's for, how it compares to alternatives, and whether it's worth recommending.

That means your product pages need to be rich, detailed, and comprehensive. Not keyword-stuffed. Genuinely informative.

Here's what a product page optimised for AI search looks like:

• Detailed product description (300+ words minimum) that naturally covers what the product is, who it's for, key features, materials/ingredients, and use cases
• Comparison context — how does this product differ from alternatives? Don't be afraid to mention your competitors if it helps the customer understand your positioning
• Specific specs and data points — dimensions, weight, materials, certifications. AI systems love specificity
• Real customer reviews — not just star ratings, but detailed written reviews. AI systems read these to understand sentiment and use cases
• FAQ section — address the 5-10 most common questions about the product directly on the page
• Clear brand story — who made this, why, and what makes them qualified

I know this sounds like a lot of work. It is. But here's the thing — this also improves your conversion rate dramatically. We consistently see a 15-25% increase in conversion rate when stores move from thin product pages to rich, comprehensive ones. So you're not just optimising for AI search; you're optimising for humans too.

3. Build Content That AI Can't Summarise

Here's the problem with most ecommerce blog content: it's easily summarisable. "10 Best Running Shoes for Flat Feet" — an AI can read your list and regurgitate it without sending you any traffic.

The content that still drives clicks in an AI search world is:

• Original research and data — "We analysed 500 Shopify stores and here's what we found." AI can cite this, but people want to see the full data
• Personal experience and opinion — "I've tested 30 running shoes and here's my honest take." AI can summarise the conclusions but can't replicate the credibility
• Interactive tools and calculators — "Use our sizing calculator to find your perfect fit." AI can't replicate the interactive experience
• Video content — still underutilised in ecommerce. AI Overviews are starting to include video, and YouTube remains a massive discovery channel
• Community and UGC — real customer stories, before/afters, user-generated reviews. Unique content that AI can't fabricate

One of our clients in the fashion space shifted their content strategy entirely. They stopped writing "best X for Y" listicles and started creating detailed styling guides with original photography, video lookbooks, and customer spotlight features. Their organic traffic from informational queries dropped 18%, but their email signup rate from content tripled. Net result: more revenue from less traffic, because the traffic they were getting was higher intent.

That's the mindset shift you need to make. It's not about traffic volume anymore. It's about traffic quality and brand visibility.

4. Become the Brand That AI Recommends

This is the most important point in this entire article, and it's the one most Shopify store owners are going to ignore because it's not a quick fix.

AI systems recommend brands they trust. And they determine trust based on:

• Mentions across the web — are people talking about your brand on Reddit, forums, editorial sites, social media?
• Review aggregation — what's your rating on Trustpilot, Google, product review sites?
• Editorial coverage — have legitimate publications written about your products?
• Social proof signals — follower count, engagement, mentions by influencers
• Consistency — does your brand message, positioning, and product information stay consistent across every platform?

When someone asks ChatGPT "What's the best organic dog food in the UK?" — it's going to recommend brands that have strong signals across all of these dimensions. Not the brand with the best-optimised product page. The brand with the strongest overall presence.

This is why brand building is no longer a nice-to-have for ecommerce. It's a survival strategy.

I've been banging this drum for years, but it's never been more true: if your entire business model relies on people finding you through a Google search and clicking a blue link, you're building on borrowed land. AI search just accelerated the timeline on that reality.

What to do:

• Get on Trustpilot and actively collect reviews. Aim for 100+ reviews with a 4.5+ rating. AI systems pull from these heavily
• Build a PR strategy — even basic digital PR. Get mentioned in relevant publications, roundups, and gift guides. These mentions become training data
• Invest in social — not just for sales, but for brand awareness. When AI systems see your brand mentioned consistently across platforms, that's a trust signal
• Encourage UGC — every customer review, social mention, and forum recommendation is a data point that AI systems use to evaluate your brand
• Be consistent — make sure your brand name, product names, and key information is identical across every platform. Inconsistency confuses AI systems

5. Own Your Customer Relationship

Here's the thing about AI search that nobody's talking about: it makes first-party data more valuable than ever.

If AI is going to sit between you and your potential customers, the customers you already have become your most important asset. Because you can reach them directly, without going through Google, without going through AI, without going through any intermediary.

This means:

• Email list building is critical. If you're not aggressively building your email list, start today. We aim for a 5-8% popup conversion rate on the stores we build
• SMS marketing — particularly for product launches and flash sales. Open rates are 90%+
• Post-purchase flows — turn one-time buyers into repeat customers through automated email sequences. We typically see a 25-30% repeat purchase rate from well-executed post-purchase flows
• Community building — whether it's a Facebook group, Discord, or your own community platform. Own the relationship

I had a call last month with a store owner who was panicking about Google AI Overviews. Their organic traffic was down 20%. But when we looked at the numbers, 40% of their revenue came from email. They had a list of 85,000 subscribers built over 4 years. I told them — you're better positioned than 95% of Shopify stores. That email list is an asset that no AI can take away from you.

6. Optimise for AI Shopping Assistants

This is the bleeding edge, but it's where things are heading fast.

Google Shopping is increasingly AI-powered. ChatGPT plugins allow direct product search and purchase. Perplexity has "Buy with Pro." Amazon's AI assistant Rufus is live.

To show up in these environments:

• Google Merchant Centre — make sure your product feed is comprehensive and accurate. This is how Google's AI shopping features pull product data
• Product feed optimisation — titles, descriptions, and attributes in your feed need to be detailed and accurate. Don't just use your on-site title; optimise specifically for feeds
• Competitive pricing — AI shopping assistants almost always factor in price. Make sure your pricing is competitive or your value proposition is crystal clear
• Fast shipping and good policies — these are increasingly factored into AI recommendations. Free returns, fast delivery, clear policies
• Review volume and sentiment — AI shopping assistants heavily weight customer reviews in their recommendations

7. Track What's Actually Happening

You can't manage what you can't measure. Here's what we're tracking across our client portfolio:

• Traffic by source and query type — specifically monitoring branded vs non-branded organic traffic trends
• SERP feature presence — are your products appearing in AI Overviews, featured snippets, shopping results?
• AI referral traffic — you can now see traffic from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI platforms in your analytics. Set up tracking for these
• Brand mention monitoring — use tools like Brand24 or Mention to track where your brand is being discussed
• Conversion rate by source — AI referral traffic often converts differently. Understand the patterns

We've built a custom dashboard for this that we use across all our client accounts. The data is fascinating. AI referral traffic currently converts about 40% higher than standard organic traffic. Why? Because by the time someone clicks through from an AI recommendation, they're already sold. The AI did the convincing for you.

The Bottom Line

Look, I'm not here to scare you. I'm here to give you the honest truth based on what I'm seeing across 500+ stores and 12 years in this space.

AI search is not going to kill ecommerce. It's going to reshape it. The stores that adapt — that build real brands, create rich product experiences, own their customer relationships, and make their data machine-readable — are going to thrive. They'll get higher-quality traffic, better conversion rates, and stronger customer loyalty.

The stores that ignore this and keep playing the old SEO game are going to slowly bleed traffic over the next 2-3 years and wonder what happened.

The good news? Most of what I've outlined above isn't complicated. It's just work. Detailed, methodical work that most of your competitors won't bother doing.

Which means there's a massive opportunity for the ones who do.

Your Next Step

I've put together a free checklist that covers the key optimisations your Shopify store needs right now — including the AI search readiness items I've covered in this post.

Download the free Shopify store checklist →

It's the same framework we use when auditing stores at Eastside Co. No fluff, no upsell — just the actionable steps that actually move the needle.

Jason Stokes is the CEO of Eastside Co, a Platinum Shopify Partner agency that has built over 500 Shopify stores. He writes about ecommerce strategy, AI, and what it actually takes to build a successful online store.