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Search is changing shape. For years, growth on marketplaces has come down to a fairly simple formula: get found, get bought, keep winning the buy box. But a new kind of buyer has entered the mix, and it doesn't search the way people do.
Our Managing Director for Europe, David Jennison, joined the Talking Shop podcast from Retail Sector to unpack what this shift really means for brands selling across Amazon and beyond. From his journey through Amazon leadership to founding his own ecommerce consultancy, David brought a rare view from every side of the table. Here are five of the biggest takeaways.
1. Search is moving from keywords to use cases
Forget "running shoes size 10". The prompts landing in LLMs today look more like "I'm running a marathon and I have plantar fasciitis, I need something comfortable, I like Nike, I'm a size 9."
That's a fundamentally different way of searching, and the stakes are higher too. Rather than a page of ten blue links, AI tools tend to surface just three or four products. Getting into that shortlist means having product data structured well enough for a machine to understand exactly what problem you solve, not just what you sell.
2. Consistency across channels matters more than ever
A human shopper might not notice if your Amazon listing and your Zalando store tell slightly different stories. A machine reading both will. Inconsistent data knocks confidence, and knocks you out of contention.
The brands set up to win are the ones treating their core product information, imagery and messaging as a single source of truth across every platform, not a patchwork built channel by channel over the years.
3. Trust is concentrating around fewer, more verified sources
When LLMs first took off, brands scrambled to seed content on Reddit. The trouble is that content is easy to create and hard to verify. As AI shopping matures, trust is shifting towards verified purchases and genuine reviews rather than scattered online chatter.
That puts a premium on strategies that actively encourage real buyers, especially repeat customers, to leave detailed, credible reviews.
4. Smaller, focused brands can move faster than the giants
There's a compelling parallel from the early days of Amazon FBA. Challenger brands that focused hard on one channel built strong organic rankings and reviews, then used that leverage to open doors with major retailers who'd previously ignored them.
The same playbook is emerging with AI search: agile brands that prioritise showing up well for LLMs now could use that position to leapfrog competitors who are still spread thin across legacy channels.
5. The fundamentals of ecommerce haven't actually changed
For all the disruption, the equation stays the same: growth is availability x traffic x price x conversion. What's shifted is how you activate it. Real results back this up, brands leaning into data driven execution have seen buy box ownership climb past 85% within months of launch, and year on year revenue growth in the triple digits.
The advice that works today is the advice that's worked for fifty years: start with the customer, understand exactly why they choose you over someone else, and work backwards from there.
Want the full conversation? David goes much deeper on each of these points, plus real examples from Pattern's work with brands navigating this shift. Listen to the full episode of Talking Shop, wherever you get your podcasts, or head to retailsector.co.uk.
