Google has launched the "Universal Shopping" cart. I think it won't take off.

Google has launched the "Universal Shopping" cart. I think it won't take off. Products that are enabled for checkout can now be added to a universal cart that lets users create orders across multiple merchants. For example, I can let an AI agent pick shoes from Merchant A, pants from Merchant B, and socks from Merchant C.

While this looks like a great user experience for consumers, I am afraid the economics for merchants don't add up.

For agentic checkout to be commercially successful, an agent would need to generate more cart value for a merchant than the merchant could achieve on their own by acquiring a customer (through organic traffic or ads) and guiding them through their own website.

Users rarely put only one item in their shopping cart once they land on a merchant's site, which makes traditional customer acquisition much more profitable. Sharing a single cart's value across multiple merchants directly contradicts these current economics.

I am curious to see what the actual adoption rate of agentic checkout will be, especially among larger merchants. Emarketer predicts this to be less than 2% of merchants till 2029.

For the time being, my recommendation remains to focus all efforts on discovery and visibility.

#AgenticCommerce #AgenticCheckout #UniversalShoppingCart #UCP #FeedManagement