Aleyda Solis Study: Where AI Sends E-Commerce Traffic (10 Markets)
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39.3 million e-commerce clicks: what Aleyda Solis’s study reveals
We’ve been told AI would fragment traffic. That you’d need to be everywhere, all the time. That a brand had to dominate citations in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and other assistants.
Reality is harsher.
Aleyda Solis published a colossal analysis on April 29, 2026. 39.3 million AI e-commerce clicks, collected via Similarweb across 10 markets — United States, United Kingdom, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Australia, Mexico, and Brazil. 57,696 domain-market entries. Coverage is massive.
A stark figure: in e-commerce, 5 median domains capture half of all AI clicks. The median for finance? 17. For travel? 47. E-commerce sits in a concentration unlike any other sector.
No gray area.
5 domains capture half the traffic: extreme AI concentration in e-commerce
The study doesn’t just observe the top 10. It measures how many domains it takes to reach 50% then 99% of AI clicks. The average per market for e-commerce is chilling:
- E-commerce: 5 domains for 50% of clicks, 650 for 99%
- Finance: 17 domains for 50%, 763 for 99%
- Travel: 47 domains for 50%, 1,077 for 99%
The top 10 in e-commerce captures 63.9% of clicks on average versus 30% in travel. The average share of the #1 domain in e-commerce: 26.9%.
This isn’t « big brands win ». It’s: sales infrastructure wins.
Italy in 2 clicks, UK in 129: the market spread
If you sell in Europe, the study forces a strategy map by country. Here’s how many domains you need to reach 50% of AI e-commerce clicks, market by market:
| Market | Domains for 50% |
|---|---|
| Italy | 2 |
| United States | 3 |
| Brazil | 3 |
| Germany | 4 |
| France | 5 |
| Mexico | 5 |
| United Kingdom | 6 |
| Spain | 7 |
| Australia | 9 |
| Netherlands | 11 |
In Italy, Amazon.it + Temu are enough to exceed 50%. In the UK, you need 6. The gap looks small, but the mechanics are completely different: a market locked by 2 giants doesn’t offer the same room to maneuver as one where the top 6 represents under 45%.
And generic stratégies miss that.
Why brand building is more urgent than ever in e-commerce
Aleyda Solis reminds us: « The realistic question for most brands is not ‘how do we win the top spot’, but ‘how do we show up correctly inside the marketplaces and resellers that own the top spot’. »
Translation: if your product isn’t listed with flawless product pages on Amazon, Cdiscount, Fnac, Zalando, or Mercado Livre, you’re invisible to 50 to 64% of your market’s AI clicks.
I’ve watched this shift for 18 months. A client in consumer electronics sees 78% of AI sessions land… on their marketplace pages. Not on their site.
The question is no longer « what content do I create on my blog ». It becomes « which product page feeds the AI when it recommends my segment ».
AI isn’t just ChatGPT: surface fragmentation matters
The study lumps together ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, and other AI expériences that don’t all generate clicks the same way. What gets measured is clicks produced by AI, not citations without links.
Many brands feel reassured seeing their name cited in a response. But if the link is absent or hidden, traffic doesn’t follow. Interfaces shift every quarter. The click model in Google AI Mode has nothing in common with Perplexity. And nothing in common with ChatGPT.
One simple fact: in e-commerce, the surfaces that produce clicks are those with embedded buy buttons or clickable comparison lists. Everything else is fuzzy awareness.
What I see with my e-commerce clients facing AI
I review 15 e-commerce sites a week. Half have already seen their traffic polarize: their traditional organic category pages drop, their marketplace pages rise. Revenue follows.
A Scandinavian furniture site I’ve worked with since 2024. Seventeen months ago, its on-site SEO captured 89% of organic sales. By March 2026, it’s 43%. The rest? Its product pages on a local marketplace, which claim 37% of AI clicks. The picture is clear: visibility isn’t built solely on your domain anymore.
I’m not telling you to abandon your site. I’m saying: half your AI traffic will run through a page you don’t directly control. Prepare it as if it were your own.
Your AI e-commerce strategy in 2026: 3 actions to take now
From this data, here’s what produces results.
1. Map your marketplace presence by market. In each country, identify the 3 domains capturing the most AI clicks in your vertical. Audit your product pages on those platforms: titles, images, structured attributes, reviews.
2. Feed AI machine data, not just keywords. Assistants parse your structured data. They ingest your catalogs via API. « Writing a good title » no longer cuts it. You need standardized supplier fields, a clean product feed, prices updated every 4 hours.
3. Measure the right signals, not the wrong ones. Stop tracking only clicks on your domain. Monitor incoming sessions from AI platforms (Similarweb, Semrush, oncrawl). Correlate them with marketplace conversions. What isn’t measured isn’t managed.
The good news? Almost no e-commerce operator executes these three pillars. Those who do walk a nearly empty corridor.
I’ll show you the pages before AI picks them
A 45-minute live audit of your e-commerce site. I’ll show you exactly which pages AI might cite, and why your marketplace product pages aren’t converting yet. No PowerPoint.
Book a strategic call — 45 minFrequently Asked Questions
Will AI replace traditional SEO?
No, it displaces it. SEO doesn’t die, it mutates toward managing presence on surfaces you don’t control. The principles (authority, relevance, structure) stay central, but the destinations change.
Should I ditch my e-commerce site for marketplaces?
Absolutely not. Your site remains the brand asset that credibilizes your marketplace listings. But you must optimize your marketplace product pages as rigorously as your category pages.
Which markets show the most AI e-commerce concentration according to the study?
Italy (2 domains for 50% of clicks), United States (3), Brazil (3), Germany (4), and France (5) are the most concentrated. Netherlands (11) and Australia (9) offer a more open game.
How do I concretely measure AI clicks on my site?
Use « search-ai » source in Similarweb, the « AI engines » report in Semrush, or set up a custom dimension in GA4 to identify known referrers (chat.openai.com, perplexity.ai, etc.).
Should I fear excessive concentration favoring Amazon?
Concentration is real but highly variable. In France, the landscape is more open. Optimizing on Cdiscount, Fnac, and Boulanger becomes as critical as your own domain.
