Shopping is shifting its starting point from portal sites to generative AI. Cafe24 said on Monday that visits to D2C (direct-to-consumer) shopping malls built on its platform via generative AI such as ChatGPT and Gemini totaled about 850,000 in the second quarter of 2026, up 72 percent from a year earlier, based on its analysis of traffic data.

By service, ChatGPT accounted for about 620,000 visits, or 73 percent of the total. Gemini generated about 170,000 visits, surging 686 percent from a year earlier, and its share rose to 20 percent from 4 percent. Traffic via Claude and Copilot also rose 851 percent and 156 percent, respectively.

Generative AI traffic also led to purchases. Over the same period, the purchase conversion rate for AI-referred visits rose about 1.7 times to 0.85 percent from 0.50 percent, and the number of orders increased 195 percent. The purchase conversion rate for ChatGPT-referred visits was 0.96 percent, about twice the level of other AI services such as Gemini at 0.57 percent and Perplexity at 0.50 percent.

Browsing patterns also differed from traditional portal searches. Cafe24 analysed the first landing pages of the top 30 shopping malls by AI inflow and found that 57.4 percent of visitors referred via AI entered directly on product detail pages rather than the mall main page. Unlike portal searches that start with brand- or category-based browsing, generative AI stood out for directly linking consumers to specific products they want, the company explained.

Cafe24 is responding by preemptively introducing GEO technology, a generative engine optimisation approach that helps generative AI better understand mall and product information. Through its premium service, Cafe24 PRO, it provides an "llms.txt" file that guides AI crawlers in identifying mall structure and product information. It also applies structured data (JSON-LD) to product, site and bulletin-board information so generative AI and search engines can read it in a structured way.

Cafe24 CEO Jaeseok Lee (이재석) said, "Generative AI is becoming a new starting point for shopping for consumers and a new customer acquisition channel for brands." He added, "Cafe24 will continue to advance GEO technology and services so D2C brands can connect with more customers even in an AI environment."