a16z Charts Weekly: Agentic shopping blocked by e-commerce platforms, consumer willingness still lags

The a16z Charts Weekly report points out that agentic commerce is hitting obstacles. Cloudflare data shows that 403 Forbidden responses received by agents and crawlers have increased significantly since the summer, reaching about twice the previous level. The article cites NRF data saying that return rates and return costs have doubled and tripled, respectively, since 2019, and cites a survey finding that 42% of consumers completely distrust AI shopping assistants. Similarweb data shows that AI shopping occurs mostly in the middle stage between discovery and purchase, rather than at checkout.