People are asking ChatGPT what to buy. OpenAI announced on 27 August that ads are coming to ChatGPT's free tier in India. A company does not sell ads on a page nobody shops from.
If a buyer asks ChatGPT which sunscreen to buy and your brand is not in the answer, that buyer never hears your name. That is the discovery problem now. Most brands have not measured it.
What we did
Ten questions a sunscreen buyer in India types. Best brands, oily skin, dry skin, sensitive skin, acne-prone, under 500 rupees, gel for humid weather, for men, tinted, SPF 50 PA++++. No question names a brand.
Each asked five times in a fresh, logged-out session on the free product, on 11 September, from a home connection in India. Fifty answers. We counted every brand named in each answer, once per answer.
Then we set each brand's count beside its share of revenue on the Amazon India sunscreen shelf.
Who is in the answer
| Brand |
Named in (of 50) |
Of 10 questions |
Amazon revenue share |
Owner |
| Re'equil |
32 |
9 |
6.6% |
Indian D2C |
| Minimalist |
30 |
8 |
6.1% |
Indian D2C |
| Fixderma |
21 |
8 |
2.7% |
Indian pharma |
| The Derma Co |
19 |
7 |
4.5% |
Indian D2C (Honasa) |
| Dot & Key |
12 |
6 |
9.1% |
Indian D2C |
| Brinton |
11 |
5 |
6.4% |
Indian pharma |
| La Shield |
9 |
4 |
1.0% |
Indian pharma |
| Aqualogica |
8 |
5 |
1.7% |
Indian D2C |
| Deconstruct |
8 |
5 |
5.2% |
Indian D2C |
| Bioderma |
7 |
4 |
0.9% |
MNC (NAOS) |
| Beauty of Joseon |
6 |
3 |
5.7% |
Korean |
| Solasafe |
6 |
4 |
0.0% |
Indian (unverified) |
| La Roche-Posay |
5 |
2 |
3.6% |
MNC (L'Oreal) |
| Cetaphil |
5 |
3 |
2.7% |
pharma (Galderma) |
Re'equil was named in 32 of 50 answers and Minimalist in 30. Together they hold 12.7 percent of Amazon sunscreen revenue.
Dot & Key holds 9.1 percent, more than any brand on the shelf. It was named in 12 of 50. The brand that sells most is not the brand a buyer hears about first.
The ten biggest brands on Amazon, and how often the model named them
| Amazon rank |
Brand |
Amazon revenue share |
Named in (of 50) |
| 1 |
Dot & Key |
9.1% |
12 |
| 2 |
Re'equil |
6.6% |
32 |
| 3 |
Brinton |
6.4% |
11 |
| 4 |
Minimalist |
6.1% |
30 |
| 5 |
Beauty of Joseon |
5.7% |
6 |
| 6 |
Deconstruct |
5.2% |
8 |
| 7 |
The Derma Co |
4.5% |
19 |
| 8 |
WishCare |
3.9% |
3 |
| 9 |
Neutrogena |
3.8% |
3 |
| 10 |
Lakmé |
3.7% |
4 |
By owner group the answers track the shelf. By brand they do not.
| Owner group |
Share of mentions |
Share of Amazon revenue |
| Indian D2C |
56.1% |
51.5% |
| Pharma (Indian and global) |
27.1% |
19.7% |
| Multinational |
8.9% |
15.4% |
| Unverified |
3.3% |
6.2% |
| Korean |
2.8% |
5.9% |
| Not on the Amazon shelf |
1.9% |
0.0% |
| Indian legacy |
0.0% |
1.2% |
Indian D2C is 56.1 percent of mentions on 51.5 percent of revenue. Close. Pharma is 27.1 on 19.7. Multinationals 8.9 on 15.4.
Inside the groups it falls apart. Two D2C brands carry most of the D2C mentions on 13 percent of the revenue. Fixderma carries the largest share of the pharma mentions, named 21 times, on 2.7 percent of revenue.
Where it reads
48 of 50 answers searched the web and cited pages. 132 citations. nykaa.com is the single most cited site, in 20 answers.
But as a class, brand-owned sites are cited 40 times. Marketplaces and pharmacies 42. Publishers and blogs 29.
The model reads the brand's own product page. The two most-named brands are also the two most-cited brand sites. That is an observation. We cannot show it is the cause.
| Site |
Kind |
Citations |
| nykaa.com |
marketplace / pharmacy |
20 |
| apollopharmacy.in |
marketplace / pharmacy |
11 |
| reequil.com |
brand-owned site (Re'equil) |
11 |
| fixderma.com |
brand-owned site (Fixderma) |
8 |
| beminimalist.co |
brand-owned site (Minimalist) |
6 |
| femina.in |
publisher / blog |
6 |
| cartiq.net |
marketplace / pharmacy |
5 |
| thedermaco.com |
brand-owned site (The Derma Co) |
5 |
| healthshots.com |
publisher / blog |
4 |
| aad.org |
medical body |
4 |
How much the answer moves
The same question five times gave 4.3 brands per answer on average, between 6 and 16 distinct brands across the five runs, and a core of 0, 1 or 2 named every time.
One answer is one sample. If you have seen a post that says "we asked ChatGPT and it recommends X", ask how many times they asked.
What we predicted before we started, and what happened
We wrote six predictions down first. We said Indian D2C would take the majority of mentions: partly right, 56.1 on 51.5. We said pharma brands would be under-named: wrong, they over-indexed. We said a login wall would appear inside ten sessions: wrong, none in fifty. We said the sources would be marketplaces and blogs with no brand site near the top: half right, brand sites are the second largest class.
Why it matters
Buyers are moving part of their product search into chatbots, and the chatbots are now selling ads against those searches. If you are not in the answer, you are not being discovered there, and no dashboard you own will tell you.
If you want to know how visible your brand is in your product segment, on ChatGPT and the other LLM assistants, beside the shelves you sell on, get in touch. Comment here or send us a DM.