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Whatnot

whatnot.com · Retail

Ranked 219 of 2,047 companies in the study

42Overall score
  • Visibility38
  • Citations0
  • Sentiment80
  • Site quality80
  • AI readiness7
What this means for Whatnot

AI assistants name Whatnot in 38.3% of answers, much more often than the typical company in the retail sector at 6.7%. Its overall score is 42 out of 100, ranking 219th of 2,047 in the study. Whatnot's website passes 1 of 14 technical checks for readiness for AI tools.

We asked 15 unbranded questions about the retail market: none named Whatnot. AI assistants named it in 23 of 60 answers (38.3%). The typical retail company is named in 6.7% of answers. By how often it is named, Whatnot ranks 53 of 640 in its sector.

Named by AI in
38.3%
23 of 60 answers
Share of mentions
38.3%
compared with 5 rivals
AI readiness
1/14
technical checks passed. Typical for its sector: 3
Rank in its sector
68 of 640
by overall score, where the typical retail company scores 34
How Whatnot compares with all 2,047 companies

Every dot is a company in the study. Hover one to see it; click to open its report.

This companySame sectorEvery other companyNever named

What makes up the score

Five parts, each scored out of 100.

Visibility
38

How often AI assistants name the company

Citations
0

How often AI uses the company's own website as a source

Sentiment
80

How positively AI describes the company

Site quality
80

How well built the website's own pages are

AI readiness
7

How easily AI tools can read and use the website

Visibility is calculated from the answers on this page. How the score is built.

Compared with retail

640 companies in this sector. The line on each bar is the typical company.

Overall score42
Ranks 68 of 640. Typical company: 34
Named in answers38%
Ranks 53 of 640. Typical company: 7%
AI readiness7
Ranks 570 of 640. Typical company: 29
What Claude actually said

An answer that names the company

“Live shopping platforms compared to static e-commerce sites for rare finds”

I'll search for current information comparing live shopping platforms with traditional e-commerce for rare finds.Based on current information, here's a comprehensive comparison of live shopping platforms versus static e-commerce sites for finding rare items:

Performance Metrics

Live commerce delivers conversion rates between 8% and 15%, significantly higher than traditional e-commerce's 2-3% average. Live commerce events can achieve conversion rates up to 30%, roughly ten times higher than conventional e-commerce.

Engagement Differences

The engagement levels differ dramatically betwe …

The AI’s answer as we received it, shortened and not checked for accuracy.

Also named
eBay Live11Loupe2NTWRK2TalkShopLive2Popshop Live1
Share of mentions

How the mentions in these answers were split between this company and its rivals

Whatnot
41.8%
eBay Live
34.5%
Loupe
9.1%
Popshop Live
7.3%
NTWRK
3.6%
TalkShopLive
3.6%
Which AI assistants named the company

Answers naming it, out of answers received

Claude
8/15
Gemini
6/15
Perplexity
6/15
OpenAI
3/15
Ready for AI agents

What this website publishes for an AI agent to read, use and buy from, on a scale of six levels.

  1. 0
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5

Level 1: Basic web presence. Two of robots.txt, a sitemap and Link headers are in place.

To reach level 2:
  • Content Signals

The website turns away requests that do not come from a browser. AI agents that say what they are meet the same refusal.

Can an AI agent buy here?

Not by itself. Whatnot publishes none of the purchase protocols we look for. An agent would have to click through the checkout like a person.

  • UCPNot present
  • ACPNot present
  • AP2Not present
  • x402Not present
  • MPPNot present

The shop runs on Shopify.

Show every check, for your technical team
Discoverability
77 of 100
  • robots.txtPassed

    A valid robots.txt with crawl rules at the site root.

    study: 92.0%
  • SitemapPassed

    An XML sitemap listing the pages, ideally referenced from robots.txt.

    study: 86.8%
  • Link headersNot met

    Send Link headers such as rel="api-catalog" or rel="describedby" on the homepage.

    study: 0.3%
  • DNS for AI DiscoveryNot present

    Advertise agent endpoints with SVCB records under _agents.

    study: 5.5%
Content accessibility
0 of 100
  • Markdown negotiationNot met

    Return a markdown version when asked with Accept: text/markdown, for example at the CDN.

    study: 1.9%
  • llms.txtNot met

    Publish an llms.txt with a short summary and the key links.

    study: 25.1%
Bot access control
32 of 100
  • AI bot rulesPartly met

    Add explicit robots.txt groups for the main AI crawlers.

    study: 93.4%
  • Content SignalsNot met

    Add a Content-Signal line for search, ai-input and ai-train to robots.txt.

    study: 1.4%
  • Web Bot AuthNot present

    Only relevant if you run your own agents or crawlers: publish a signing key directory.

    study: 0.2%
APIs, auth and MCP
0 of 100
  • API CatalogNot met

    List public APIs in a linkset at /.well-known/api-catalog.

    study: 0.3%
  • OAuth discoveryNot met

    Publish OpenID Connect or OAuth server metadata under /.well-known.

    study: 11.8%
  • OAuth Protected ResourceNot met

    Serve protected resource metadata at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource.

    study: 10.3%
  • auth.mdNot met

    Publish an auth.md describing how agents sign in.

    study: 0.0%
  • MCP Server CardNot met

    Offer an MCP server and publish its server card under /.well-known.

    study: 0.2%
  • A2A Agent CardNot met

    Publish an agent card at /.well-known/agent-card.json.

    study: 0.1%
  • Agent SkillsNot met

    Publish a skills index with the main tasks agents can do.

    study: 0.2%
  • WebMCPNot met

    Register key actions such as search or cart as WebMCP tools.

    study: 33.7%
  • ARD manifestNot met

    Publish an ai-catalog.json listing every agent interface.

    study: 0.1%

Score 24 of 100 · 100% of checks could run · checked on October 3, 2026 · whatnot.com · 2,047 companies scanned

See how every company did, and how this was measured.

The checks behind the AI readiness score

1 of 14 passed. This list is for your technical team. The percentage is how many companies in the study pass each check.

These 14 checks ran during the audit and are what the AI readiness part of the overall score counts. The scan above ran later and is stricter on Link headers and Markdown, so a check can pass here and not there.

Show the 14 checks
Discoverability
  • Not metrobots.txt publishedstudy: 85.0%
  • Not metXML sitemapstudy: 73.2%
  • Not metHTTP Link headers (RFC 8288)study: 29.0%
Content Accessibility
  • Not metMarkdown content negotiationstudy: 8.3%
  • Not metllms.txt publishedstudy: 21.7%
  • PassedToken budget (page weight)study: 95.2%
Bot Access Control
  • Not metExplicit AI bot rulesstudy: 13.0%
API / Auth / MCP
  • Not metAPI Catalog (.well-known/api-catalog)study: 0.2%
  • Not metOAuth Authorization Server discoverystudy: 10.1%
  • Not metOAuth Protected Resource discoverystudy: 9.3%
  • Not metMCP Server Cardstudy: 0.0%
  • Not metA2A Agent Cardstudy: 0.0%
  • Not metWebMCP toolsstudy: 4.2%
  • Not metAgent Skills declaredstudy: 0.0%
Websites the AI used as sources

How many times each website was listed as a source in these answers

youtube.com
17
apps.apple.com
17
shopify.com
15
hibid.com
13
getstream.io
12
deadspin.com
12
reddit.com
11
liveauctioneers.com
10
nifty.ai
10
nytimes.com
8

In the study as US retailers: listed as a retailer in Wikidata, a public database, and among the websites Cloudflare Radar ranks as visited.

Every question, and where the company came up (8 of 15)
QuestionOpenAIClaudePerplexityGemini
  • Live shopping platforms compared to static e-commerce sites for rare finds
  • How do interactive shopping streams work for selling sports cards?
  • Live auction sites vs traditional online marketplaces for buying sneakers
  • Typical fees charged by live online shopping platforms for sellers
  • Best live shopping apps for collectibles in the US
  • How do you handle bidding issues on live shopping auctions?
  • Where to find livestream auctions for fashion and jewelry in the US
  • Are live shopping events better for finding name-brand deals than traditional outlets?
  • Are live-show deals on trading cards a good value?
  • What should you do if your purchase in a live shopping stream doesn't arrive?
  • Ways to use live marketplaces to grow a collectibles business
  • Is it worth buying electronics from a live shopping marketplace?
  • Other ways to buy or sell items in real-time online
  • Alternatives to live streaming shopping platforms for buying collectibles
  • Top online marketplaces with interactive shopping shows
named the companyanswered without naming itdid not answer

Columns, left to right: OpenAI, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini. The AI assistants often disagree. Across the study, on 40% of the questions where a company is named, only one of the four names it.

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Overall score 42 of 100 badge for Whatnot

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