Cross-Industry Search Intelligence: Who’s Leading Retail Visibility in H1 2025?

The first half of 2025 marked one of the most disruptive periods in retail search visibility. Amazon’s retreat from Shopping Ads and Merchant Listings disrupted long-standing hierarchies, creating space for challenger brands and fast-moving retailers. At the same time, AI-powered features like AI Overviews (AIO) and People Also Ask (PAA), combined with community-driven platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit, became the new front page of discovery for shoppers.

To understand these shifts, we analyzed four key verticals: Beauty, Auto Parts, Home Furnishings, and Food & Beverage. The findings show how industries adapted to the same disruption, and which strategies helped them capture share of voice (SOV) in an evolving SERP.

1. Beauty: Community & Luxury Brands Rewrite the Rules

In beauty, Amazon’s pullback created rare visibility openings. Target rebounded in Shopping Ads (+16%) while ULTA surged in Merchant Listings (+28.9%). The real disruptor? Chanel, with a +680% Shopping Ads spike, signaling luxury brands’ intent to challenge mass-market leaders.

• AI Overviews and People Also Ask reshaped discovery: YouTube surged +170% in AIO before dipping, while Quora briefly led PAA before being overtaken by YouTube.
• Takeaway: Beauty’s winners are leaning into video, UGC, and peer-led platforms like TikTok and Reddit outperforming static ads.

Learn More: Beauty Search Visibility Benchmark Report in H1 2025

2. Auto Parts: Mid-Market Specialists Capitalize on Amazon’s Retreat

Amazon’s Shopping Ads share collapsed by -66.6%, triggering a visibility gold rush. As Amazon retreats in shopping ads in Google, challenger brands quickly moved in:

• AutoZone: +54.9% Shopping Ads
• TC Global: +939% Shopping
• Fleet Pride: +737% Shopping

Meanwhile, YouTube grew +443% in AIO and Quora +42.9% in People Also Ask, proving that content-first platforms now rival product ads in driving discovery.

Takeaway: The Auto Parts SERP is fragmenting fast, rewarding hybrid strategies that blend Shopping Ads with structured, educational content.

Learn More: Auto Parts Search Visibility Benchmark Report in H1 2025

3. Home Furnishings: Big-Box Retailers and Facebook Shake Things Up

• Amazon’s SOV dropped -30%, while Wayfair, Ashley, and IKEA surged with bold ad campaigns.
• A surprise disruptor: Facebook (+1,549% SOV growth), driven not by ads but by organic, community-driven content.
• YouTube rose +32.9% in AI Overviews, while Quora’s PAA share swung from +19% to -31%.

Takeaway: Home Furnishings leaders aren’t just spending more on ads, they’re integrating SEO, social, and paid visibility into cohesive strategies.

Learn More: Home Furnishings Search Visibility Benchmark Report in H1 2025

4. Food & Beverage: Challenger Brands Take Center Stage

• Food & Beverage saw Amazon’s dominance slip again (-42.4% SOV), while content-rich platforms filled the gap.
• YouTube (+73.2%) and Reddit (+15.4%) gained visibility, supported by structured content and video-first strategies.
• Challenger brands like MoreBeer! (+42,000% Shopping growth), Ka’Chava, and Thrive Market aggressively captured Shopping and Text Ads share.

Takeaway: Winning retailers are integrating SEO, social, and paid visibility into unified strategies not relying on ads alone

Cross-Industry Insights: What Unites the Leaders?

• Amazon’s Retreat = Industry Shake-Up
  Across every vertical, Amazon’s pullback created opportunities for rivals. The winners acted fast to secure Shopping and Merchant Listings share.
• AI Features Are Now the Front Page
  AI Overviews and People Also Ask consistently elevated YouTube, Quora, and Reddit signaling the need for snippet-ready, structured content.
• Community & Video Outperform Ads
  Peer-driven platforms (TikTok, Reddit, YouTube) now shape purchase journeys more than static ad placements.
• Challenger Brands Are Gaining Fast
  From Chanel in Beauty to TC Global in Auto Parts and MoreBeer! in Food & Beverage, challenger brands are proving agility beats scale.

Executive Takeaway

Retail search in 2025 is no longer controlled by a few giants. Visibility is fragmenting across AI-driven results, video-first platforms, and community-led ecosystems. Agile brands are capturing attention while incumbents recalibrate.

For enterprise retailers and brands, the playbook is clear:

• Capitalize on Amazon’s absence in Shopping and Listings.
• Engineer content for AI visibility in Overviews and PAA.
• Invest in video-first, community-led storytelling to build trust where consumers are already engaging.
• The brands that adapt now won’t just win visibility, they’ll shape the future of retail search.

Ready to See How Your Industry Stacks Up?

The search landscape is shifting faster than ever. Amazon’s retreat, the rise of AI-driven results, and the surge of challenger brands have rewritten the rules of visibility.

Our H1 2025 Benchmark Reports dive deeper into each vertical such as Beauty, Auto Parts, Home Furnishings, and Food & Beverage with detailed share of voice rankings, feature-level insights, and competitive strategy breakdowns.

👉 Access the full benchmark reports here and uncover how your brand compares.