Ask AI Where to Shop on Black Friday and You Get Best Buy, Not Amazon (2026 Study)

Study date: October 29, 2026

Ask AI where to shop on Black Friday in Vancouver or Seattle and it points you to Best Buy, not Amazon. Best Buy was the second most named name in both cities, with 25 mentions in Vancouver and 36 in Seattle. Amazon was not among the stores named 2 or more times in either city, and amazon.com was not among the 10 most cited source domains.

We asked ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overview the same 25 unbranded shopping questions in each city on the evening of October 29, 2026. Best Buy was named on all three engines in both cities. It was also the most named chain in both.

These numbers are what the AI engines returned. They are not Beket AI’s opinion or a ranking of stores. AI answers change over time, so read this as a snapshot.

Study detail	Value
Study date	October 29, 2026 (one evening run, 6:26 to 6:38 PM PT)
Locations	Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and Seattle, Washington, United States
Language	English
Engines	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overview
Questions	25 selected questions per city, plus 4 discovery prompts each audit added on its own
Answers recorded	145 (Vancouver 75, Seattle 70)
Sources cited	1,243 (Vancouver 654, Seattle 589)
Stores, brands, malls and markets named 2+ times	109 (Vancouver 32, Seattle 77)
Mentions of those names	759 (Vancouver 219, Seattle 540)

Which stores did AI name most for Black Friday shopping?

In Vancouver, holiday markets took three of the top five spots, and Best Buy was the only electronics store among them. In Seattle, the top five mixed two malls with Best Buy, REI and Nordstrom.

Vancouver

Rank	Name	Store type (our label)	Mentions	Share of mentions	Times named first
1	Circle Craft	Holiday or craft market	29	13.2%	4
2	Best Buy	National or global chain	25	11.4%	4
3	Vancouver Christmas Market	Holiday or craft market	21	9.6%	6
4	Portobello West	Holiday or craft market	16	7.3%	1
5	MEC	National or global chain	14	6.4%	6
	27 other names		114	52.1%	14
	All 32 names		219	100%	35

Seattle

Rank	Name	Store type (our label)	Mentions	Share of mentions	Times named first
1	University Village	Mall or shopping centre	37	6.9%	4
2	Best Buy	National or global chain	36	6.7%	7
3	REI	National or global chain	33	6.1%	7
4	Westfield Southcenter	Mall or shopping centre	24	4.4%	2
5	Nordstrom	National or global chain	24	4.4%	0
	72 other names		386	71.5%	27
	All 77 names		540	100%	47

Source: Beket AI market audits, October 29, 2026. Name variants combined. Store types are our labels.

Best Buy was named first in an answer 4 times in Vancouver and 7 times in Seattle. In Seattle, only REI matched it, also with 7.

Where was Amazon?

Not on the list. No online marketplace (Amazon, eBay, Etsy or Wayfair) appeared among the names with 2 or more mentions in either city. That covers 145 answers across three engines.

This does not prove Amazon was never named. Beket AI’s report lists only names with at least 2 mentions, so a single passing mention would not show. But amazon.com was also not among either city’s 10 most cited source domains.

Online stores were cited, though. Best Buy’s own site was the most cited domain in Vancouver: bestbuy.ca had 40 citations, and its store pages on stores.bestbuy.ca had another 18. Together that is 58 of 654 sources (8.9%). In Seattle, stores.bestbuy.com was the eighth most cited domain, with 11.

Every question said “in Vancouver” or “in Seattle”. The answers treated that as a question about places to go, and listed physical stores, malls and markets.

Vancouver store type (our label)	Names	Mentions	Share
National and global chains and brands	11	73	33.3%
Holiday and craft markets	4	68	31.1%
Local independent stores	16	68	31.1%
Regional chains	1	10	4.6%
Online marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Wayfair)	0	0	0%
All	32	219	100%

Seattle store type (our label)	Names	Mentions	Share
National and global chains and brands	28	212	39.3%
Local independent stores	27	167	30.9%
Malls, shopping centres and districts	6	106	19.6%
Unclear	12	37	6.9%
Regional chains	2	13	2.4%
Not a retailer	2	5	0.9%
Online marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Wayfair)	0	0	0%
All	77	540	100%

Source: Beket AI market audits, October 29, 2026. Store types are our judgment.

Which chains made both lists?

Only three names had 2 or more mentions in both cities: Best Buy, Nike and Patagonia. Nike had 8 mentions in Vancouver and 2 in Seattle. Patagonia had 6 and 3.

Seattle had more big-box names. Costco had 8 mentions, Target 4 and Walmart 3. None of the three had 2 or more mentions in Vancouver.

Apple had 18 mentions in Seattle, 5 of them on Google AI Overview. It did not reach 2 mentions in Vancouver.

A few local electronics names showed up too. In Seattle, the used computer store RE-PC had 6 mentions and the regional chain Video Only had 6, all on ChatGPT. In Vancouver, Direct Liquidation had 5.

Did ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overview all name Best Buy?

Yes. Best Buy was named by all three engines in both cities, but most of its mentions came from ChatGPT.

Best Buy mentions	ChatGPT	Perplexity	Google AI Overview	All
Vancouver	14	9	2	25
Seattle	25	9	2	36

Here is how the engines compared overall.

	Vancouver ChatGPT	Vancouver Perplexity	Vancouver AI Overview	Seattle ChatGPT	Seattle Perplexity	Seattle AI Overview
Answers recorded	29	29	17	29	29	12
Selected questions answered	25 of 25	25 of 25	15 of 25	25 of 25	25 of 25	10 of 25
Sources cited	109	424	122	95	421	73
Names with 2+ mentions	30	26	14	72	38	30
Mentions	128	65	26	367	109	64

Source: Beket AI market audits, October 29, 2026. Answers and sources from the answer log. Names and mentions from the market report’s per engine split.

ChatGPT

• Vancouver: Circle Craft (16), Best Buy (14), Portobello West (13), MEC (9), Vancouver Christmas Market (7); 25 other names had 69 mentions.
• Seattle: University Village (26), Best Buy (25), Westfield Southcenter (16), Nordstrom (15), REI (14); 67 other names had 271 mentions.

ChatGPT named the most stores in both cities. It also gave 10 Vancouver answers and 7 Seattle answers with no cited source at all.

Perplexity

• Vancouver: Circle Craft (10), Best Buy (9), Vancouver Christmas Market (6), MEC (4), Kaboodles (4), Sports Junkies (4); 20 other names had 28 mentions.
• Seattle: REI (17), Best Buy (9), University Village (8), Pike Place Market (8), Westfield Southcenter (4), Archie McPhee (4), Pacific Place (4), Costco (4); 30 other names had 51 mentions.

Perplexity cited the most sources, more than 420 in each city. It was the only engine that named REI more than Best Buy in Seattle.

Google AI Overview

• Vancouver: Vancouver Christmas Market (8), Circle Craft (3), Best Buy (2), Portobello West (2), Dilly Dally Kids (2); 9 other names had 9 mentions.
• Seattle: Macy’s (7), Nordstrom (6), Apple (5), Westfield Southcenter (4), University Village (3), Pacific Place (3), The Bellevue Collection (3), Lululemon (3); 22 other names had 30 mentions.

Google showed an AI Overview for 15 of 25 questions in Vancouver and 10 of 25 in Seattle. In Seattle there was no AI Overview for the TV question. Best Buy had just 2 AI Overview mentions in each city. In Seattle, Google’s overviews named Macy’s, Nordstrom and Apple more often. Our post on what share of Google searches show AI Overviews covers how often local searches get one.

What does this mean for stores?

For questions with a city in them, the engines named stores you can walk into, not marketplaces. That matters because shoppers who come from AI answers tend to be ready to buy. Adobe reports that visits to US retail sites from AI answers converted 90% better than other traffic in September 2026.

The three engines did not agree on who to name, though. Best Buy got most of its mentions from ChatGPT, and Google’s overviews leaned on department stores in Seattle. That is why one AI engine is not enough to judge where you stand. Our roundup of nine local AI studies found the engines rarely agreed in other local trades too.

From the same run, our Google AI Overview vs ChatGPT study looks at which engine named local independent shops, and our Vancouver vs Seattle Christmas shopping study shows AI sending one city to holiday markets and the other to malls.

How did we run the study?

We ran two Beket AI market audits on October 29, 2026, one per city. Answers were recorded between 6:26 and 6:31 PM PT in Vancouver and between 6:27 and 6:38 PM PT in Seattle. The location was set to Vancouver, British Columbia, and to Seattle, Washington. The language was English.

1. Questions. Each audit had the same 25 selected questions, with only the city name swapped. None named a store or brand.
2. Discovery prompts. Each audit also added 4 longer prompts of its own. In Vancouver they were about festive and craft markets. In Seattle they were about malls and upscale shopping. Their answers are included in every count, and we cannot separate them out.
3. Engines. ChatGPT and Perplexity answered all 29 prompts in each city. Google AI Overview appeared for 15 of 25 selected questions in Vancouver and 10 of 25 in Seattle.
4. Mentions. A mention is a store, brand, mall or market named in an answer. One answer can name the same store more than once.
5. Threshold. Beket AI’s market report lists only names with at least 2 mentions. Anything named once is not counted here.
6. Name variants. We combined spellings of the same name, such as Best Buy and Best Buy Canada, MEC and MEC Vancouver, or REI and REI Seattle Flagship. That took 35 names down to 32 in Vancouver and 84 down to 77 in Seattle.
7. Store types. We labeled each name as a local independent, a regional chain, a national or global chain or brand, a mall or shopping district, or a holiday or craft market. Those labels are our judgment. In Seattle, 12 names with 37 mentions were unclear to us, and 2 names (Tripadvisor and a mall developer) were not retailers.

How far can you trust these numbers?

Treat them as one careful snapshot, not a verdict. Our note on why one AI check is only a snapshot explains why.

• One run on one evening. Answers can change by day, by wording and by user. Black Friday deals and holiday markets change fast.
• Small shops are undercounted. The report lists only names with 2 or more mentions, and names mentioned only once are more likely to be small local shops.
• The 8 discovery prompts the audits added are in the counts. They lean toward markets in Vancouver and toward malls and designer brands in Seattle.
• The store-type labels (local, chain, mall, market) are our judgment, not a field in the data.
• Beket AI’s data gives names and counts by engine, not by question. So we can’t say which question produced which name.
• Seattle answers named far more stores than Vancouver answers (540 mentions against 219), so compare shares rather than raw counts across cities.
• Google AI Overview showed up for fewer than two thirds of the questions, so its numbers rest on fewer answers.
• A mention says nothing about prices, stock or service. We did not rate or rank any store ourselves.
• We did not separate Black Friday questions from the other shopping questions. Best Buy’s mentions come from all 29 prompts in each city, not only the four electronics questions.

What questions did we ask?

The 25 selected questions, asked on all three engines in both cities. [city] was Vancouver or Seattle. None of them named a store or brand.

1. best electronics store in [city] for Black Friday deals
2. where to buy a TV on Black Friday in [city]
3. best place to buy a laptop in [city]
4. where to buy a winter jacket in [city]
5. best outdoor gear store in [city]
6. where to buy hiking boots in [city]
7. best ski and snowboard shop in [city]
8. best gift shops in [city]
9. unique local gift shops in [city] for Christmas shopping
10. where to buy Christmas gifts in [city]
11. best toy store in [city]
12. where to buy kids toys for the holidays in [city]
13. best furniture store in [city]
14. where to buy a sofa on sale in [city]
15. affordable furniture stores in [city]
16. best home decor stores in [city]
17. best kitchenware store in [city]
18. best bookstore in [city] for gifts
19. best clothing boutiques in [city]
20. where to buy shoes in [city]
21. best shopping mall in [city] for Black Friday
22. best jewelry store in [city] for holiday gifts
23. where to buy video games and consoles in [city]
24. best bike shop in [city]
25. best sporting goods store in [city]

Seattle’s question 10 ran as “Where to buy Christmas gifts in Seattle”, with a capital W, because the audit had already written that question itself. The wording is otherwise the same.

Discovery prompts the Vancouver audit added on its own:

• “I want to go to a major festive market in Vancouver this December. What are my best options and how do they compare in terms of vendor variety and experience?”
• “What are the top holiday markets in Vancouver for buying unique, handmade local gifts?”
• “Where can I find the best holiday craft fairs and artisan markets in Vancouver this winter?”
• “Where should I go in Vancouver if I want to shop for local crafts, gourmet seasonal foods, and holiday decorations all in one place?”

Discovery prompts the Seattle audit added on its own:

• “How do the different major shopping centers in the Seattle and Bellevue metro areas compare in terms of store selection and dining options?”
• “I need to buy gifts that range from unique local Pacific Northwest products to standard retail brands. Which shopping hubs in the Puget Sound area should I target?”
• “What are the best outdoor shopping malls and retail districts in the Seattle area for a day of walking and shopping?”
• “Where should I go near Seattle if I want a concentrated mix of upscale designer boutiques and high-end department stores?”

How can a store check its own AI answers?

Beket AI runs the same kind of audit for a single business. It asks unbranded questions like the ones above on ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overview, then shows which names come up, how often, on which engine and which sources were cited. Running it again on later days shows how the answers move.

Any business can run its own free check at https://beket.ai. The free Beket AI audit covers 25 prompts across 3 engines. A store can also ask Beket AI for another run of this study.

About the author: Nur Rysbek is the CEO of Beket AI.