AI Shelf Index · Apparel basics
Which apparel basics brands does AI recommend?
Every month we ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini the same 3 apparel basics questions with web search on, and count the brands they name. Same prompts every month, so the trend is the story.
The first apparel basics edition is being collected.
An edition publishes once at least 90% of the month's answers are in. Below are the exact prompts it asks and what each one needs from a product page. To track your own brand now, start a weekly Shelf Watch.
What the prompts ask for
How a apparel basics brand gets named
Basics prompts are about how a garment behaves: t-shirts that don't shrink, sustainable leggings for yoga, merino socks. Fabric, weight and care are what separate one tee from a thousand others, and they're the fields most catalogs leave blank.
Put each fact on the product page as text, in your Product structured data (as an additionalProperty where schema.org has no field for it), in your Shopify category metafields and in your Merchant Center feed's product_detail and product_highlight. Then check whether the sites assistants cite say the same thing.
| The shopper asks | The fact that answers it |
|---|---|
| “t-shirts that don't shrink” | Fabric blend, fabric weight, whether it's pre-shrunk, and care instructions |
| “sustainable leggings for yoga” | Fibre content including recycled share, stretch and opacity, and the certification behind 'sustainable' |
| “the best merino wool socks” | Merino percentage, cushioning level, sock height and the use (hiking, everyday, running) |
Panel
The 3 apparel basics prompts
- 1.What are the best men's t-shirts that don't shrink? I'm shopping online in the United States.
- 2.Recommend sustainable women's leggings for yoga. I'm shopping online in the United States.
- 3.Which brands make the best merino wool socks? I'm shopping online in the United States.
Fixed since the first edition. How the count works and its limits are on the Index page; journalists and researchers can find citation terms and raw data on Research.
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