ARC · FREE RESEARCH
Agent readiness by store category
Agent commerce readiness by retail category (apparel, beauty, home, electronics and more): UCP, MCP, WebMCP, checkout links, product data, policies and robots.txt, from ARC's free HTTP checks.
DATA AS OF 11 OCT 2026, 14:11 UTC · n = 3,309 STORES CHECKED · EVIDENCE: MEASURED (PLAIN HTTP) · LICENCE CC-BY-4.0
Across all 3,309 checked stores
- Valid UCP profile: 48.3% (1598 of 3309)
- Storefront MCP answered: 45.9% (1519 of 3309)
- WebMCP adapter detected: 44% (1451 of 3298)
- Agent checkout link returned: 39.6% (1311 of 3309)
- MCP blocked: 10.1% (334 of 3309)
- Strong product structured data: 35.8% (691 of 1928)
- Return policy findable: 65% (1769 of 2721)
- Shipping policy findable: 61.2% (1666 of 2721)
- robots.txt blocks answer agents: 3.4% (102 of 2983)
Charts
MEASURED · DENOMINATOR: COMPLETED CHECKS
Apparel29.9% n=301
Footwear48.2% n=284
Beauty57.7% n=305
Home46.9% n=350
Food & drink54.6% n=399
Supplements & wellness65.2% n=279
Outdoor44.8% n=279
Kids59.5% n=279
Pets42.7% n=260
Electronics & accessories22.8% n=289
Jewelry57.3% n=281
Under 10 checked stores (counts only): Other 2 of 3
MEASURED · DENOMINATOR: COMPLETED CHECKS
Apparel27.2% n=301
Footwear45.4% n=284
Beauty55.1% n=305
Home45.1% n=350
Food & drink53.1% n=399
Supplements & wellness63.8% n=279
Outdoor42.3% n=279
Kids55.9% n=279
Pets39.6% n=260
Electronics & accessories19.7% n=289
Jewelry55.5% n=281
Under 10 checked stores (counts only): Other 2 of 3
MEASURED · DENOMINATOR: MEASURED PRODUCT DATA
Apparel46.5% n=157
Footwear43.2% n=155
Beauty43.9% n=212
Home36% n=189
Food & drink25.6% n=254
Supplements & wellness36.5% n=197
Outdoor36.6% n=145
Kids31.9% n=188
Pets37.7% n=138
Electronics & accessories36.8% n=106
Jewelry25.8% n=186
Under 10 checked stores (counts only): Other 1 of 1
MEASURED · DENOMINATOR: MEASURED POLICIES
Apparel54.6% n=238
Footwear69.3% n=228
Beauty70.8% n=253
Home63.3% n=281
Food & drink66.1% n=345
Supplements & wellness72.3% n=242
Outdoor68.3% n=227
Kids72.1% n=244
Pets61.3% n=217
Electronics & accessories45.7% n=197
Jewelry67.5% n=246
Under 10 checked stores (counts only): Other 1 of 3
By category
Each cell is percentage (count of n), where n is that metric's measured denominator in the group. Below 10 checked stores only counts are shown.
| Category | Stores checked | Valid UCP profile | Storefront MCP answered | WebMCP adapter detected | Agent checkout link returned | MCP blocked | Strong product structured data | Return policy findable | Shipping policy findable | robots.txt blocks answer agents |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel | 301 | 29.9% (90 of 301) | 27.2% (82 of 301) | 24.9% (75 of 301) | 24.3% (73 of 301) | 14.3% (43 of 301) | 46.5% (73 of 157) | 54.6% (130 of 238) | 50.4% (120 of 238) | 5.8% (15 of 260) |
| Footwear | 284 | 48.2% (137 of 284) | 45.4% (129 of 284) | 43.3% (122 of 282) | 34.9% (99 of 284) | 8.8% (25 of 284) | 43.2% (67 of 155) | 69.3% (158 of 228) | 60.5% (138 of 228) | 1.2% (3 of 257) |
| Beauty | 305 | 57.7% (176 of 305) | 55.1% (168 of 305) | 51.8% (158 of 305) | 50.2% (153 of 305) | 10.5% (32 of 305) | 43.9% (93 of 212) | 70.8% (179 of 253) | 70.4% (178 of 253) | 5.5% (15 of 275) |
| Home | 350 | 46.9% (164 of 350) | 45.1% (158 of 350) | 40.5% (140 of 346) | 40.6% (142 of 350) | 9.1% (32 of 350) | 36% (68 of 189) | 63.3% (178 of 281) | 59.8% (168 of 281) | 3.3% (10 of 306) |
| Food & drink | 399 | 54.6% (218 of 399) | 53.1% (212 of 399) | 50.9% (201 of 395) | 46.9% (187 of 399) | 8% (32 of 399) | 25.6% (65 of 254) | 66.1% (228 of 345) | 66.1% (228 of 345) | 1.6% (6 of 366) |
| Supplements & wellness | 279 | 65.2% (182 of 279) | 63.8% (178 of 279) | 60.8% (169 of 278) | 50.5% (141 of 279) | 7.2% (20 of 279) | 36.5% (72 of 197) | 72.3% (175 of 242) | 67.8% (164 of 242) | 3.5% (9 of 260) |
| Outdoor | 279 | 44.8% (125 of 279) | 42.3% (118 of 279) | 40.5% (113 of 279) | 35.5% (99 of 279) | 11.1% (31 of 279) | 36.6% (53 of 145) | 68.3% (155 of 227) | 63.4% (144 of 227) | 3.1% (8 of 254) |
| Kids | 279 | 59.5% (166 of 279) | 55.9% (156 of 279) | 57.7% (161 of 279) | 50.2% (140 of 279) | 5.7% (16 of 279) | 31.9% (60 of 188) | 72.1% (176 of 244) | 69.7% (170 of 244) | 3.8% (10 of 260) |
| Pets | 260 | 42.7% (111 of 260) | 39.6% (103 of 260) | 39.2% (102 of 260) | 32.3% (84 of 260) | 10.4% (27 of 260) | 37.7% (52 of 138) | 61.3% (133 of 217) | 59.9% (130 of 217) | 6.2% (15 of 241) |
| Electronics & accessories | 289 | 22.8% (66 of 289) | 19.7% (57 of 289) | 18.7% (54 of 289) | 16.3% (47 of 289) | 17.6% (51 of 289) | 36.8% (39 of 106) | 45.7% (90 of 197) | 38.6% (76 of 197) | 4.2% (10 of 240) |
| Jewelry | 281 | 57.3% (161 of 281) | 55.5% (156 of 281) | 55.2% (155 of 281) | 51.2% (144 of 281) | 8.9% (25 of 281) | 25.8% (48 of 186) | 67.5% (166 of 246) | 60.6% (149 of 246) | 0.4% (1 of 261) |
| Other | 3 | 2 of 3 | 2 of 3 | 1 of 3 | 2 of 3 | 0 of 3 | 1 of 1 | 1 of 3 | 1 of 3 | 0 of 3 |
Method
- Sample: ARC's curated directory, Index stores and accepted submissions (the same host set as the adoption tracker, Protocol Matrix and dataset). It is not all of e-commerce; read rates as describing this sample.
- Each store is counted once, from its latest completed plain-HTTP check (policies and product data from its latest attempt). Every metric has its own measured denominator (n); unavailable, blocked and legacy rows are excluded, never counted as 'no'.
- Groups with fewer than 10 checked stores show counts but no percentage.
- Platform comes from homepage fingerprints (headers and HTML). Not detected includes headless and custom stores. Stores whose homepage was blocked, or checked before platform detection, are unmeasured for platform and left out of the platform table (the coverage line gives the count).
- Market is ARC's curated label: the storefront's country (country-code domain or country subdomain), otherwise where the brand is based. EU means the rest of Europe; the UK and Ireland are separate. Index stores outside the directory carry the same curated label; submitted stores use their country-code domain, else Not labelled.
- Policy findings come from the store's pages and structured data. Presence does not verify the policy terms. A stated return window is the number of days found in structured data or the policy page.
- WebMCP is measured only on checks after 18:00 UTC on 6 Oct 2026, when detection began.
- Pages are generated from live saved checks and refresh hourly. Each page shows its data-as-of time; cite it with that date, or cite an immutable dataset version from /data/versions.json for exact bytes.
Full method: /methodology · Changes: method changelog · Generated 11 Oct 2026, 14:27 UTC.
Cite this (CC-BY 4.0)
Free to reuse with attribution: ARC, arcreport.ai.
ARC (2026). Agent readiness by store category. Data as of 11 Oct 2026. https://www.arcreport.ai/insights/agent-readiness-by-category
@misc{arc_agent_readiness_by_category_20261011,
author = {{ARC}},
title = {Agent readiness by store category},
year = {2026},
note = {Data as of 11 Oct 2026. Licence CC-BY-4.0},
url = {https://www.arcreport.ai/insights/agent-readiness-by-category}
}More research: Agent readiness by commerce platform · Agent readiness by market · Return and shipping policy clarity for AI agents