Welcome to the Scoop: a weekly email series in which I quiz fashion insiders on the stories of the week. This will be a way for the Vogue Business community to synthesize and reflect on the latest headlines and get a little inside scoop every Friday.
This week’s guest is Juan Pellerano. Juan is the chief marketing officer of Swap Commerce, a company that helps companies with their e-commerce logistics. Swap was also our partner on our new executive report, ‘How to Sell’, as well as the Vogue Business Global Summit that just took place in Chantilly.
It was on that stage at the Château de Chantilly where Swap co-founder and CEO Sam Atkinson broke the news that Swap is launching the world’s first-ever agentic storefront. But what on earth is an agentic storefront? I asked Juan to explain while we took in the sun on the steps of the château in between sessions.
Hi Juan, what’s the scoop?
We’re bringing out the first agentic storefront. We’ve been working on it for a year and are excited to launch it alongside over 20 brand partners, but notably Simkhai, Retrofit, Studio Nicholson, and Manors Golf. Originally, we worked on this from a B2C standpoint. We had a product called Window Shop that we ultimately didn’t bring to market, but it was essentially about how to get someone the exact product they’re looking for. And during the development of Window Shop, we realized we could put this power in the brands’ hands and give them a tool that lets them control the customer experience end-to-end.
But what is an agentic storefront? Can you explain it to me in layman’s terms?
Basically, it’s as if you were a brand that took to ChatGPT for a day; what would that look like? Once you land on an AI version of the brand’s site, we have two journeys that you can choose from. One is the discovery mode: shopping as if you’re scrolling on TikTok or Instagram, where you can scroll through the feed and see products in that way. And then there’s the conversation side of it, where you can talk directly to the agent with your voice or through text and find very specific things. If you’re looking for an outfit for an occasion, a trip, etc., or you’re just looking for simple basics, you’re able to interact with the agent in the same way that you would interact with someone in a store.
We find that through that very guided discovery, you’re able to convert better. So we’re seeing brands convert at roughly twice the rate of a standard .com. And then virtual try-on helps them reduce returns because they can try on items. So we’re seeing about a 20% reduction in returns and, obviously, more time on site, as the experience is interactive.
