Zero-Click Commerce is Coming
Pets At Home's Head of AI on Agentic Commerce and Charles Clinkard MD on Future-Proofing Footwear Retail
We’re SO over talking about the “death of the store”. Now we’re all pondering the “death of the website”.
Agentic commerce is coming. AI agents will do the shopping for us. No search. No product pages. No checkout. Just a machine talking to another machine.
But is it overhyped? Are there already signs on trouble in paradise? According to The Information, OpenAI is at least temporarily scaling back its plans to introduce shopping directly within the ChatGPT app.
There are bound to be bumps along the way as we hurtle towards this new agentic world. But the direction of travel is clear so how can retailers prepare for this tectonic shift? How can they preserve their relationship with the customer if the customer no longer needs them in the traditional sense? What are the implications for e-commerce (do we even need websites anymore?) and what does this mean for physical retail and the role of frontline staff?
Lots to unpack so I was thrilled to have Simon Ellis join me on the podcast this week. Simon is the Head of AI Transformation and Enterprise Architecture at Pets at Home.
Here are my top takeaways from Simon (and yes, AI might have helped out with the initial curation of this list 😉):
⚡ AI isn’t new — but the pace of change is.
AI has existed for ~80 years. What’s different now is the double-exponential curve of innovation. Models improve weekly, not yearly.
⚡ Fraud is a $100B+ global retail problem.
One example of how AI is helping Pets At Home: autonomously reviewing returns/refund requests to detect fraud alongside human teams — improving detection and protecting margins.
⚡ Search as we know it is breaking. Retailers spent decades mastering SEO. Now they must think about:
• GEO — Generative Engine Optimisation
• ASO — Answer Search Optimisation
The future isn’t about ranking for keywords. It’s about delivering the best answer to a question.
⚡ Data, data, data.
Hyper-personalization only works if the data is rich and connected: age of the pet, health history, purchase patterns, delivery preferences. Without clean data, AI is just expensive guesswork.
⚡ The real risk: retailers becoming “just a supplier.” I'm hearing this from SO many retailers right now. This means differentiation shifts to:
• expertise
• trust
• service
• community
• real human support when things go wrong
Future-Proofing Footwear Retail
Tim Payne is the Managing Director of Charles Clinkard, a 100+ year old footwear retailer that’s quietly doing some seriously smart things. Here are the top 3 takeaways from my conversation with Tim:
1️⃣ Diversify or die
In 2008, sales were 97% stores / 3% ecom.
Today? 55% stores / 35% ecom / 10% concessions.
That shift didn’t just “modernize” the business — it de-risked it. Tim and I agreed that there is a lot of great tech innovation (virtual try-ons, 3D scanning) going into solving some of online footwear's perennial challenges but... it's not quite there yet.
2️⃣ AI added +6% sales and +10% profit via reduced markdowns
Instead of chasing shiny customer-facing AI, they used machine learning to optimize stock allocation across 45 locations.
Previously:
• 15,000 rows in Excel
• 2 weeks of manual decisions
• Data out of date before execution
Now? Algorithm-driven allocation resulting in cost savings and improved speed to market. AI is solving real-world problems – even for retailers that have been trading for over a century!
3️⃣ Service is still the moat
Charles Clinkard defines itself as a service retailer that happens to sell shoes.
With:
• ~40 women’s brands
• ~25 men’s brands
• ~15 children’s brands
• Average SKU holding: 1.1 per size (incredibly complex inventory model – you can go from 100% availability to zero with one sale 😮)
Despite that complexity, NPS is in the high 80s! In a world obsessed with tech, their competitive edge is still very human.
🎧 Lots of lessons for retailers in footwear and beyond. Listen to the full episode – out now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
March is double episode month!
Throughout the month of March, we’ll be releasing two episodes a week thanks to our sponsor The Richmond Retail & eCommerce Directors' Forum. If you’re interested in sponsorship and would like a copy of our Partner Pack, please email me directly natalie at retaildisrupted dot com.
Next week, you’ll hear how Fortnum & Mason balances heritage with modernity and we’ll continue with the agentic commerce theme with Shopify EMEA Managing Director - Deann Evans!
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