AI is transforming the way e-commerce operates, making it smarter, more personalized, and more autonomous. While AI optimizes in-store conversion, the most disruptive change is occurring in the preceding phase: product search and discovery.
Recently, Gonzalo Casado, CEO of Upango, participated in a webinar organized by Sales Layer discussing "Agentic Commerce: How to Increase the Visibility of Your Fashion and Footwear Catalog in AI Search Engines"
Below, we summarize the most relevant points from the webinar.
How is AI impacting the fashion and footwear sector?
It is estimated that between 20% and 40% of searches that influence purchasing decisions are already being conducted by AI.
The main reasons are:
- Its analytical capabilities, which allow it to offer hyper-personalized experiences and real-time adjustments (prices, promotions, stock, etc.). It improves conversion.
- It understands search intent and relevance, offering results tailored to the user's needs. Better user experience (UX).
- It is capable of making decisions and negotiating terms on behalf of the user, based on their budget, preferences, or conditions. Greater agility and efficiency.
- 24/7 customer service. Greater customer satisfaction.
The goal is to be understandable, citable, and recommended by AI systems before the user defines their specific search
How does agentic commerce influence the user experience?
Through agentic commerce, users no longer have to rely on keywords and can ask exactly what they need. This turns the search phase into a more consultative, faster, and more personalized process.
- The AI agent asks the right questions, understanding the user's context, guiding them toward the right product, and offering compatible products: it improves product mix and cross-selling.
- It performs preliminary comparisons before proposing a solution to the user, reducing steps in the purchasing process; greater customer satisfaction.
How does agentic commerce affect the product catalog?
Visibility in agentic commerce depends on three fundamental capabilities:
- 1. Can AI understand your products?
- Consistent information.
- Descriptions.
- Visible attributes.
- Category structure.
- 2. Does the market trust your brand, your online store, and your products?
- Number of reviews.
- Depth of reviews.
- UGC.
- PR, media, and affiliates.
- 3. Do you appear in the purchasing questions users are asking ChatGPT?
- Detailed content.
- Post-sale content.
- Related purchases.
- Guides.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the evolution of traditional SEO: instead of optimizing solely for search engine rankings, it is optimized so that AI systems interpret, cite, and recommend your catalog as a direct answer to user queries.
The catalog stops being functional and becomes a strategic asset.
Developing a catalog prepared for agentic commerce means working with product data strategically.
- Greater data depth, covering as many use cases as possible.
- Actionable descriptions: AI's ability to compare, configure, validate, and make purchases requires a product description that is as detailed as possible. We are no longer talking just about search, but about purchasing integrated into the process.
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Standard protocols: Implementation of MCP (Model Context Protocol), OpenAI's ACP (Agent Commerce Protocol), and Google and Shopify's UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol) to turn the catalog into an interoperable data source.
What competitive advantages does agentic commerce bring to the fashion and footwear sector?
- It improves UX (user experience): by creating a conversational scenario that guides the customer toward the optimal product with intelligent result prioritization.
- Contextual memory: The AI agent remembers your tastes, preferences, and previous searches, anticipating your needs and offering you new suggestions. It increases upselling and cross-selling.
- Intelligence for wholesale: AI allows for the analysis of market trends, to optimize replenishment and adapt catalogs to specific geographic areas.
- Automated post-sale management: It acts as a post-sales department, providing information about orders, exchange processes, and suggestions for alternative products.
- Marketing optimization: Support in campaign design and audience segmentation based on behavioral data.
From functional catalog to strategic asset
Agentic commerce requires rethinking the catalog as interoperable data infrastructure. The implementation of a PIM (Product Information Management) and the generation of structured content for AI are now competitive requirements, not optional.
If you want to know if your catalog is prepared for agentic commerce, contact us at hola@upango.es and we will send you the assessment report.
Thank you to Sales Layer for having Upango in this highly strategic initiative for the growth of B2B online businesses.