The Tamesis
Welcome to The Scoop: a weekly email series in which I ask fashion insiders about the week’s stories. This will be a way for the Vogue business community to synthesize and reflect on the latest headlines every Friday and get a little inside scoop.
This week’s guest is Juan Pellerano. Juan is the Chief Marketing Officer of Swap Commerce, a company that helps businesses with e-commerce logistics. Swap is also our new executive report “How to Sell” and fashion business The Global Summit just took place in Chantilly.
It was on the stage at the Château de Chantilly that Swap co-founder and CEO Sam Atkinson announced that Swap was about to launch the world’s first agency storefront. But what exactly is an agency storefront? As we enjoyed the sunshine on the steps of the castle between meetings, I asked Juan to explain.
Hi Juan, any scoop?
We are launching our first agency storefront. We’ve been working on it for a year and are excited to launch it with over 20 brand partners, most notably Simkhai, Retrofit, Studio Nicholson and Manors Golf. Initially, we did this from a B2C perspective. We had a product called Window Shop that we didn’t end up bringing to market, but it was essentially about how to give people the exact product they were looking for. During the development of Window Shop, we realized we could put this power in the hands of brands and provide them with a tool that allows them to control the customer experience from end to end.
But what is an agency storefront? Can you explain it to me in plain language?
Basically, it’s like you were a brand using ChatGPT for a day; what would that look like? Once you land on the AI-powered version of the brand’s website, we have two journeys you can choose from. One is discovery mode: just like scrolling through TikTok or Instagram for shopping, you scroll through your feed and view products that way. And then there’s the conversational aspect, where you can talk directly to an agent via voice or text and find out very specific things. If you’re looking for clothing for an occasion, travel, etc., or you’re just looking for simple basics, you can interact with an agent the same way you would interact with someone in a store.
We’ve found that with this very guided discovery, you’re better able to convert. As a result, we’re seeing conversion rates for brands that are roughly double those of standard .com. Then, virtual try-ons can help them reduce returns because they can try on items. So we’re seeing a 20% reduction in returns and obviously, because the experience is interactive, the time on site is also increased.
