Swap has built a storefront for merchants first.
COURTESY OF SWAP
Swap today said it has launched the first agentic storefront, a new AI-powered sales channel that lives separately from a brand’s existing website and converts shoppers more effectively. Running on a dedicated AI site separate from each brand’s main store, Swap Storefront guides shoppers from product discovery to live virtual try-on to checkout in a single, fully branded experience. It’s converting at twice the industry rate, and increasing conversion, engagement and loyalty. Launch partners include Paul Smith, Retrofête, Odd Muse, and Studio Nicholson, among others.
With the first agentic storefront, Swap is replacing traditional static websites with immersive, agent-led commerce experiences that take shoppers on a prescribed journey.
“It actually started as this idea around helping consumers find what they want more seamlessly and through a more guided experience,” said Juan Pellerano-Rendón, chief marketing officer of Swap. “We originally had this idea for a B-to-C product called Window Shop.” While building that product, Swap realized that it would be more powerful to put the capabilities in the hands of the brands.”
Brands have been ceding control of the customer relationship for some time, including data, revenue and more. The Swap Storefront introduces a new model, one built expressly for merchants where brands own the end to end experience.
In an AI-driven world, Swap Storefront is helping brands compete without sacrificing what makes them unique. Rather than routing shoppers through a third-party AI layer, Storefront is a dedicated .ai destination next to the brand’s main .com site. It’s outperforming traditional e-commerce conversion, time on site, and returns. AI agents are trained on each brand’s products and owned by the merchant, giving brands control over how their agent looks, sounds, and sells.
As AI tools become a larger part of daily life, consumer expectations for digital shopping are shifting, leaving merchants racing to catch up. With LLMs building out their own commerce experiences, their incentives are “structurally misaligned with brands,” Pellerano-Rendón said, adding, “they’re designed to keep consumers inside the LLM, often requiring shoppers to download a separate app or complete purchases within a chat interface, prioritizing engagement on the platform over conversion for the merchant.”
“We recognize that there’s a major gap in the market,” Pellerano-Rendón said. “You’ve seen ChatGPT announce things with Sephora. Gemini announced an integration with Gap.”
The Swap storefront experience features agents understand shopper intent, recommend products, and let them fit clothes on themselves in real time. There’s also streamlined checkout, and purchases are completed directly via chat or voice, reducing friction.
“Google has 900 million to a billion shopping queries a day and ChatGPT has 50 million,” said Pellerano-Rendón. “Really, what’s happening is that the search now starts in many different places like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, but consumers are not converting there. Walmart’s experience with ChatGPT didn’t convert as well as their .com.
“To us, that shows LLMs are keen on creating walled garden experiences that focus more on keeping consumers using their respective LLMs rather than helping brands convert consumers,” Pellerano-Rendón said. That’s why we’ve approached this from an entirely merchant-first lens.”
Swap Storefront has two default experiences for consumers. There’s discovery mode, which is similar to scrolling on Instagram or TikTok reels just like a social feed. The other is a conversational commerce journey where the consumer is able to interact with the agent and talk back and forth.
“If I was going to a wedding or a golf trip, I’d have an interaction with the agent so that agent can find exactly what I’m looking for,” said Pellerano-Rendón. “There’s a lot of major enterprise interest in this product. Luxury retailers see it as a way to mimic their in-store experience as closely as possible, and big box users have said, ‘How do I elevate the experience for my top 40% VIP customers and make it more curated and personalized for them.”
“We have a couple of brands aligned to the announcement today and there are a number of marquee name brands that are in conversation with us and will be part of the journey,” said Pellerano-Rendón. “With founder-led brands, we were able to make the founder the voice of the AI. It’s a true representation of the brand.”