Frasers Group leads in agentic commerce with commercetools deal
Frasers Group has formed an exclusive partnership with commercetools to deploy the agentic commerce suite to its retail brands across Europe.
As part of the agreement, Frasers Group will be the first European retailer to integrate the full agentic commerce offering from commercetools, known for its AI-first approach to enterprise commerce platforms. This will enable customers of Sports Direct, FLANNELS, and FRASERS to discover and purchase products directly through conversational AI channels such as ChatGPT, as well as via other large language model (LLM) interfaces like Gemini and Perplexity.
Agentic commerce integration
The partnership grants Frasers Group early access to commercetools' AI Hub and Agent Gateway, both designed to help retailers facilitate purchases and product discovery in conversational and autonomous shopping environments. Integration between Frasers Group and AI platforms will be managed through the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP).
David Clark, Chief Customer Officer at Frasers Group, highlighted the changing expectations of digital shoppers.
"The digital customer ecosystem is evolving faster than ever before, and so are customers' expectations. With this partnership, Frasers Group is now at the forefront of this evolution to deliver enhanced customer experiences across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity - including native checkout in ChatGPT - across Sports Direct, FLANNELS and FRASERS. This marks a shift in our digital capabilities, delivering an even more intuitive and personalised shopping experience for our consumers. Crucially, it builds on our Group-wide investment into cutting-edge MACH Architecture to lead the Group into a new era of seamless agentic commerce."
Agentic commerce allows shoppers to delegate aspects of the shopping journey to digital agents or complete transactions through LLM-powered interfaces. This move forms a core part of Frasers Group's broader strategy to enhance customer engagement and streamline experiences as AI shopping channels become more prevalent.
Market positioning
Andrew Burton, Chief Executive Officer of commercetools, commented on the shift towards agentic commerce and Frasers Group's role in adopting these technologies.
"The future of commerce is agentic, and it's arriving faster than most retailers realize. Frasers Group understands that when customers start delegating shopping to agents or doing their shopping through an LLM, the retailers who will win will be those ready to deliver seamless, trusted, consistent experiences through those agents. As our exclusive European retail launch partner, Frasers Group is setting the standard for how established retailers can move at the speed of this transformation-preparing to deploy agentic commerce responsibly, securely, and at scale across a diverse brand portfolio."
Conversational commerce, which blends real-time dialogue interfaces with shopping functions, is projected to see substantial growth through the next decade. Both companies view the partnership as a proactive step to meet customers where they interact most and deliver a more dynamic, personalised retail journey.
The new capabilities build on MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) architecture previously adopted by Frasers Group, which allows for technology composability and agility amid ongoing advances in digital commerce. This infrastructure lets Frasers Group adjust quickly as customer behaviour evolves from standard eCommerce to conversational AI and agent-driven shopping.
Future plans across the portfolio
Burton further described the intent behind the collaboration and its scope across the Frasers Group's diverse range of retail brands.
"This is a commitment to driving innovation and constantly improving the shopper's experience across one of Europe's largest and most diverse retail portfolios. Proving agentic commerce works from value-focused Sports Direct to luxury FLANNELS will define what's possible for European retail."
The deployment of the agentic commerce suite will be rolled out across major Frasers Group fascias, including Sports Direct, known for value retail, and FLANNELS, which focuses on luxury fashion, highlighting a strategy aiming to address multiple consumer segments with tailored AI-driven experiences.
AI Hub, part of the commercetools solution, serves as a centralised space for activating and scaling AI functions across commerce operations, including connectivity with major AI platforms via the Agentic Commerce Protocol. It governs vital information such as product inventory, pricing, and customer profiles, while aiming to uphold security, compliance, and observability standards.
The partnership marks a significant acceleration in Frasers Group's AI strategy as it implements agent-driven shopping at scale, reflecting the twin objectives of responding to consumer trends and maintaining operational flexibility in a swiftly changing retail landscape.
