OXFORDSHIRE, United Kingdom — On the second day of BoF VOICES 2025 — The Business of Fashion’s annual gathering for big thinkers — BoF and Amazon Fashion & Sports co-hosted a roundtable lunch with an intimate group of guests to discuss ‘Reinventing the Online Customer Journey in 2026’.
Hosted by Nick Blunden, president of BoF, and Abira Chatterjee, managing director of footwear and new business development for Amazon Fashion & Sports, executives from A-Frame Brands, Adanola, COS, Cult Mia, H&M, Hunza G, JD Group, L’Agence, Marni, McKinsey & Co., Monica Vinader, Nike, Outcast, Versace and Victoria’s Secret considered the future of the online customer journey, in a conversation moderated by BoF’s commercial features director Sophie Soar.
In Chatterjee’s opening remarks, she referenced the BoF Insights x Amazon Fashion & Sports report, ‘The New Era of Fashion E-Commerce,’ published in June. The report features a survey of EU5 customers (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain) and reveals a fundamental shift in how people shop, with the experience increasingly fluid and channel-agnostic. Customers move seamlessly between multi-brand retailers, brand websites and social media, transforming the traditional purchase funnel into an interconnected loop.
“It used to be a straightforward path: go to a store (online or offline), decide, purchase, done. But now, it’s more like a continuous cycle — discovery, research, validation, […] decide, purchase, validate again, give feedback, maybe even create content and throw it back into the community. Then someone else picks it up and uses that for their discovery,” she said.
According to Chatterjee, brands that thrive in this environment are those that accompany customers through each stage of their journey, creating consistent, trustworthy experiences while delivering both convenience and authentic connections – making the entire experience both engaging and effortless.
Over lunch, executives and entrepreneurs discussed how retailers must rethink the brand discovery journey in order to meet the consumer across an expanding range of touchpoints. AI was quickly identified as a key differentiating factor in delivering on this need. Earlier this year, 61 percent of EU5 customers surveyed by BoF Insights Amazon Fashion & Sports said they see personalisation as important to their shopping experience.
What’s more, according to the new The State of Fashion 2026 report by BoF and McKinsey & Co, shoppers are increasingly willing to make purchases from AI-based recommendations, with 84 percent growth in AI-driven revenue per visit on US retail sites between January and July 2025.
The business opportunity here is significant — a stronger, more convenient online shopping experience means consumers are more likely to click purchase and buy more when they do. But with the technology still nascent, and consumer needs and brand touchpoints constantly evolving, the scope for reinvention remains expansive and the need to focus attention prevalent.
During an animated conversation, guests shared their learnings, challenges and strategic growth areas under the Chatham House Rule.
Now, BoF shares condensed, anonymised insights. Amazon attendees waived their right to anonymity.
Doubling Down on Values to Build Community and Connection
“Building community” has become a key strategic focus in retention and loyalty today — uniting customers around a shared activity, a compelling founder and their story, or a cohesive set of values, designed to attract and retain customers with similar interests.
Given that 84 percent of people globally report the need to share values with a brand in order to use it, according to Edelman’s 2024 Trust Barometer, the topic of values and authenticity was top of mind among guests.
“Values have never not been important. It’s just the way we communicate it that changes. We go through the cycles of what’s important to people, and as a brand, you have to be confident, you have to stay on message, and if you start to veer or become unclear, then your brand disappears,” said one attendee.
Indeed, the latest fashion month, with its unprecedented number of new creative director debuts, was a cornerstone to one of the industry’s most turbulent years — ushering in new chapters, design codes and focus areas across heritage brands.
“When the world changes around you, how do you stay true to your values but also think about how you’re communicating those values? The messaging is changing all the time,” they added.
For another guest, the lack of female representation among these designer appointments remains a missed opportunity in connecting with female consumers and their needs. “I don’t subscribe to the idea that men can’t design for women. […] But [design] by women, for women, isn’t a gendered point — it’s a practical one.”
Chatterjee also spoke to how Amazon seeks to approach community-building by integrating brand appearances into authentic consumer touchpoints in entertainment, thereby meeting customers where they are through channels like Prime Video, Amazon Music, gaming on Twitch and Live Sports. She cited the recent Coach partnership with “The Summer I Turned Pretty”, designed to create authentic connections by integrating products that naturally fit the TV show’s narrative.
One guest did challenge the industry’s focus on community more broadly: “I’d query the notion of community,” they said. “They are customers. This idea of community and loyalty is nebulous.”
“I think that’s the retailer’s answer,” countered another attendee. “Brands have a community. You need to experience how that product makes you feel and then you fall in love with the brand.”
Playing Into Different Strengths of Online and Offline Retail Channels
Embracing a multichannel approach was discussed by guests as they unpacked the challenges of managing e-commerce channels while balancing out-of-home advertising, brick-and-mortar retail and meeting customers where they are.
“Seventy-one percent of EU5 customers surveyed by BoF Insights Amazon Fashion & Sports trust a brand more when they show up across the many touchpoints they have, and do so in a consistent way,” said Jasmin Kossmann, head of business development at Amazon Fashion & Sports. “A multichannel presence is key to this, with 72 percent of consumers surveyed confirming that a brand’s presence across channels makes them more likely to shop from a brand.”
While consistency in brand experience remains key, one guest challenged the notion of seeking a “seamless” experience across all channels.
“‘Seamless’ is not the right word, but rather, it’s about playing into the strengths of both. How can you play with the rules of online and offline? How do the two complement each other? […] Both channels bring something different.”
Some guests went on to speak about the power of catalogues — a marketing medium that previously fell out of favour with the rise of e-commerce, but has since made a comeback as a loyalty driver and support to digital sales channels. J.Crew’s relaunch of its catalogue in September 2024 was one example cited.
‘Seamless’ is not the right word, but rather, it’s about playing into the strengths of both. How can you play with the rules of online and offline?
“We reintroduced catalogues about a year ago, sent to people’s homes. It has been one of the most productive parts of our business,” said one attendee. “It feeds back to our e-commerce and our stores. We even have wholesale partners telling us people show up with the catalogue in their hands in-store.”
Some guests also spoke to pop-up strategies, emphasising the importance of a location that resonates with brand and product-relevant footfall. One mentioned that customers had repeatedly asked for a pop-up store in Los Angeles, which the brand delivered.
The guest called the activation “an example of what not to do.” Visitor numbers were low, which they attributed to its location and lack of proximity to the right customer base. Despite underlying demand, the outcome has pushed the business to rethink where it should strategically meet its audience in future.
Other guests discussed the successes (and failures) of the “third place” experience — driving customers to spend time in store by reimagining their purpose as gathering spots through food and beverage offerings or exercise classes, for example.
The likes of Aimé Leon Dore’s Café Leon Dore in New York was called out as a great example of success, where “people are dressing up for the occasion — it feels like a destination for that community.”
Leveraging AI in Shopping Experiences to Bolster Business Performance
Convenience remains critical to a customer overwhelmed by online choice today, with many seeking out technological assistance to make an informed edit on their behalf. Indeed, The State of Fashion 2026 finds over 40 percent of consumers say AI responses feel more reliable, while only 15 percent consider them less reliable.
Chatterjee shared insights into how Amazon is enhancing the shopping experience through AI. “We’re using AI to help customers find exactly what they are looking for faster. Through Rufus, our AI shopping assistant, we can understand more complex queries and engage in natural conversations to understand preferences, creating a more personalised, curated selection.”
Another guest shared how their business works with different AI partners to “help customers find what they’re looking for much faster and more easily.” They added: “It allows us to present products differently to different customers.”
For instance, if one client visits a certain product page, the layout and content might adapt based on how they have historically interacted with the site. AI helps the brand scale what’s most relevant and provides real-time insights into product performance.
They continued: “In addition to that, we’ve built a really powerful internal tool. These days, just like you’d say ‘Hey Siri,’ ‘Hey Google,’ or ‘Alexa,’ we can now say something like, ‘Hey, why are sales up 20 percent in the US but only 10 percent in the UK?’ — and we get an answer instantly.”
Fashion has all the details but can’t always maintain the trust of the customer in giving them the best information.
Chatterjee spoke to the opportunity AI presents in optimising product information available to customers — especially around size and fit. Indeed, when BoF Insights and Amazon Fashion & Sports surveyed EU5 customers, what mattered most when shopping for fashion online was practical benefits like confidence in the size and fit of products and free returns.
“Fashion products have complex sizing details that can be difficult for customers to navigate. Our insights show that when customers use AI-powered size recommendation tools, more than 90 percent of those surveyed are satisfied with the fit of their purchase. This technology is a game-changer for online fashion retail,” said Chatterjee.
AI’s role (and customers’ reliance on it) is deepening across the shopping experience — according to Adobe Digital Insights, shopping-related searches on generative AI platforms grew 4,700 percent between 2024 and 2025.
Agentic AI is the latest development in this area, referring to autonomous AI shopping agents that can act on the consumer’s behalf to complete multi-step tasks autonomously, conduct research across multiple sites, orchestrate returns and schedule pickups — and even complete checkout on the customer’s behalf soon. OpenAI, owner of ChatGPT, announced a partnership with Etsy and Shopify to allow users to check out directly through ChatGPT.
The opportunity is nascent but substantial — with even a moderate uptake of agentic commerce, its value is predicted to grow by $3-5 trillion by 2030, according to The State of Fashion 2026.
Consequently, as brands develop their online customer journey, technologically enhanced shopping journeys must retain a customer-centric approach.
“At Amazon, our innovation starts with the customer and works backwards,” said Chatterjee. “We don’t implement technology for its own sake — we ask how it solves real customer problems. Our scale gives us unique insights into customer frustrations with online shopping, and we are focused on addressing those pain points through innovations like improved size recommendations, virtual try-on capabilities and simplified returns processes.”
This is a sponsored feature paid for by Amazon as part of a BoF partnership.
