Episode Overview

Podcast: Omni Talk Retail
Episode Title: What Will You Do When E-Commerce No Longer Requires A Website? | Ask An Expert
Air Date: October 9, 2025
Guests: John Cleaver (CTO, sportshoes.com), Malte Ubl (CTO, Vercel)
Hosts: Chris Walton & Anne Mezzenga

Main Theme:
This episode tackles the provocative question: What should you do when e-commerce no longer requires a website? Through a deep-dive discussion, industry leaders John Cleaver and Malte Ubl share hands-on lessons from transforming sportshoes.com’s digital stack, and look ahead to the role of composable commerce and agentic (AI-driven) e-commerce experiences. The conversation blends practical advice on technology choices with speculative insights on how AI may soon reshape both the back-end and consumer-facing side of digital retail.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introductions and Company Backgrounds

• [02:01] John Cleaver, sportshoes.com:
  • UK’s leading destination for running and outdoors gear.
  • Ships to 1.2M+ customers; almost entirely online.
  • Passionate runner: “If I’m not working, I’m definitely running.”
• [03:31] Malte Ubl, Vercel:
  • CTO; ex-Google (ran the search engine).
  • Vercel powers modern front ends (Next.js), enables fast, composable website development, and develops AI developer tools (e.g., V0 the “vibe coding” tool).

2. Defining Composable Commerce & Its Significance

• [05:27] Malte:

  • Transition from monolithic vendor software to “composable” tech stacks.
  • Retailers now control the user experience, selecting best-of-breed solutions for CMS, search, payments, etc.
  • "The magic is that you can just do that,"—innovation isn’t dependent on a vendor’s slow roadmap.

• [07:33] John:

  • Engineering now focuses on integrating and orchestrating best-in-class, modular components (e.g., Bloomreach for search, Prismic for CMS, Stripe for payments, BigCommerce for commerce engine).
  • Flexibility enables swapping components as technology (or business needs) evolve:
    • "If you design it in the right way... you then get the flexibility in the future."

3. The Website Transformation Journey

• [09:02] John:

  • sportshoes.com needed to shed its monolithic site to enable new customer experiences (like mobile apps).
  • Old system led to bottlenecks: weekly release cycles, everything done by engineers, slow to launch new products across 150+ brands.
  • First steps:
    • Add lightweight CMS to empower marketing (proven in 2 months).
    • Evaluate and select new core platforms: BigCommerce (commerce), Bloomreach (search), Stripe (payments), Prismic (CMS).
  • Full web stack replaced in ~12 months; launched first new site in seven months.

• [13:54] “Better you than me. And you still got a job too. So that means it went pretty well.” —Chris Walton [to John]

4. Technical Musts for Composable Success

• [14:17] Malte:

  • Building your own front-end brings responsibility but enables agility.
  • Modern dev workflows (thanks to Vercel and Next.js):
    • Continuous deployment; preview URLs for instant feedback, collaboration, and fail-fast culture.
    • Agile cycles: “Reduce feedback cycles from what maybe used to be days-to-weeks-to-months, to...multiple times a day.”
  • “It’s not the case anymore like John was saying, that they were having weekly releases...with Vercel, you can ship every single time you make any change.” —Malte [14:17]

• [16:08] John:

  • Up to 20x faster delivery:
    • “We don’t have to QA things to death anymore...we have monitors, KPIs...we can quickly roll back...our engineers can move so much faster, and they’re delighted.”

Scalability Benefits

• [17:13] Malte:
  • Platform scales automatically to viral spikes without painful ops meetings or unnecessary cost.
  • Story: Startup used 1,000+ compute hours in 10 minutes during a viral event; Vercel auto-scaled and auto-downscaled.
    • “In the traditional model, you would have had to get some kind of scaling meeting...and then you pay for [resources] even though maybe it doesn’t come.”
  • In retail, such spikes are increasingly unpredictable: “There’s no magic date for that anymore.” —Anne [19:40]

5. Preparing for AI and Agentic E-Commerce

• [20:51] Malte:

  • AI is already transforming developer workflows (faster prototyping, lower cost, iterative cycles).
  • The bar for “build vs. buy” keeps dropping.
  • Composable architecture is critical to keep up:
    • “If I have a 30-year-old monolith...I’m not upgrading to agent E-commerce when it comes out next month. If I’m on a composable system...agentic is just another thing I compose.” [22:30]
  • “Now, if I’m a retailer, the point is I’m almost certainly ready, from an architectural perspective, to make that change.”

• [24:01] John:

  • Agentic AI will further commoditize purchases — people will increasingly buy via “prompt,” not by browsing.
  • Structuring rich product data is more essential than ever; discoverability gets driven by machine-readable data, not humans browsing.
  • “We are building bridges [between components], not things...so the API layer we’ve invested in...we’ll be able to leverage in the future.”

Task Automation by AI Agents

• Agentic systems can handle:
  • Product search and selection, cart building, checkout, account creation, etc.—“All that can be done now within a chat window by an agentic AI.” —John [25:19]

6. The Disappearing Website: A New Front-End Paradigm?

• [27:49] Malte:

  • There’s panic about “the death of the website,” but retailers of complex products should see opportunity not threat:
    • “If you have content the AI can ingest and display…and eventually tell people where it came from, you’re in a really good position to convert that into a sale.”
    • Even if the transaction moves into an AI agent’s chat, domain expertise and authoritative content draw buyers to your brand.
  • “Building AI-powered chatbots on your own website...is not that hard. People have to do it for the first time and get over the hump, but it's programming that the AI itself helps you with.” [30:50]

• [32:21] John:

  • “Prepare yourself for people buying via prompt.”
  • Best initial experiment: Implement your own AI-powered purchase or support assistant for returning customers on your own site.
  • Early tests with select SKUs or account holders to learn and iterate in a safe environment.
  • “The next step is just saying, can you book it for me? ...I don’t need that job. I want to just enjoy the holiday and move on with my life.” —John [33:30]

Noteworthy Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |:---------:|---------|:------| | 05:27 | Malte | “You go from a world where you buy a piece of monolithic software...towards a world where...you control the user experience. That’s a big transition.” | | 07:33 | John | “We spend more time with our engineering teams now, thinking more about how we bring these components together and integrating them…” | | 09:58 | John | “Everything had to be done by hand...It was incredibly painful and frustrating.” | | 16:08 | John | “Our release cycles...are 10, 15, 20x what they were before...the ability to be able to fail fast as well.” | | 18:42 | Malte | “You only pay for [compute] for that amount. In the traditional model, you would have had to get some scaling meeting...and pay even though you maybe don’t need it.” | | 22:30 | Malte | “We are in a time of change for giant e-commerce, and it is the moment for composable architecture to shine, because we don’t know what the future will be exactly.” | | 25:19 | John | “All that [search, cart, payment] can be done within a chat window by an agentic AI...you just need to make sure there’s the right guardrails...so that you are doing that in a secure and ethical manner.” | | 27:49 | Malte | “If you just have some text somewhere, that need might be satisfied by a general AI chatbot in the future. But if you are selling stuff...you still need to buy that stuff somewhere.” | | 32:21 | John | “People buying via prompt...on your site, that’s probably a good place to start, right? Because you’re in total control of that environment.” | | 36:12 | John | “API first approach, composable approach, invest in that and you’ll be able to sweat those assets...Enriching your data again is going to be key.” | | 39:05 | Malte | “There is no path towards agent e-commerce that doesn’t go through an API-first architecture. If you don’t have an API, you cannot ship it. It’s as simple as that.” |

Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:08 – Episode intro & question: “What do you do when e-commerce no longer requires a website?”
• 02:01-04:48 – Guest intros & backgrounds
• 05:27-09:02 – Composable commerce explained; importance of flexibility
• 09:02-13:54 – sportshoes.com website transformation story
• 14:17-16:53 – Modern dev practices, agile cycles, failing fast
• 17:13-19:40 – Scalability & reliability in new e-commerce architectures
• 20:51-23:32 – AI’s impact on development; readiness for “agentic” commerce
• 24:01-26:53 – Retailer perspective: commoditization, data structuring, AI as agent
• 27:49-31:51 – The evolving front end: will websites disappear?
• 32:21-35:38 – Testing AI-powered commerce: start with own customers/site
• 36:12-39:05 – Key actions for future-proofing: data, APIs, budget discipline
• 42:38-43:31 – How to reach the guests; closing remarks

Action Items & Practical Takeaways

• Modernize for Agility:
  • Move to an API-first, composable architecture to stay competitive and ready for technological shifts.
• Enrich Your Data:
  • Invest in well-structured, rich, machine-readable product data to improve discoverability and success in agent-driven purchase scenarios.
• Experiment with AI:
  • Deploy chat-based AI assistants on your own website first—use targeted pilots with loyal customers and limited SKUs.
• Monitor Costs:
  • Moving fast can get expensive: safeguard with spend caps and tight budget controls, especially in cloud and AI compute usage.
• Don’t Fear the Website’s End:
  • Retailers selling researched/complex products should focus on deep content and thought leadership to remain relevant in an “agentic” purchase funnel.
• Scale Confidently:
  • Embrace platforms that deliver seamless scalability for both expected and viral spikes.

Conclusion

This episode makes clear that the future of e-commerce is not just about abandoning the website, but about adopting a flexible, modular, and AI-driven mindset. By investing in composable infrastructure and enriched product data today—and by courageously tinkering with AI-powered customer flows—retailers can ensure they are ready for whatever transaction surface or agent the future brings.

Final Words (Malte, 39:05):
“There is no path towards agent e-commerce that doesn’t go through an API-first architecture…If you don’t have an API, you cannot ship it. It’s as simple as that.”

Final Words (John, 36:12):
“API first approach, composable approach...Enriching your data...that’s going to be key...Be hosted on a platform which is going to support all this.”

This summary captures the heart, insights, and advice of a pivotal conversation about the next era of retail technology—for everyone from CTOs to content managers to curious merchants.