From AI-driven personalisation to seamless omnichannel integrations, eCommerce Expo 2025 proved that innovation in commerce is no longer about simply selling online.
Today, it’s about reimagining every connection between brand and buyer. Across two packed days at the Commerce stand, speakers, partners and retailers explored how intelligent technology is shaping the future of customer experience in the convenience economy.
If one theme ran through every session, it was this: frictionless commerce isn’t just about speed, it’s about trust. This year’s talks revealed a maturing industry focused on balancing efficiency with experience. Checkout innovation, marketplace strategy and loyalty models built on emotional value rather than discount show how brands are removing barriers and creating more seamless journeys.
Connected commerce for the age of convenience
A major focus of the 2025 programme was the next frontier of connected checkout — the invisible layer linking channels, systems and customer journeys. Merchants of all sizes continue to face the same pain point: fragmented technology. From in-store Point-of-Sale (POS) systems that don’t speak to ecommerce platforms, to online orders that can’t be returned in-store, disjointed systems create frustration and erode consumer trust.
Despite advanced tech weaving itself into the daily fabric of consumers’ lives, friction points remain that can, at times, make the innovation feel somewhat redundant. We all know that feeling of grocery shopping online, only to have that one recipe-essential ingredient labelled ‘out of stock’ when the delivery’s already on the way.
Checkout innovation, marketplace strategy and loyalty models built on emotional value show how brands are creating more seamless journeys
As Ben Brown, founder & CEO at Shopwave, put it, “This trillion-dollar challenge comes down to connection. When a customer orders online and either picks up in-store or gets a delivery, only to find some products missing, that’s not just a logistics issue — it’s a trust issue.”
The solution lies in true unification. A new wave of commerce platforms is tackling complexity head-on by building native integrations between point-of-sale, ecommerce and payments — simplifying the entire operation into a single, intelligent stack. This approach frees merchants from needing armies of developers to make systems talk to each other, enabling innovation at speed.
That foundation is also key to what comes next: agentic AI, live-streamed retail and immersive experiences that connect physical and digital worlds. “This is all about enabling the future — creating the conditions for retailers to move fast, adopt new tools and wow their consumers,” said Brown.
Checkout innovation: Fastlane by PayPal and the race to help reduce friction
Nowhere was the push for frictionless commerce clearer than in PayPal’s Fastlane session, which examined how small changes in checkout flow can deliver big results. Only 46% of online transactions complete once a customer reaches checkout, and nearly half still rely on manual card entry1 — a shocking statistic in an era of digital convenience.
Fastlane tackles this by recognising existing PayPal users and autofilling their details from a global data vault. It’s a passwordless, accelerated checkout experience that turns minutes into seconds. One brand, Peter Christian, reports a 38%2 rise in conversions and 35%3 faster checkout times after implementing it.
As Joel Brimmel, senior go-to-market manager at PayPal, explained: “Consumers expect simple, frictionless, mobile friendly experiences, especially at checkout. They just want to pay and move on. Fastlane makes a one click guest checkout experience a reality.”
For BigCommerce merchants, enabling Fastlane is incredibly simple, requiring no developer work or extra cost. It’s a clear example of how smart integration — rather than wholesale replatforming — can create immediate, measurable impact.
Innovation in action: Rusty Monkey’s Big Auto
Innovation was brought to life through practical case studies, including Rusty Monkey’s Big Auto — a creative agency’s purpose-built ecommerce stack for the automotive industry.
Automotive retailers face notoriously complex challenges: product findability, compatibility and data management across countless Stock Keeping Units (SKUs). Big Auto, built on BigCommerce’s Catalyst framework, uses an advanced search and vehicle registration lookup to allow buyers to find compatible parts in seconds, dramatically reducing returns and abandoned carts.
“Customer expectations are higher than ever,” said Russell Brocket, founder of Rusty Monkey. “If the experience is clunky, they go somewhere else. We’ve invested heavily in next-generation frameworks because we saw how powerful they could be for retailers.”
The Drive Den implementation was one of the first to go live on BigCommerce Catalyst. Beyond the sleek front end, Big Auto unified complex back-end systems into one efficient workflow. It’s an example of technology working quietly behind the scenes to deliver the effortless experiences consumers now expect.
Scaling with structure: Furniturebox and the power of partnership
Another standout session came from 5874 Commerce and its client Furniturebox, an award-winning homeware retailer that’s grown from a startup into a tech-enabled enterprise. Initially reliant on marketplaces for 100% of sales, the company has steadily shifted to its own direct-to-consumer site, now accounting for around 40% of total revenue.
Dan Beckles, founder of Furniturebox, spoke with Rupert Cross, CEO and co-founder of 5874 Commerce, about how a modular tech stack — integrating BigCommerce with Brightpearl, Jitterbit and Feedonomics — has transformed operations. “It was all Excel spreadsheets — the classic story,” he said. “If there was a way to make something quicker and more efficient, we jumped at it.”
Frictionless commerce isn’t just about speed, it’s about trust
That agility has paid off. The company saved up to £60,000 a year after switching payment providers through BigCommerce. More importantly, the focus has shifted from “fixing bugs” to strategic growth and A/B testing.
“We want to grow the brand on the website,” said Beckles. “It’s not always about the shiny new tools — it’s about getting the best out of what you already have.”
For Commerce, this case study underscores how structured tech partnerships and scalable design can help even fast-growing brands maintain control while expanding across markets.
Data, marketplaces and the new balance of control
In today’s retail landscape, success also means finding ways to stand out and grow in a world dominated by aggregators and third-party sellers.
Marketplaces remain powerful engines of reach and discovery, but they come with challenges: compressed margins, limited data access and little opportunity to build brand loyalty. Michael Ashworth, sales director at CGI Digital, said: “Over 50% of consumers assume marketplaces have the best price, which makes them a powerful driver of both sales and brand visibility. Think of marketplaces as the muscle sales channel — and also the traffic and awareness generator.”
The solution isn’t to abandon marketplaces but to integrate them intelligently. Tools like Feedonomics optimise product data for each channel, ensuring listings are accurate and competitive. Meanwhile, maintaining a branded storefront allows businesses to own the customer relationship — offering bundles, subscriptions and content experiences that marketplaces can’t replicate.
“You get to tell the brand story the way you want,” said Ashworth. “That’s how you turn a marketplace shopper into a loyal customer.
Inclusion, impact and the business case for diversity
The ‘ROI of Inclusion’ talk served as a reminder that innovation isn’t only about technology, but also about people. Speakers highlighted the importance of increasing female representation in tech and leadership, and the commercial benefits of doing so.As Sara Russell, marketing director at 5874 Commerce, put it: “Inclusion is not just ethical, it’s profitable.” McKinsey data backs this up, showing that firms in the top quartile for board-gender diversity can be up to 27% more profitable.
Connecting ideas, powering innovation
The conversations at the Commerce stand all pointed in the same direction: a future built on connection. Across two days, speakers highlighted how unified systems, seamless checkout experiences, data-driven insights and innovative loyalty strategies are shaping the next era of commerce.
With the recent launch of Commerce as the parent brand for BigCommerce, Feedonomics and Makeswift, this vision is now anchored by a single ecosystem – one that empowers merchants to innovate faster, orchestrate data more effectively and deliver experiences that truly connect with customers.
As retailers prepare for a world of AI-driven discovery and frictionless experiences, the takeaway from Ecommerce Expo 2025 was clear — innovation isn’t just about technology. It’s about making every interaction feel effortless, human and connected.
For more information please visit commerce.com/en-GB
- 1. IMRG, Based on retailer survey conducted by IMRG in the UK, January 2024 to June 2024
- 2. PayPal/Peter Christian internal data (August 2025). In the three months to 29 August 2025, checkout conversion was 38.31% higher compared to non-Fastlane transactions.
- 3. PayPal/Peter Christian internal data (August 2025). In the three months to 29 August 2025, checkout speed was 34.72% faster than non-Fastlane transactions.
From AI-driven personalisation to seamless omnichannel integrations, eCommerce Expo 2025 proved that innovation in commerce is no longer about simply selling online.
Today, it’s about reimagining every connection between brand and buyer. Across two packed days at the Commerce stand, speakers, partners and retailers explored how intelligent technology is shaping the future of customer experience in the convenience economy.
If one theme ran through every session, it was this: frictionless commerce isn’t just about speed, it’s about trust. This year’s talks revealed a maturing industry focused on balancing efficiency with experience. Checkout innovation, marketplace strategy and loyalty models built on emotional value rather than discount show how brands are removing barriers and creating more seamless journeys.
