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The Agentic Era on Marketplaces: What Sellers Get Wrong

Marketplace Growth PodcastChannable16 June 2026Watch on YouTube

Part of series

Ep. 4 · Channable Agentic Commerce

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What you'll learn

  • AI-agents are transforming online shopping: sellers must make product data machine-readable so bots can recommend their products.
  • Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) replaces traditional marketing: focus on specs and machine-readable information instead of clicks and sessions.
  • The traditional sales funnel is collapsing: AI-agents find, compare, and select products in one conversation, not through browsing.
  • Product images get a new role: visual content must align with how AI-agents process information.
  • European marketplaces adopt AI slower than the US: preparing now is crucial for competitive advantage.

Frequently asked questions

What is 'Agentic Commerce' and how does it differ from traditional online shopping?
Agentic Commerce is the era where AI-agents instead of users find, compare, and select products. Instead of browsing through categories, customers talk to a bot (like Amazon's Rufus) that handles everything in one conversation. This replaces the 'browse & click' model.
Why is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) important for sellers?
If an AI bot cannot read your product specs, a customer won't see your brand. AEO focuses on machine-readable product data instead of marketing copy. This determines whether AI-agents can recommend your products at all.
How should sellers prepare for the AI-agent era?
Sellers must transform their product data from marketing copy into machine-readable intelligence. This includes optimizing specs, images, and feeds so AI-bots can understand and use them.
What does it mean that the traditional sales funnel is collapsing?
The classic marketing funnel (awareness, interest, consideration, purchase) is disappearing. AI-agents handle discovery and checkout in one step. This means traditional advertising becomes less relevant and direct product optimization is crucial.

Topics

ai-agentse-commercedutch-startupmarketplaceoptimization

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Description from the channel

The era of "browse & click" is over. Welcome to the era of delegate & verify. Online shopping is undergoing its most radical transformation since the invention of the search bar. We are moving away from users scrolling through endless category pages toward AI Agents that find, compare, and select products in a single conversational moment. For marketplace sellers, this changes everything about how visibility works. If a bot can't read your specs, a human won't see your brand. In this episode of the Marketplace Growth Podcast, Channable’s Lucas Bassa sits down with Imco van Elk from Follo to go beyond the AI hype and look at the reality of Agentic Commerce. They unpack the collapse of the traditional marketing funnel and explain why your brand’s survival now depends on Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). If you are still measuring success by clicks and sessions, you are optimizing for a world that is disappearing. Learn how to transform your product data from marketing copy into machine-readable intelligence that AI agents can recommend to shoppers. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction: The Buzz of E-Commerce AI 01:18 Meet the Guest: Imco from Volo Agency 03:10 Why Marketplaces are the AI Frontier 04:30 Discovery vs. Checkout 06:13 Amazon’s Rufus and the Future of Search 10:45 The Collapse of the Sales Funnel 12:04 Advertising in the Age of AI Assistants 14:39 How Sellers Should Prepare 15:55 The New Role of Images 18:57 The 80/20 Rule 21:05 Why Europe Adopts AI Slower than the US 23:17 Making Feeds Sexy Again 28:46 Conclusion 💚 Listen and follow the podcast on Spotify 👉 https://open.spotify.com/episode/07vDMzqNLvVdh4dhokva74?si=dx9zKy3DSTqQ4l6e9pEDlA&nd=1&dlsi=b5b88cf83f8a4433 Marketplace Growth is the podcast for eCommerce experts and performance marketers who want to move from "firefighting" to scaling. Hosted by Lucas Bassa, we bring you unfiltered conversations with industry leaders to help you turn marketplace complexity into your competitive advantage. Who is Channable? 🤓 Channable is the Multichannel Platform for eCommerce that empowers businesses to quickly and reliably grow on any online channel, achieving quicker time to market, improved efficiency, and greater ROI. With Channable, every team or professional that is managing an online channel, can collaboratively list and advertise products, while analyzing performance data, all in one platform. What does Channable do? 💻 Channable is a B2B SaaS platform that offers a fully integrated way to market your products online. The solution empowers marketers and businesses to manage, scale, and optimize online marketing with powerful rules and overview connecting to over 2,500+ channels. Advertising on marketplaces like Amazon and Bol.com or feeds like Google Shopping and Facebook has never been easier. Trusted by over 25,000 active users worldwide, Channable seamlessly sends millions of their products to any online channel, daily. Ensuring smooth eCommerce operations. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ LEARN MORE ABOUT US ACROSS ALL OUR CHANNELS 👇 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 🖥️Website: https://shorturl.at/tl7Pw 📚eCommerce library: https://www.channable.com/blog 🏢LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/channable/mycompany/ 📸Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/channableglobal/ #MarketplaceGrowth #Marketplace #AEO #AI #eCommerce #PerformanceMarketing #eCommerceSeller #Channable #AIagents #AmazonSeller #bolcom #DigitalMarketing #AgenticEra #AgenticCommerce #AICommerce