E-commerce has spent years optimizing pages, filters, and performance.
But shoppers haven’t changed how they think, only how they express it.

Today, users don’t search with keywords.
They describe intent.

They say:

• “Office Fridays, but not boring.”

• “Date-night outfit, minimal, not too bold”

• “Pastel but not too bright, under $80.”

And most stores simply don’t understand that language.

This gap, between how shoppers think and how stores expect them to search, is why conversational commerce is emerging as one of the most important shifts in e-commerce.

This article explains:

• What conversational commerce really is (and isn’t)

• Why discovery is quietly breaking today

• How it mimics the best in-store salespeople

• And how this leads to a new model we call agentic commerce

1. What Conversational Commerce Actually Means

Conversational commerce is not a chatbot.

It is shopping through dialogue, where the system can:

• Understand natural language intent

• Ask clarifying questions when needed

• Reason across constraints (budget, style, occasion)

• Guide a user toward a confident purchase decision

Instead of:

search → filters → endless scrolling → exit

It becomes:

intent → clarification → guidance → decision

This shift matters because shopping is not a lookup problem.
It’s a decision-making problem.

2. Why Discovery Is Quietly Breaking in E-commerce

Most Shopify stores don’t lose revenue because of pricing or traffic.

They lose it at discovery.

What we consistently see across fashion stores:

• Users browse multiple pages but “can’t find anything.”

• Support tickets are essentially failed searches

• Filters only help when users already know exactly what they want

When discovery fails, users don’t complain.
They bounce.

Baymard Institute’s long-running research shows that a large share of e-commerce sites struggle with search relevance, handling “no results,” and recovery paths, all of which directly cause abandonment.
https://baymard.com/research/ecommerce-search

Shopify itself highlights how important search users are:

• Visitors who use site search typically convert 2–3× higher than non-search users, when search works
  https://www.shopify.com/in/blog/how-to-optimize-your-search-and-discovery-experience-on-shopify

The implication is uncomfortable but clear:

When search fails, you lose your highest-intent shoppers first.

3. Why This Is Happening Now

Three forces are converging.

1) Consumer behavior has shifted

Gen Z and younger millennials expect systems to be interactive, contextual and adaptive, not static catalogs.
McKinsey’s research on Gen Z highlights this preference for personalized, responsive digital experiences.
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/true-gen-generation-z-and-its-implications-for-companies

2) Consumers explicitly want AI in shopping

Capgemini reports that 71% of consumers want generative AI integrated into shopping experiences, especially for guidance and personalization.
https://www.capgemini.com/news/press-releases/71-of-consumers-want-generative-ai-integrated-into-their-shopping-experiences/

3) Technology has finally caught up

LLMs + modern retrieval systems now make it possible to interpret messy, human intent like:

• “Not too flashy.”

• “Pinterest-like”

• “Goa beach party vibe”

4. Conversational Commerce Is Like Your Best Salesperson

The simplest way I explain conversational commerce to merchants is this:

Conversational commerce is about replicating your best in-store salesperson, online, at scale.

Not an average salesperson.
Your best one.

The one who:

• Understands shoppers even when they’re vague

• Knows fashion trends and what’s working right now

• Deeply understands your catalog’s strengths and limitations

• Can guide someone from a generic need to a confident decision

Great salespeople don’t wait for precision.
They create it through conversation.

5. Generic → Specific, Specific → Smarter

A strong conversational system works in both directions.

When a user starts generic:

“Outfit for a beach vacation”

A good system:

• Infers climate, comfort and occasion

• Asks only what matters

• Gradually helps the shopper discover what they want

When a user starts very specific:

“White linen shirt, slim fit, under $70”

A good system:

• Checks the feasibility within the brand’s catalog

• Resolves conflicting constraints

• Suggests the closest possible match and explains why

This matters because most D2C brands have finite catalogs.

Conversational commerce doesn’t blindly say “no results.”
It negotiates intent, just like a human would.

6. Rebuilding the Lost Personal Touch

Offline retail worked because of people.

Great salespeople:

• Greet you naturally

• Read your comfort level

• Adjust tone and pace

• Build trust before pushing products

Conversational commerce is about bringing that personal touch back online, without scripts, popups, or hard-coded flows.

When done right, it feels like:

• Guidance, not selling

• Help, not pressure

• Confidence, not confusion

7. Why This Is NOT “LLM-Based Product Search”

This distinction is critical.

Conversational commerce is not:

• An LLM layered on top of a keyword search

• “Type anything, we’ll show products.”

• A prompt pretending to understand shopping

It is a system, not a prompt.

It requires:

• Deep catalog understanding

• Intent reasoning across multiple dimensions

• Constraint resolution

• Multi-step decision flows

• Session memory

• Brand-aware guidance

That’s why it’s harder to build
and why it’s far more impactful when done right.

8. What Merchants Should Measure (But Rarely Do)

Most teams track:

• Traffic

• Conversion rate

• AOV

Very few tracks:

• Long-tail descriptive searches

• Zero- or low-result queries

• Search exits without product views

• Support tickets that are actually discovery failures

This is where silent revenue loss hides.

Baymard’s research consistently shows that poor handling of search failures and “no results” pages leads to abandonment.
https://baymard.com/research/ecommerce-search

9. The Practical Path Forward (No Rebuild Required)

You don’t need to replace Shopify or redesign your theme.

Start by:

1. Collecting real search + support intent

2. Clustering intent by occasion, mood, constraints

3. Fixing “no results” behavior with recovery paths

4. Adding conversational entry points where intent is high

5. Measuring uplift for search users specifically

10. Eldor AI’s Vision: From Conversational to Agentic Commerce

At Eldor AI, we believe conversational commerce is just the beginning.

The real shift is agentic commerce:

• AI sales agents that guide shoppers

• AI support agents that resolve issues instantly

• AI merchandising agents that learn from intent

• AI growth agents that personalize without manual rules

All powered by a shared knowledge layer:

catalog + customer intent + store context

This is not about adding another plugin.
It’s about changing how commerce actually runs.

Closing Thought

The brands that win in the next decade won’t be the ones with the biggest catalogs.

They’ll be the ones whose stores can:

• understand shoppers

• guide decisions

• and rebuild trust at scale

Conversational commerce is how that starts.