How Agentic Commerce Boosted Willy Chavarria’s BFCM Success

The BFCM playbook just changed: It’s not about more traffic

Imagine your dashboard during Black Friday. Traffic is up. Ad spend is maxed out. But conversion? Flat.

You’re buying eyeballs. You’re not closing deals.

For years, the BFCM strategy for brands like Willy Chavarria revolved around one metric: reach. Billboards, influencer drops, email blasts. The assumption was that if you showed the product enough, people would buy.

That model is breaking.

Willy Chavarria, the designer behind a high-profile collaboration with Adidas for the 2026 World Cup focused on the legacy of the Mexican national team, didn’t just run an ad campaign. He launched a collection on Swap’s agentic platform. The result? Over 1,000 orders in the first six days. That’s not a vanity metric. That’s revenue. And it tells us something uncomfortable about how most brands are preparing for peak season: you’re optimizing for the wrong variable.

The data from this launch is stark. The average order value hit $249. But here’s the kicker: direct traffic, owned channels, and email generated 81% of the revenue, with a 3% conversion rate.

Why does that matter? Because it means the audience was already there. The problem wasn’t acquisition. The problem was friction.

Agentic commerce removes that friction. Instead of a static product page waiting for a human to scroll, click, and maybe hesitate, you have an intelligent interface that guides, recommends, and converts in real-time. For a brand manager staring at a flat conversion rate during Q4, this isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the difference between hitting your targets and watching your competitors eat your share.

What the numbers actually tell you (and what they don’t)

Let’s strip away the hype. The claim that “agentic commerce is the future” is vague. The numbers behind the Willy Chavarria launch are specific.

• Revenue Doubling: A representative for Willy Chavarria stated that the Swap launch duplicated revenue compared to the previous collection launch. That’s a 100% lift. In the fashion industry, where margins are razor-thin and seasonality is brutal, that’s a massive operational win.
• Virtual Try-Ons as a Conversion Tool: On Swap’s platform, 58% of virtual try-on sessions end with the product being added to the cart. Furthermore, 20% of those sessions result in a completed purchase. This is critical. When you can reduce the “will it fit me?” anxiety, you convert intent into action instantly.
• The Returns Cliff: Since early 2026, Swap’s agentic infrastructure has recorded 20% fewer returns than traditional e-commerce. For a CTO or COO, this is the line item that matters most. Returns are a hidden tax on profitability. Reducing them by a fifth directly impacts your bottom line, independent of revenue growth.

Here is where most brands get it wrong. They think agentic commerce is a marketing tool. It’s not. It’s a commerce infrastructure upgrade.

The 3% conversion rate from owned channels is a signal. It means your existing customers and email list are high-intent. If you’re still using a standard Shopify or WooCommerce front-end for these high-value interactions, you’re leaving money on the table. You’re paying for the same traffic but converting a fraction of what you could.

The shift isn’t about adding a chatbot to your website. It’s about deploying a multi-agent system that understands customer behavior, inventory status, and purchase intent in real-time. If you’re running Velax, Epinium’s multi-agent AI system, you’re already building this muscle. The key is applying that same logic to your BFCM storefront.

The “Seamless” Myth: Why friction is the real enemy

Let’s bust a myth. People love the word “seamless.” It sounds good in a pitch deck. But in e-commerce, “seamless” is often code for “boring” or “passive.”

The real enemy of BFCM isn’t a lack of features. It’s hesitation.

Approximately 70% of online shoppers abandon their carts before completing the purchase. That’s a massive leak. In a traditional setup, that leak happens because the user gets confused, worried about sizing, or just distracted.

Agentic storefronts like the one Willy Chavarria used address this head-on. When 58% of virtual try-on sessions lead to an add-to-cart, you’re not just showing a product. You’re confirming it. You’re creating a moment of certainty.

Juan Pellerano-Rendón, CMO of Swap, has been vocal about this shift. The argument is simple: if you can answer the “will this work for me?” question in seconds, you remove the biggest barrier to purchase.

This is especially relevant for complex categories like fashion and footwear. But it’s not limited to them. If you sell electronics, home goods, or industrial parts, the principle holds. Reduce the cognitive load. Increase the confidence.

For a CTO, this means evaluating your tech stack not just for “integration” but for “interaction quality.” Can your system answer questions, show context, and guide the user? Or is it just a digital catalog?

This is also why Walmart’s Sparky agent is lifting orders by 35%. The agents are working. The brands that ignore this are betting on the old model holding up during peak season. It won’t.

You can see a broader picture of how agentic commerce is reshaping brands and why it’s no longer a niche experiment but a core requirement for competitiveness.

20% — Since early 2026, brands using Swap’s agentic infrastructure have seen a 20% reduction in returns compared to traditional e-commerce. Source: Modern Retail

What you need to do before BFCM (and what to ignore)

Here’s the hard truth: you don’t have time to rebuild your entire e-commerce stack in the next few weeks. BFCM is coming, and the window for implementation is closing fast.

But you don’t need to rebuild everything. You need to optimize the highest-impact touchpoints.

First, look at your owned channels. If email and direct traffic are driving the majority of your revenue (like the 81% in the Willy Chavarria case), these are your highest-ROI segments. Are they hitting a static landing page? If so, you’re wasting their intent.

Second, evaluate your virtual fitting or demonstration capabilities. If you’re in fashion, beauty, or any category where “fit” or “look” matters, the data is clear. Virtual try-ons are converting at rates that static images can’t touch. If you don’t have this, you’re accepting a lower conversion ceiling.

Third, monitor your return rates. If returns are above industry average, agentic pre-purchase interactions can help. The 20% reduction in returns seen on Swap’s platform is a direct result of better pre-purchase clarity.

What should you ignore? The noise about “full AI transformation.” You don’t need to replace your ERP, your CRM, or your entire frontend overnight. You need to deploy targeted, high-impact AI agents where the friction is highest.

This is where the difference between a “tool” and a “strategy” shows up. A tool gives you a chatbot. A strategy gives you a conversion engine.

If you’re considering how to integrate these capabilities, check out how GenAI is changing the ecommerce landscape. The trend is clear: the interface is becoming intelligent, and the brands that adapt first will own the peak season.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does agentic commerce only work for high-end fashion brands?

No. While the Willy Chavarria case study highlights a fashion collaboration, the underlying technology—AI-driven guidance, virtual try-ons, and friction reduction—applies to any category where purchase intent needs to be converted into action. The key is reducing hesitation, which is universal in e-commerce.

How much revenue increase can we realistically expect from an agentic storefront?

Results vary, but the Willy Chavarria launch saw a doubling of revenue compared to the previous collection. The average order value was $249. Your specific lift will depend on your current conversion rate, product complexity, and how well the agentic system is integrated with your inventory and customer data.

What is the main benefit of agentic commerce for BFCM preparation?

The main benefit is improving conversion rates on existing traffic. Since BFCM traffic is expensive and competitive, maximizing the return on visitors you already have is critical. Agentic storefronts help convert high-intent users who would otherwise abandon their carts, addressing the 70% abandonment rate common in online shopping.

Can agentic commerce help reduce returns?

Yes. Brands using Swap’s agentic infrastructure have reported a 20% reduction in returns since early 2026. This is primarily due to enhanced pre-purchase confidence, such as through virtual try-on features, which ensure customers know exactly what they are buying before it ships.

Is it too late to implement agentic commerce before Black Friday?

It depends on your scope. A full platform migration might be too late, but deploying targeted agentic features—such as AI-driven product recommendations, virtual try-ons, or smart support agents—on your existing high-traffic pages is still feasible and can yield significant improvements in conversion and cart abandonment.