Win the Zero‑Click Era: Decathlon’s AI Commerce Playbook for ROI

Key insights for retail leaders

• Own the zero‑click moment: Build authority off‑site so LLMs surface your brand when clicks disappear.
• Design for conversational buying: Prepare catalogs, payments, and policies for AI‑led carts and multi‑vendor checkout.
• Ship AI‑ready content: Prioritize fact‑dense, people‑authored, video‑enriched content plus technical SEO hygiene.
• Scale personalization: Move toward product experiences that adapt to each shopper’s context and intent.

From the front lines: Aleksander Drupkowski’s perspective

Drupkowski operates where brand vision meets operational reality. He leads e‑commerce operations and development across Central Eastern Europe, steering Decathlon’s shift from a single storefront to a sports ecosystem. His team is unifying buying, renting, reselling, and event enrollment into one platform – and building AI into the core. That hands‑on mandate makes his guidance pragmatic, not theoretical.

At the same time, he grounds digital bets in community. Through Decathlon Go, the company fosters local sports activity that generates authentic content and trust. This blend of platform modernization and community building underpins his playbook for the LLM age.

The zero‑click reality: visibility beyond your site

Search journeys are collapsing into answers. Product detail pages are losing their monopoly as the final stop. For Decathlon, the challenge is discoverability when the clickstream shrinks. The solution: shift investment to where LLMs and communities already set the narrative – forums, social video, niche groups, and real‑world events that spark credible user content.

"In the LLM era, what you say about yourself is just noise. What matters is what others say about you."

Quality content will win in the zero‑click era.

Deep dive: Community‑led authority with Decathlon Go

Decathlon organizes local sports events via Decathlon Go, then benefits from organic, peer‑created coverage in fishing forums, running communities, and social platforms. That user‑generated activity feeds entity‑rich signals that LLMs trust, while also giving athletes reasons to return to the app and stores.

Shopping becomes a conversation

The next two to three years will trade search bars for dialog. Interfaces like Gemini will enable buying from multiple vendors in one flow and auto‑generate comparison tables. That turns the AI into the discovery and evaluation engine, which favors brands with structured, accurate data and clear policies machines can parse.

"The search bar is on its way out. Shopping is becoming a conversation."

The search bar is on its way out.

Deep dive: Agentic commerce in sport

Preparing for a marathon requires gear, nutrition, and a plan. Drupkowski describes an AI agent that recommends shoes based on gait and injury history, schedules training, prompts refills, and flags when shoes hit their kilometer limit – even suggesting a Garmin when pace data warrants it. That is utility that sells.

How to build an AI‑ready commerce stack

Success in zero‑click and conversational commerce depends on groundwork. Decathlon is migrating to a single, scalable, modular platform covering buying, renting, reselling, and event enrollment. It bakes in AI‑powered search, entity‑clean content, and technical SEO so crawlers can understand relationships and inventory depth across nearly 70 sports.

Personalization moves from segments to individuals. Drupkowski envisions product pages that adapt to each shopper – skill level, family setup, and goals – while keeping ethical upsell in view. The practical lesson: fix product data and content integrity first, then automate responsibly.

Clean data before clever AI.

The contrarian view: challenging the status quo

Hype says AI fixes everything. Drupkowski pushes back. If your catalog is messy and governance is weak, layering AI on top amplifies noise.

"Apply AI to a messy organization and you get messy AI."

That hot take matters because LLMs reward clarity. Clean data, verified authorship, structured content, and video signals separate winners from the brands chasing shortcuts. Start with process discipline; only then scale automation.

Your strategic roadmap: what to do next

The 24‑hour win

• Run a product data spot‑check: can an AI agent resolve one category end‑to‑end – taxonomy, specs, availability, returns, and care instructions – without human guesswork?

The 90‑day strategy

• Stand up an AI‑ready content and schema program: map top categories, author expert, video‑enriched guides, standardize specs, implement schema for entities and how‑tos, and pilot conversational paths in your app for a single sport.

Expert Q&A

Q: How should large retail brands approach the zero‑click era?

A: Build authority outside your domain. Invest in forums, communities, and social platforms that produce authentic signals. Pair that with factual, people‑authored, video‑rich content and solid technical SEO so AI crawlers can parse it.

Q: Why will conversational interfaces change e‑commerce?

A: They merge discovery, evaluation, and checkout. With multi‑vendor carts and AI‑built comparison tables, the interface becomes the marketplace. Brands that structure data and policies for machines will surface more often and convert faster.

Q: What is complete nonsense about AI in retail?

A: That AI can fix disorganized operations. If product data and processes are broken, AI just scales the problems. Clean the inputs first – then automate for speed and personalization.

Conclusion

Zero‑click search and conversational buying are already reshaping retail. Drupkowski’s blueprint is clear: earn off‑site authority, ship AI‑ready content, and modernize the stack for personalization at the scale of one.

Want more nuance and examples, including in‑store AI in Czechia and InPost’s conversational marketplace? Listen to the full conversation on LinkedIn.