Retail Remix | Dubai Chapter | January 2026

From intent to purchase: Engineering what converts

At Retail Re:Mix 2026, we focused on the most fragile moment in digital commerce, the space between “Add to Cart” and “Order Confirmed,” where intent drops, friction creeps in, and growth quietly disappears.This edition brought together leaders across retail, e-commerce, and payments to unpack a hard truth: in 2026, hoping customers convert isn’t a strategy. Engineering the path to purchase is.The evening began with a rapid-fire quiz that set the tone, competitive, energising, and designed to get the room thinking before diving into deeper conversations on execution and scale.

Cross-border commerce: Scaling e-commerce from the world to the Middle East

‍The opening panel, moderated by Khaled Boudemagh, explored what it takes to scale global e-commerce into the Middle East, beyond ambition and theory.Sara Ahmed, CTO at The Petshop, emphasised that "execution and operations move much faster when you have people on the ground who truly understand the market." Abhinav Patwa, EVP at Zed Mobility (Al Ghurair) built on this by highlighting the rising bar for customer experience: "customers today have a minimum, non-negotiable threshold when it comes to hygiene experiences"

Together, their insights reinforced that localisation isn't a final layer, but a foundational requirement embedded into systems and operations from day one.

‍From intent to purchase: Engineering high-conversion e-commerce journeys

‍The fireside chat, moderated by Dharmendra Mehta, shifted the focus to checkout, the real battleground for conversion.Remo Giovanni Abbondandolo, GM MENA at Checkout.com, explored how agentic commerce will fundamentally change how transactions are initiated and completed. The conversation highlighted how digital-first payment innovation is reducing friction and enabling seamless journeys, particularly in complex, multi-market environments like the Middle East.

Key themes that emerged‍

• Execution beats ambition: Scaling cross-border depends on disciplined local execution, not just market entry.
• Experience has a baseline: Reliability, speed, and consistency are non-negotiable.
• Checkout is the conversion battleground: Minor friction undoes strong discovery journeys.
• Payments are strategic: Orchestration and automation are driving the next phase of scale.
• Agentic commerce is arriving: Autonomous transactions will fundamentally reshape commerce.
• Local teams accelerate growth: On-ground insight speeds decisions and reduces execution risk.