“E-commerce keeps evolving - but a strong foundation is still what determines long-term success.”
E-commerce is evolving and developing really fast – many of the must-have features today were hard to imagine even two years ago. AI, AR, social commerce, mobile-first experiences, and conversational interfaces are no longer future trends, but active components of modern retail. Yet, real success doesn’t come from blindly chasing every new technology. It comes from building a stable, intelligent foundation that allows a business to adopt these innovations with confidence.
For more than two decades, Vicus eBusiness Solutions has been helping merchants modernize, automate, and scale. We spoke with Luuk Roovers, Director of Vicus, about the rise of AI, the promise of AR, the shift to social and mobile commerce, and the growing importance of solid data foundations.
AI in e-commerce is accelerating quickly. How do you integrate AI into your clients’ businesses?
“I’ve never seen AI as a hype. For us, AI is a way to accelerate existing business processes, not a replacement for strategy. We introduce AI when it adds value - not just because it’s trendy.”
In practice, Vicus uses AI to automate content creation, perform real-time translations, enrich product and customer data, and assist decision-making. AI is also increasingly being used to generate insights that help merchants understand customer behavior in more detail.
“With Magento, we rely heavily on AI-driven search, recommendation engines and personalization solutions. And because of our VOSBA middleware, we can connect AI-generated insights directly to Magento, ERP and Vtiger CRM. That’s where it gets powerful: not just producing information, but using it to drive the business.
Besides, Amasty’s modules for search, personalization, and product management integrate perfectly with the kind of architectures we’ve been building for more than 20 years. It means we can introduce innovation faster, safer, and more predictably, offering our clients stable, compatible e-commerce ecosystems.”
Amasty modules for search, personalization, and product management
Are your clients using AI mainly to save costs or to increase customer lifetime value?
“Both - but usually not at the same time. In the first place, AI is new, so many customers are playing, investigating, and trying to figure out where AI helps. Most organizations start by using AI to reduce operational workload. They automate support (e.g., chatbots), accelerate content creation, or streamline translation work. Once those efficiencies are visible, they shift towards customer lifetime value. That’s when personalization, journey optimization, and data-driven marketing become important.
After 20+ years in e-commerce, you recognize when AI genuinely creates value - and when it’s just a shiny new tool. Our job is to guide merchants through that maturity curve.”
AR is gaining traction. What will define an immersive shopping experience in 2026?
“Let’s first clarify what AR actually is. AR stands for Augmented Reality. It means placing digital objects – often 3D product models – into the real world using your phone or tablet camera. So instead of imagining if a sofa fits your living room, you literally see it there.
But an immersive experience is much more than the technology itself. Immersive commerce is about frictionless interaction. Customers want instant certainty: Does this product fit? Does it match my style? Will it work in my situation?
These days, I do see early but meaningful adoption among furniture, lifestyle, and interior brands. With one interior client, AR significantly reduced doubts and lowered return rates. It’s promising – but only if the foundation is right.”
That foundation includes fast Magento storefronts, structured and consistent content, high-quality product data, and stable integrations (through middleware like VOSBA) with systems like PIM and CRM. Only when the underlying architecture and data are solid does AR become genuinely persuasive.
Social commerce and live shopping are expanding quickly. How do you help brands move beyond their website?
“Social commerce has matured so much that for some clients, social channels now deliver as many leads as their website - sometimes even more.
Vicus helps merchants synchronize products to Marketplaces and Social media platforms, ensure real-time stock and price accuracy, and create seamless product tagging and live shopping flows. When leads come in through social or WhatsApp, they are automatically processed in Vtiger CRM, so sales and service teams see the full customer context.
The biggest challenge is consistency across all channels. And that’s exactly what strong integrations, clean data flows, and automation bring.”
Mobile commerce is expected to dominate in 2026. What mistakes do merchants still make?
“Merchants still think too much in desktop terms. They design navigation, forms, and checkouts for big screens, and then compress them for mobile. It should be the other way around.
Another recurring issue is performance. A slow mobile site destroys conversions. Speed is non-negotiable.
Vicus often implements the Hyvä front-end for Magento because of its remarkable performance benefits. Combined with mobile-first UX and optimized checkout flows, mobile commerce quickly becomes a strong conversion driver rather than a bottleneck."
Amasty solutions for better checkout flows
Will mobile eventually replace desktop entirely?
“No. Mobile is dominant and will remain so, but desktop won’t disappear. B2B clients, complex product buyers, and anyone doing detailed research will continue to use larger screens.
I believe the definition of “mobile” itself will broaden. It’s not just phones anymore. Smartwatches, IoT devices, and voice-driven assistants are becoming part of the journey. That’s why a solid architecture is critical – something we’ve advocated at Vicus for more than two decades.”
Convenience is becoming the new standard. How does this influence your project strategies?
“Convenience is king. Same-day delivery, time-slot delivery, instant customer support, mobile-first design - customers expect everything to be smooth and immediate.
This shapes Vicus projects significantly. Many projects now focus less on “just building a webshop” and more on creating a connected infrastructure involving fulfillment systems, CRM platforms, chat automation, and process orchestration across the company.
E-commerce used to be the website. Now it’s an ecosystem of interconnected services.”
Amasty delivery management extensions
Conversational AI is becoming a revenue driver. What use cases are most successful?
“I see clear wins in AI-driven product advisors, WhatsApp service flows connected to CRM, and conversational shopping experiences where AI acts as the first point of contact for sales.”
Omnichannel remains a challenge. What do merchants struggle with, and how do you help them overcome it?
“The problem has been the same for 20 years: fragmented data.
ERP, marketplaces, CRM systems, and POS terminals – each running separately – make consistency nearly impossible. Vicus solves this with Magento, Vtiger CRM, and especially our own middleware, which acts as the intelligent layer connecting and normalizing data across the entire landscape.
With VOSBA middleware, we unify product and customer data, synchronize everything in real time, and ensure every channel uses the same truth. We’ve been doing this since 2003, and it’s where merchants often see the fastest business impact.”
If you could give merchants one piece of advice for the next five years, what would it be?
“Invest in your data foundation. AI, AR, social commerce - they’re all evolving rapidly. But only organizations with clean data, open systems and strong integrations can adapt at that pace.
I think that a modular architecture using Magento, Vtiger CRM, and VOSBA gives merchants exactly that kind of long-term scalability. Build smart now, and you won’t be chasing the future – you’ll be ready for it.”
What does Vtiger CRM add for Magento merchants?
“Vtiger CRM completes the picture. Magento is fantastic for commerce, but merchants also need marketing automation, customer intelligence, lead scoring, service processes, and WhatsApp/AI chat integration. Vtiger provides all of that.
The result is a 360° view of the customer, with every interaction connected across marketing, sales, service, and e-commerce. When Magento, Vtiger, and VOSBA work together, merchants gain a unified commerce and customer ecosystem that grows with them.”
Summing It Up
We want to thank Luuk Roovers once again for this expert interview. As you can see, across every topic – AI automation, immersive AR shopping, social commerce expansion, mobile optimization, and omnichannel experiences – the same theme emerges: data determines the outcome. When product information, customer profiles, inventory, pricing, and interactions are fragmented across disconnected systems, even the most sophisticated e-commerce strategy becomes difficult to execute. Merchants end up fighting inefficiencies instead of embracing opportunities.
In other words, the trends shaping e-commerce don’t work in isolation. They work when they are fed with clean, structured, connected data. Keep your e-commerce system a single source of truth – and implementing new trends will be much easier, helping you win the competition.
