LINK Summit 2025 – 5 trends defining E-Commerce
LINK Summit 2025 brought together over a hundred bright minds in e-commerce – from founders and operators to investors and technology leaders – to explore what’s next for global retail. The same week, Forbes highlighted our host city as “Marbella 2.0”, highlighting how it’s becoming a global hub where tech founders, innovators, and investors build the next generation of business. The timing was no coincidence.
As proud founding partner, we at Qliro joined not just to talk about payments, but to share insights on what truly drives sustainable growth across markets through smarter technology, seamless experiences, and not least, a strong sense of community.
Here are 5 trends that defined LINK Summit 2025:
1. AI goes operational – from hype to habit
AI set the tone from day one at LINK Summit 2025. AI is no longer an experiment. It’s an operational advantage shaping every part of e-commerce.
Olof Darpö, Managing Director & Partner at BCG, was one of several speakers highlighting Agentic Commerce – the new era where LLM-driven shopping assistants transform how consumers discover, trust, and shop brands:
“AI is reinventing e-commerce by disrupting the entire consumer journey. Search is shifting from discovery to delegation, from Googling to simply telling your AI agent what you want and letting it do the work.”
The theme continued during the second day's panel discussion “Ways of Working”, led by Fredrik Norberg (CEO at CDON), where brands shared how AI is already embedded in daily operations. Annica Rantala, CEO at Rapunzel of Sweden, explained how her team uses AI-generated imagery to instantly visualize every product color, saving weeks of manual work while improving both consistency and conversion.
AI set the tone on the very first day, and the insights only became sharper with each day:
- Visibility will shift: AI rivals traditional SEO, making brand visibility through AI interfaces a new strategic frontier.
- Loyalty wins: Agentic Commerce rewards brands that build direct relationships and lasting loyalty over broad traffic.
- AI at work: The fastest-growing companies are using AI operationally (not only experimentally!), automating logistics, pricing, and personalization.
Qliro’s take: AI’s role is clear – it’s transforming commerce right now. Just weeks before the event, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Instant Checkout, while Google unveiled its Agent Payments Protocol with over 60 global partners. Two different approaches, one clear direction: commerce is becoming conversational, connected, and always on. For merchants, this means new opportunities to grow and new demands to stay visible, secure, and in control.
Photo: Olof Darpö (BCG)
2. Loyalty beats discounts
As Jack Stratten from Insider Trends pointed out: “The average shopper is part of 19 loyalty programs – but 71% say those programs don’t make them feel loyal.”
He argued that emotional loyalty now beats programmatic loyalty. It’s no longer points and perks that drive retention, but personalization, transparency, and how a brand makes you feel. Several speakers echoed the same insight:
- Jeanette Dyhre Kvisvik from Villoid shared how their loyal female community has become the brand’s strongest growth driver, built on trust and genuine connection.
- Melker Lindström from Nudie Jeans emphasized the value of consistency and authenticity.
- Björn Thorngren from MEDS highlighted how their app experience and customer service serve as a primary driver of their loyalty.
Qliro’s take: We see this shift every day. Merchants who invest in the whole experience build long-term trust and profitability. Through self-service payments, proactive communication, and human Nordic support, loyalty becomes a growth engine. Not a cost.
Photo on the left: Jack Stratten (Insider Trends). Photo on the right: Mitch Van Deursen (Shoeby), Jeanette Dyhre Kvisvik (Villoid), Frederic Taillier (Impact.com), Melker Lindström (Nudie Jeans).
3. Composable Commerce takes the lead
“Composable” wasn’t just a buzzword at LINK, but rather a shared mindset. The ability to adapt, test, and integrate fast is what defines modern growth. Several of our partners were on site, including Brink Commerce, Athos (formerly Klevu), and ROIROI, showcasing how modular systems are reshaping how merchants scale across markets.
What the conversations at LINK revealed about composable commerce:
- Composable drives collaboration: Modular, API-first systems make it easier for brands and tech partners to innovate together and scale faster.
- Partnerships power performance: Growth happens when ecosystems connect, not when platforms compete.
- Future-ready merchants: The most successful brands invest in flexible, composable stacks that grow with them across channels, partners, and markets.
Qliro’s take: With modular flexibility, scalable integrations, and built-in compliance across multiple markets, we help merchants stay future-ready. No matter how fast commerce evolves. We’re proud to collaborate with top-tier partners across the ecosystem, bringing seamless, flexible, and scalable growth to every merchant. Our technology is designed around that exact idea.
4. Building for Sustainable Growth
E-commerce leaders are shifting from expansion at any cost to smarter, data-driven growth. The new growth mindset is about efficiency, adaptability, and long-term value creation. It’s about doing more with less while keeping the momentum strong.
Andreas Palm, Co-founder & CEO at CDLP, shared how the brand faced challenges during rapid expansion, and how pulling back became their most significant growth move.
“We lost focus for a while. Growth became the goal instead of the result. But when we re-centered on quality, purpose, and community, growth followed naturally.”
His story reflected a larger theme across the summit: sustainable growth isn’t about speed. It’s about staying true to what matters, to create real value.
Qliro’s take: Growth isn’t about scale alone – it’s about smart, sustainable impact. That’s why we help merchants turn payments into performance by boosting conversion, improving NPS, and driving loyalty long after checkout.
Photo: Annica Rantala (Rapunzel of Sweden), Tom Broughton (Cubitts), Andreas Palm (CDLP), Magnus Pettersson (Twistshake).
5. Human leadership in a digital world
The summit closed with a powerful session by Rupal Patel, former CIA analyst and author of From CIA to CEO. Her message was clear; even in an AI-driven world, leadership remains deeply human.
“Resilience, self-awareness, and the courage to talk about failure are the real superpowers of leadership,” she said.
Her message was further reinforced by Lucas Wasniewski, CEO and Co-founder of Flowlife, who shared how he uses data – not only to drive business performance but to protect personal well-being.
“We track every metric at work, but we forget to measure ourselves – the people actually doing the work.”
In the same spirit, Magnus Pettersson, CEO of Twistshake, offered an equally honest and refreshing take. He described himself as “a master of mistakes”, as a reminder that growth often starts with failure. Together, they showed that empathy, authenticity, and self-leadership are just as essential to progress as data and technology.
Qliro’s take: In a space defined by innovation, the human factor remains the ultimate differentiator. As AI-slop fills feeds and inboxes, the real winners will be the teams who build trust before technology, because that’s where lasting partnerships and real progress begin.
Powering smarter commerce together
LINK Summit reminded us why we do what we do at Qliro – turning payments into performance, loyalty, and long-term growth. For us, commerce isn’t just about transactions. It’s about building ecosystems where merchants, partners, and customers grow together. Because when the community grows, commerce grows stronger.
You want to grow smarter? 👉 Contact us today