Should the best deals stay inside the app?
Our management consultants put one pricing choice to boards in Bahrain, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait: whether customers ordering through an AI agent get the same benefits as those in the group's own app. Most retailers plan a lower tier.
What retailers plan
BCG surveyed 50 of the top 300 global retailers and 100 of the top global brands. Only 14% plan to give outside agents the same benefits available through their own channels; 58% would offer a lower tier. These are plans, not results.
Nordstrom takes another route. Miguel Almeida, president of Nordstrom Digital, told BCG that if Nordstrom is the merchant of record, it would expose all its loyalty benefits and let the customer complete the purchase outside its own website.
A platform can lose 14 of every 100 agent orders and keep its contribution
14 in 100
Illustration: each completed agent order leaves SAR 6 after variable costs, and cutting the benefits saves the platform SAR 1 an order. 100 orders at SAR 6 is SAR 600. At SAR 7 with the same volume it is SAR 700. With 14 fewer orders, 86 orders at SAR 7 is SAR 602.
Source: At Par illustration and arithmetic.
Where the lost orders go decides it
Orders that come back to the platform's own app strengthen its direct channel. Orders that move to a competitor take future business with them.
The saving must also be real for the platform. Removing a discount the merchant funds may leave the customer paying more with no gain in the platform's margin. Paid memberships carry their own risk: benefits that stop at the edge of the app make the subscription worth less, and renewals can fall.
A higher contribution on each remaining agent order can hide a weaker result overall. The effect shows only across both channels, with repeat orders and subscription income counted.
The Gulf platforms' version
For a Gulf grocery or delivery platform such as Jahez, Snoonu, Ninja, talabat or HungerStation, this is a question of channel pricing and customer retention. The app is where the platform holds the customer's history, the membership and the reorder. The agent is where a growing share of choices may start.
The board's questions
- A Sovereign platform with a paid membership should ask what restricting benefits for agent orders does to renewals.
- A Merchant should ask who funds each benefit, because cutting one it funds saves the platform nothing.
- A Tenant should ask whether it can offer agent customers its full benefits as merchant of record, as Nordstrom proposes.
- Every board should ask where the orders lost to a lower tier go: back to the app, or to a competitor.
Pricing the agent channel
We model contribution across the app and the agent channel together, with repeat orders and subscription income, and set the benefit terms the group offers agents through Digital, AI & Agentic Commerce and Commerce Strategy & Market Entry.
Sources
- BCG, How Retailers Can Reinvent the Digital Flywheel for Agentic Commerce, 21 October 2026: the survey of 50 of the top 300 global retailers and 100 global brands, and Nordstrom's position.
- Illustration: At Par arithmetic. Published in Moneyball Finance, 3 November 2026.
Related
- Digital, AI & Agentic CommerceYour technology plan, set up and connected, including AI in operations and agent-ready commerce.
- Retail chainsOne basket from your shelf to your till: stock, staff, shrink and rent.
- Who owns the customer when the agent holds the memory?If the customer's agent holds the order history, the platform no longer owns the start of the next purchase, and verifiable fulfilment counts for more than visibility.
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