Pattern IPO Shows Brands Still Need a Tech-Savvy Storefront

Brand-aggregator rollups once promised to transform online retail but largely failed to deliver, as the frenzied accumulation of brands met the cold reality of supply chain frictions during the heights of the pandemic.

Pattern Group’s September 19 initial public offering signals a different path. One where technology, not brand and inventory accumulation, leads the way. By the end of the first day of trading, the stock popped 11%.

“We were really just tech first. At our core, we’re really a technology company,” CEO Dave Wright told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster. “We’ve spent $142 million so far on the technology stack. The aggregators we’ve been focused on buying brands with good reviews.”

The marketplace space is vast, representing $2.3 trillion in opportunity, with agentic AI fast becoming a game changer.  The company monetizes by moving inventory for partner brands but differentiates itself through proprietary systems for traffic, conversion, pricing and availability, including in-house warehouse and order-management platforms.

Department Store 3.0

The conversation with Webster and the IPO came in the wake of her column last week that noted how consumer shopping has evolved from curated department stores to digital marketplaces and now to, as Webster said, uses “agents [that] really create department store 3.0 curation at scale across many different environments.” Wright agreed that Pattern’s new GEO scorecard, which stands for “generative engine optimization,” can help brands capture this next wave by analyzing bottom-funnel keyword data and turning it into high-impact prompts for search engines and AI assistants.

Wright’s path to retail began outside the sector. “My background is all tech data…coming into this retail branding world, I actually never sold a widget,” he recalled. Inspiration struck when a cousin told him about a simple headband brand that sold million. And that was with what he termed the “formulaic nature of eCommerce.” Pattern’s early bet on AI proved prescient: “We had AI patents before people were really starting talking about AI,” Wright said.

Building Before the Boom

Long before AI became the “strategy du jour,” Pattern invested heavily in R&D. “We did build our own warehouse management system. We built our own order management system,” Wright said. That groundwork positioned the company to capitalize when generative and agentic AI exploded, offering what he calls “agentic execution solutions” in a data-rich environment where every dollar moved is measurable.

Pattern’s AI platform does more than forecast demand. Wright explained that their machine-learning pipelines ingest marketplace data points in the billions (as denoted in the S-1) — from keyword trends to real-time inventory levels — allowing the system to recommend pricing, adjust ad spend and optimize content automatically.

“Because eCommerce is so content centric, you can afford some level of hallucination or mistake,” he said, contrasting it with high-risk domains like autonomous driving. Transformer-based neural networks continuously test new product descriptions and images, then redeploy what converts best, creating a self-improving feedback loop.

Generative and “agentic” AI also drive fulfillment efficiency. Pattern’s proprietary warehouse and order-management systems use predictive algorithms to route products to the right distribution centers before demand spikes. In South Korea, one of the world’s most digitally penetrated markets, these capabilities help brands with limited staff expand seamlessly. The GEO scorecard turns bottom-funnel search data into prompts for large language models, surfacing questions like, “Which creatine is best for women?” to boost visibility and conversion.

South Korea’s particularly fertile ground is a growth market, where digital penetration tops 36%. “They recommend a brand, we execute it on the marketplace,” Wright said, describing partnerships that help even large brands expand without adding staff. The company’s GEO scorecard uses keyword data to guide generative search, converting queries into optimized engine prompts to improve conversion.

IPO as Validation of Fundamentals

Pattern’s successful IPO provides the capital to keep scaling beyond its $2 billion revenue run rate. “That’s why we’re going public. We’ve got to compete on talent there,” Wright said. “Acquisitions are a bit of the strategy. Talent is of course part of the strategy. And then…we’re doubling down on our investments on R&D.”

As he told Webster, “We’re not just a reseller, we’re a tech company that’s really driving this AI transformation.”

As Pattern’s first day of trading closed, investors signaled confidence in a model that marries proprietary technology with global marketplace expertise. For Wright, the IPO is merely a milestone: “We’re just getting started,” he said.