Fractional Retail CPO Chief Product Officer Service

Retail product challenges rarely come from a lack of ideas. They come from unclear ownership, competing priorities and no single view of how products, platforms and customer experiences should evolve together.

The Fractional Retail CPO Service from Cogent2 provides senior, part time product leadership for retail businesses operating across ecommerce, stores and supporting systems. This role owns product vision and prioritisation across customer touchpoints, internal tools and digital platforms, ensuring change is driven by customer value and commercial outcomes.

It is designed for retailers where product responsibility is fragmented across ecommerce, technology and operations, and where no one owns product direction end to end.

Cogent2’s Fractional Retail CPOs work inside the business, partnering closely with founders, COOs and leadership teams. Alongside senior product leadership, you gain access to a joined-up technical and delivery team that can execute and refine what is defined at a product level.

When to hire a Fractional Retail CPO

This service is particularly well suited to retailers that:

• Operate across ecommerce and physical retail

• Have growing backlogs of digital, operational and customer initiatives

• Struggle to prioritise product change effectively

• Lack a single owner for retail product direction

• Need senior product leadership on a part time basis

Hiring a Fractional Retail CPO brings clarity, focus and accountability to product evolution.

What the service delivers

Cogent2 Fractional Retail CPOs operate at a senior product leadership level with a strong commercial mindset.

This typically includes:

• Acting as a Fractional and Part Time Retail CPO

• Owning product vision across digital and operational platforms

• Defining roadmaps aligned to customer experience and growth

• Prioritising backlogs based on business value and impact

• Aligning stakeholders around clear product decisions

• Acting as the single owner of retail product outcomes

Because Cogent2 combines product leadership with delivery capability, decisions turn into delivered improvements.

Retail product strategy and roadmap ownership

Retail performs best when product thinking spans channels.

The Fractional Retail CPO Service focuses on:

• Defining how customer experiences should evolve across channels

• Aligning ecommerce, store and operational product priorities

• Preventing reactive or siloed product decisions

• Improving visibility of what is being built and why

• Ensuring product investment supports long-term growth

The emphasis is joined-up product thinking grounded in retail reality.

Governance, prioritisation and value control

Retail product backlogs grow quickly without ownership.

Cogent2 Fractional Retail CPOs help by:

• Establishing clear prioritisation frameworks

• Balancing customer, operational and commercial needs

• Ensuring product change delivers measurable outcomes

• Reducing low-impact or unnecessary initiatives

• Improving confidence in product decision making

This keeps product focused and outcome-driven.

Technology and platform product oversight

Retail products are supported by multiple systems.

Cogent2 Fractional Retail CPOs:

• Own the product view of ecommerce, POS and operational platforms

• Ensure technology supports the product roadmap

• Reduce duplication and conflicting functionality

• Improve consistency across the retail tech ecosystem

• Align platform evolution with customer and business needs

Product ownership extends beyond customer-facing features.

Cross-functional product leadership

Retail product decisions touch every team.

Cogent2 Fractional Retail CPOs work closely with:

• Ecommerce and trading teams

• Store operations and merchandising

• Marketing and customer experience

• Technology and integration teams

This ensures product decisions reflect how the retail business actually operates.

Programme support and product stabilisation

Fractional Retail CPOs are often engaged during periods of change.

This can include:

• Supporting retail replatforming or omnichannel initiatives

• Bringing order to fragmented backlogs

• Improving confidence ahead of peak trading

• Reducing friction between teams and priorities

• Protecting customer experience during evolution

Cogent2’s joined-up delivery capability allows change to move forward with control.

Ongoing advisory and trusted product leadership

Many clients retain this role as an ongoing advisory relationship.

This can include:

• Acting as a sounding board for retail product decisions

• Reviewing plans before investment is committed

• Supporting hiring and product capability planning

• Helping leadership teams avoid costly product mistakes

This model provides executive-level product thinking without building a permanent function.

The Cogent2 Difference

Cogent2 works alongside best-in-class retail platforms so our Fractional CPOs can focus entirely on product leadership and value delivery. We do not sell software. We take ownership of how retail products evolve within the wider business.

By combining Fractional Retail CPO leadership with a joined-up technical team, Cogent2 removes the gap between product intent and delivered retail outcomes.

Own retail product direction with confidence

Retail product evolution fails when ownership is unclear.

Hire a Retail CPO from Cogent2 on a Part Time, Fractional basis to bring structure, focus and confidence to your retail product strategy.