Episodes

464
June 1, 2026

Why AI Recommends Some Shopify Products and Ignores Yours

ChatGPT and Google's AI are recommending products right now, and Shopify brands with messy, scattered product data are the ones getting skipped. In this episode, Trever Chidester, director of partnerships at Plytix, breaks down: Why clean, structured product data is the growth lever that gets you discovered in ChatGPT and AI search How to bulk edit descriptions, images, and SKUs across multiple Shopify stores from one source of truth The free tier that puts a former $10K to $30K/year enterpr...
463
May 26, 2026

Voice Is the New SMS for Shopify (Here's Where It's Already Working)

AI voice agents are recovering 35% of abandoned Shopify carts, and most operators haven't noticed yet. In this solo episode, Steve Hutt breaks down: Why AI voice beats email recovery flows by 3x on abandoned carts (and the stage where it actually pays off) How one Shopify brand cut $18K/month in support costs while CSAT jumped 22% The storefront voice concierge small brands can use to sound like the founder at scale Whether you're doing $100K years or $10M+ on Shopify Plus, this episode giv...
462
May 21, 2026

Why a 3,000-Follower Creator Beats a Celebrity Influencer (And How to Run It at Scale)

Meta and Google CACs keep climbing, so Shopify brands are paying micro-influencers in product, not cash. In this episode, William Gasner, co-founder and CMO of Stack Influence, breaks down: Why the product-for-post model beats cash payouts at scale, with lifetime content rights and access to 11M+ vetted creators The Amazon cold start fix: how external influencer traffic feeds Amazon's algorithm and accelerates your listing toward page one Whitelisting explained: why running ads through the i...
461
May 19, 2026

AI Brought a Stranger to Your Door. Now What?

AI just delivered a stranger to your Shopify store who has zero brand context — and the first 48 hours after purchase decide whether they ever come back. In this solo episode, Steve Hutt unpacks fresh Shopify data and breaks down: Why AI-referred shoppers convert 50% higher with 14% larger AOV — and why most merchants still lose them The 3-pillar post-purchase framework (first 48 hours, flow design, loyalty trigger) for turning AI strangers into loyalists Stage-specific moves to implement th...
460
May 14, 2026

Your Ads Know Your Customer. Your Website Doesn't

Your ads are hyper-personalized. Your Shopify storefront isn't. That mismatch is leaking conversions for 7-figure brands. In this episode, Kratik Agrawal, founder and CEO of Kinect (YC-backed), breaks down: How real-time storefront personalization drove 10-12% conversion lift for early Shopify customers (and 2-3x for shoppers who engage the AI sales rep) Why non-commodity Shopify brands shouldn't chase agentic commerce yet, and what to fix before UCP standards roll out The adaptive PDP frame...
459
May 12, 2026

How First-Party Shopify Data Cuts Meta Ad CAC by 30%

Your strongest Meta ads signal is sitting in Shopify, not the pixel, and most brands are leaving it untapped. In this episode, Tiago Costa, co-founder and CEO of FULLVENUE (the team behind Clustie), breaks down: The two AI-built audiences Clustie pushes into Meta: high-propensity buyers and 30-day LTV predictions Why first-party Shopify data beats pixel tracking now that privacy changes have weakened ad signals How brands are seeing 30% lower CPA and 70% ROAS lifts in days, not months Wheth...
458
May 5, 2026

Revenue Up, Profit Flat: The Multi-Marketplace Trap Stalling Shopify Brands

Scaling your Shopify brand to Amazon, Walmart, or TikTok Shop with revenue climbing but profit flat? You've hit the freelancer fragmentation trap. In this episode, Saad Sohail Khan, founder and CEO of Spectrum BPO, breaks down: Why the typical "PPC freelancer here, listing person there" stack quietly kills margins past $40K/month How an in-house team model with 400+ trained experts beats fragmented outsourcing on price and accountability The performance-based pricing framework (1.5 to 2% on ...
457
April 28, 2026

Only 30 Shopify Merchants Used OpenAI's Instant Checkout. Here's Why That Matters.

Out of millions of Shopify merchants, only 30 went live with OpenAI's Instant Checkout before it got killed six months later. Here's what actually happened with agentic commerce, and what to do about it. In this solo episode, Steve breaks down: The foundational gap that doomed Instant Checkout from day one (OpenAI launched without solving for US sales tax) The two-layer split that actually matters: AI owns discovery (up 4,700% YoY), but merchants still own the transaction Stage-by-stage play...
456
April 21, 2026

The $9,000 Affiliate Fraud Most Shopify Brands Are Paying For (And Don't Know It)

A mom influencer with 3,000 followers pocketed $9K in fraudulent affiliate commissions in 90 days. If you run a Shopify affiliate program, you're likely overpaying too. In this episode, Yash Chavan, founder of Saathi (and Saral), breaks down: Why most affiliate dashboards lie about incrementality, and how to identify affiliates intercepting sales you'd already close The post-purchase survey method that surfaces influencer-driven sales your click tracking misses entirely A 3-step audit for $1...
455
April 14, 2026

Your Shopify Store Might Be Selling at a Loss (And Your Inventory Is Why)

Shopify's free inventory tool Stocky shuts down August 31—and most of the 100,000+ merchants using it don't have a replacement plan yet. In this episode, Riikka Söderlund, COO of Katana, breaks down: Why Shopify brands unknowingly sell at a loss—and how real-time COGS visibility fixes it How inventory accuracy now directly affects Google Shopping placement and AI product discovery How to connect Shopify, Amazon, B2B wholesale, and POS in one central system—without replacing your tech stack ...
454
April 7, 2026

Your ROAS Is Lying to You: How Profit-First Marketing Actually Works

Spending more on ads than ever but not seeing profit? Most Shopify brands trust their ROAS dashboards over their P&L—and it's costing them. In this episode, Matt Raminick, founder and CEO of Sunnyside, breaks down: Why chasing ROAS without tracking contribution margin leaves lifestyle brands unprofitable at scale The Profit360 framework that connects your P&L, creative strategy, and channel execution in one system How Brixton ended Q1 25–30% above revenue goal by focusing creative spend on t...
453
April 1, 2026

Your Shopify Store Is Already Inside ChatGPT — Here's What That Actually Means

Your Shopify store is now live inside ChatGPT, Copilot, and Google AI Mode—and most merchants have no idea it happened. In this solo episode, Steve breaks down what Shopify's agentic storefronts launch actually means for your business: Why AI-referred shoppers convert 31% higher than other traffic sources—and how to show up before competitors do The Universal Commerce Protocol Shopify co-built with Google, Walmart, and Visa that's quietly reshaping product discovery Three actions to take thi...
452
March 24, 2026

Your Ads Aren’t Broken. Your Data Is. (Here’s the Fix)

Three dashboards, three different numbers—if your Meta, Google, and Shopify analytics can't agree on conversions, you're making spend decisions on broken data. In this episode, Sean Larkin, Chief Product Officer at OpenSend and founder of Fueled, breaks down: Why browser pixels are losing catastrophic signal—and how server-side tracking typically recovers 20–30% ROAS on Meta How a single app install can silently kill your ad signal for days without you ever knowing Why the Fueled + OpenSend ...
451
March 17, 2026

Why Your 7X ROAS Isn't Showing Up in Your Bank Account

Revenue rising, profit shrinking? Your Shopify brand may have a profitability problem disguised as a growth problem. In this episode, Ben Dyer, Head of Growth at Webtopia — managing $100M+ in ad spend for D2C brands — breaks down: Why ROAS is a vanity metric — and what contribution margin and CAC actually reveal about true business health How one haircare brand cut branded search waste, shifted to non-brand targeting, and drove 74% revenue growth The content-led Meta strategy (post-Andromeda...
450
March 10, 2026

From 8 Cents to 40 Cents Per Subscriber: Building a Retention System That Actually Pays

Your email list generates $0.08 per subscriber on average—but Shopify brands with the right retention system are hitting $0.40. In this episode, Tris Dyer, founder of Oaks Email Studio, a boutique Klaviyo retention agency, breaks down: Why retention is a financial discipline—and why tracking revenue per recipient (not open rates) reveals what's actually broken The Hydrinity skincare case study: 194% lift in campaign conversion value by building product-aware lifecycle journeys How AI-powered...
449
March 5, 2026

Your ROAS Is Green. Your Bank Account Isn't. Here's Why.

Revenue climbing, dashboards green, bank account still running dry—Shopify brands can have an 8x ROAS and still lose $100K a month. In this episode, Adam Callinan, CEO of Pentane and co-founder of the $60M Bottlekeeper brand, breaks down: Why ad platform metrics are always missing context—and how hidden fixed and variable costs quietly destroy margins How one DTC brand went from losing $100K/month at an 8x ROAS to $50K monthly profit in 90 days The Profit Pyramid: why founders who optimize t...
448
Feb. 24, 2026

How Much Should You Actually Spend on AI? A Revenue-Stage Framework for Shopify Brands

Shopify brands are stacking AI tools and wasting money. If you're not sure what to actually spend on AI at your revenue stage, this episode cuts through the noise. In this solo episode, Steve breaks down: A stage-by-stage AI investment framework from under $500K to $50M+ in annual revenue with realistic monthly budget ranges Why one well-implemented AI system trained on your data outperforms 10 underutilized tools every time The compounding filter—how to tell if an AI investment gets smarter...
447
Feb. 17, 2026

Stop Giving Discounts To Customers Who Were Already Going To Buy

Blind discounting is quietly destroying your Shopify margins—even when customers were already ready to buy. In this episode, Muhammed Tüfekyapan, founder of Growth Suite, breaks down: Why "walkaway customers" and dedicated buyers need completely different treatment—and how behavior tracking tells them apart in real time How single-use discount codes that truly expire stop coupon leakage to Honey and Capital One Shopping Why most brands see recovered sales within hours of installing Growth Su...
446
Feb. 10, 2026

Why Your Best Content Is Invisible in AI Search (And How to Fix It)

Six-month window to rank in AI search before enterprises catch up—if your Shopify brand isn't showing up in ChatGPT or Perplexity product recommendations yet, this is your roadmap. In this episode, Ivan Slobodin, Director of Product at Searchable.com, breaks down: Why the next 6-12 months offer a rare chance to rank alongside Nike and Sony in AI platforms before competition intensifies How automation runs hundreds of prompts daily across 9 AI platforms vs the 10-20 you'd do manually Why bran...
445
Feb. 3, 2026

Why Your $100 DTC Orders Can't Compete with $10K Wholesale Relationships

DTC brands struggling in 2025: there's a $5.9 trillion wholesale opportunity you're missing while chasing the $1.3 trillion online market. In this episode, Meghann Butcher, founder of RepSpark, breaks down: How 80,000+ retailers actively discover and order from emerging brands through B2B platforms The operational backbone that turns chaotic wholesale order management into automated fulfillment Why adding wholesale legitimizes DTC brands and opens revenue channels beyond paid acquisition Wh...
444
Jan. 27, 2026

Why Alibaba Shows You The Wrong Suppliers First (And What Top Brands Do Instead)

Alibaba makes 90% of revenue from supplier advertising—meaning the factories you see first simply paid the most to rank there. In this episode, discover: Why Alibaba's pay-to-rank model keeps premium suppliers (like those manufacturing for Lululemon and Calvin Klein) off directories, and how customs data from Vietnam, Mexico, India, and China reveals actual factory quality The compliance risk that cost brands hundreds of thousands: how US DNA testing on Xinjiang cotton caught unsuspecting bra...
443
Jan. 20, 2026

162,000 Discount Codes Analyzed: The Unique Strategy That's Secretly Driving Shopify's Top Brands

Most Shopify stores are bleeding margin with generic discount codes that get scraped, shared, and abused—while missing the strategic segmentation that actually drives conversions. In this episode, discover: How switching from "WELCOME10" to unique codes prevents coupon abuse while enabling targeted offers for new subscribers, win-back campaigns, and VIP segments—without the CFO panic about unlimited liability Why 46% of distributed codes expire unused (revealing hidden opportunities in your c...
442
Jan. 13, 2026

Why Shopify Brands Need a Data Layer (Not Just Better Tracking)

When Facebook shows 50 sales, Google Analytics shows 35, and Shopify shows 68 — which number do you trust to scale profitably? In this episode, discover: How server-side tracking eliminates the 20-30% revenue gap plaguing most Shopify brands' analytics, bypassing Apple ITP and ad blockers to achieve 100% order relay from Shopify to your marketing channels Why Littledata's unified data layer synchronizes customer behavior, loyalty tiers, and product metafields across Meta, Google, and Klaviyo ...
441
Jan. 6, 2026

The Hidden Nexus Trap Costing Shopify Sellers Thousands

Most Shopify sellers have no idea they're breaking tax laws until it's too late—and the penalties are brutal. In this episode, discover: Four types of nexus that trigger tax obligations beyond economic thresholds: physical locations, affiliate commissions, click-through traffic, and even trade show attendance create instant compliance requirements Why Amazon FBA sellers get blindsided when launching Shopify stores—Amazon handles sales tax automatically while Shopify puts the burden entirely o...