Rachel Hanretty pays £500 a month for a tool that fact-checks her marketing agency — and she has opinions about why every seasonal ecommerce founder should do the same.

In this episode, Matt Edmundson sits down with Rachel Hanretty, founder of Mademoiselle Macaron, the Scottish brand shipping up to 25,000 macarons a week UK-wide. Rachel built the business from a St Andrews student flat in 2013 after training in Paris, and thirteen years on she has strong views on attribution, agency accountability, the seasonality trap, and the gulf between what Instagram wants and what authenticity actually looks like. The conversation covers Tri...

Most ecommerce sellers limit themselves to one or two marketplaces. Jorrit Steinz, CEO and founder of ChannelEngine, argues that's leaving serious money on the table. With over 1,300 marketplaces now available worldwide, the opportunity to reach new customers has never been bigger — or more manageable with the right tools.

In this episode of The eCommerce Podcast, Matt Edmundson sits down with Jorrit to discuss why marketplace selling is no longer optional, how to choose the right platforms for your products, and why spending on marketplace ads might be a smarter move than pouring budget into Google. Jorrit also sh...

Start a Print on Demand Business on Etsy for Less Than £15

What if you could launch a profitable ecommerce business with no stock, no warehouse, and no design skills for under £15? Nigel Wymer from POD Launch Pro joins Matt Edmundson to walk through exactly how to build a print-on-demand business on Etsy from scratch. With nearly 20 years in ecommerce and almost £40k net earned last year while barely working on his stores, Nigel brings the receipts to match the strategy. In a hands-on episode framed around helping Matt's daughter Zoe start her first business, they cover niche res...

Most ecommerce operators can rattle off their LTV, churn rate, and CAC without thinking. But when Jay Myers asked a room full of subscription experts at SubSummit whether anyone knew their referral rate, only one person raised their hand — and his was zero. That single overlooked metric, Jay argues, is the difference between a business that flatlines and one that grows exponentially.

In this episode of The eCommerce Podcast, host Matt Edmundson sits down with Jay Myers, co-founder of Bold Commerce, to unpack the data behind referral-driven growth — and why a tiny shift in referral rate can mean...

With 56% of CEOs reporting zero ROI from their AI investments, Matt Edmundson takes a refreshingly honest look at the four AI tools he actually uses across his ecommerce businesses right now. In this solo Slingshot episode of the eCommerce Podcast, Matt breaks down his monthly AI spend of roughly £350 and explains exactly how each tool fits into daily operations at Aurion, from deep research sessions to product photography and building what he describes as a digital second brain. Rather than chasing every shiny new tool, Matt shares how his team culled their AI subscriptions and settled on a focused t...

Most ecommerce brands know everything about their customers but communicate like they know nothing. That’s the observation at the heart of this conversation with Max Beech, founder of Athenic and former product manager at Revolut and Yahoo. Max has spent years building personalisation features at scale, and he has a clear view of where ecommerce businesses consistently lose their best customers.

In this episode, Matt and Max explore why the first 14 days after a purchase are the most important — and most wasted — window in the entire customer journey. They discuss why sending a discount code on day th...

Mobile shoppers decide to buy or leave after seeing less than a third of your product page. Adam Pearce from Blend Commerce has seen it happen across hundreds of Shopify stores and shares the fixes that consistently lift conversion rates by 30 to 50 percent.

Episode Summary

In this episode, we dig into the gap between how ecommerce sites are designed (on desktop, in boardrooms) and how they are actually experienced (on a phone, in three scrolls). Adam Pearce, co-founder of Blend Commerce and organiser of eCom Collab Club in London, shares the data-backed changes that move...

Could a simple pre-approved loan quietly destroy your ecommerce business? Fractional CFO Rob te Braake from Insight Matters reveals how platform loans from Shopify and Stripe are creating a death spiral for seven and eight-figure brands — and one of his clients might not survive the year because of it.

Episode Summary

In this episode, we explore the financial blind spots that catch ecommerce founders off guard. Rob te Braake, who works with seven and eight-figure online brands as a fractional CFO, breaks down the three numbers every ecommerce owner should know in their sleep: gross ma...

Most businesses build their brand messaging around themselves. Their logo, their history, their awards. But what if the only place your marketing actually works is the tiny sliver where your story and your customer's story overlap?

Episode Summary

In this solo episode, Matt Edmundson introduces the Story Overlap — a simple Venn diagram concept that reveals why most eCommerce messaging misses the mark. Through a live homepage audit of an accountant's website (with a we-to-you ratio of 2.6 to 1), Apple's iconic '1,000 songs in your pocket' line, and the Netflix headline formula, Matt shows how established brands ha...

Selena Knight has spent 20 years in retail and knows exactly why most e-commerce businesses are undercharging. One of her favourite examples? An Australian party supplies company that charges $6 for $3 paper plates — and their customers keep coming back.

In this conversation, we get into price anchoring, why the businesses that survived 2025 were the ones charging more, not less, the three questions that close every in-store sale, and what she learned from Gary V's organisational psychologist about hiring people who actually think for themselves.

If you're competing on price, this one might change your mind.

Su...

How many ads does your brand actually need each month? Edwin Choi from Jet Fuel Agency reveals the data-driven framework for calculating your exact creative requirements — and why most brands are drastically underproducing content for their Meta ad accounts.

Episode Summary

We explore why most e-commerce brands are guessing their way through Meta ad creative — and paying the price in declining performance. Edwin Choi, founder of Jet Fuel Agency, shares the framework his team uses across hundreds of accounts to calculate exact monthly creative needs using decay rates and win rates. We discuss why Meta's Andr...

What if 99.5% customer satisfaction could still threaten your entire business? Payments veteran Jeff Foster reveals why the economics of chargebacks have shifted dramatically, and why the smartest merchants are giving money back faster than you'd expect.

Jeff has been in payments since 1998, helped process the first CVV and Verified by Visa transactions ever, and now runs Quick Refund to help merchants navigate the tightening thresholds that Visa and MasterCard have imposed. We explore why 25% of chargebacks hit transactions that were already refunded, how friendly fraud became behavioural rather than criminal, and what you can actually control to...

Can you remember the last product description you actually read? Matt Edmundson explores why most eCommerce product copy is invisible and shares the science-backed narrative binding framework that made one UK retailer's descriptions 42% more memorable and boosted revenue per visitor by 36.7%.

Episode Summary

In this solo episode, Matt digs into one of the most overlooked areas of eCommerce: product descriptions. Drawing on his experience rewriting 400 product descriptions at Jersey Beauty Company (before AI existed), he reveals why manufacturer copy turns every site into a commodity and shares the narrative binding framework from cognitive science that...

What if the secret to building a subscription brand isn't clever retention tricks? Joe Welstead took his electrolyte company OSHUN from zero to over 5,000 subscribers in just 10 months, achieving a 42% subscription signup rate and 5% conversion rate.

Episode Summary

In this episode, we explore how Joe built OSHUN with a deliberately different approach to his previous venture-backed, multi-SKU supplement company. After selling that business in 2022, he chose the opposite path: one product, bootstrapped, subscription-first from day one. We discuss why launching with a single SKU is more freeing than multiple products, how spreading decisions across the...

With 57% of Google searches now ending without a click, where are those potential customers going? Matthew Stafford from Build Grow Scale reveals why LLM traffic converts at 5X the rate of traditional search—and how smaller brands can capture this opportunity before the giants catch on.

Episode Summary

Matthew Stafford has spent a decade helping eCommerce brands scale, working with companies doing £200,000 to £3 million monthly. Across every US-based client, he's seen organic traffic drop 20-30% this year. But the brands optimising for LLMs aren't just recovering that lost traffic—they're converting it at rates that make t...

What if your e-commerce platform is actually holding you back? Mikel Lindsaar, founder of StoreConnect and author of the forthcoming book Customer Commerce, explains why most platforms end up controlling your business rather than serving it. We explore how unified data systems enable smarter automation, faster page loads, and the kind of personalised customer experiences that build lifetime value.

Mikel shares practical examples including a museum using AI to identify VIP visitors, automated refunds that create customer delight, and how one company consolidated 76 websites across 26 brands onto a single platform. We also discuss why his strongest advice...

With over 10,000 3PLs in the US alone, how do you avoid choosing one that sinks your business? Dave Gulas from EZDC 3PL shares the horror stories he's witnessed and the questions that separate good logistics partners from disasters waiting to happen.

In this episode, we explore why treating logistics as a commodity leads to problems, how to vet a fulfilment partner properly, and the operational details that matter when you're shipping thousands of orders monthly. Dave's background in the pharmaceutical industry, where urgency is non-negotiable, shaped his approach to e-commerce fulfilment. He shares what he looks for...

Companies that capture and apply lessons have a 27% higher success rate. Yet most eCommerce founders either skip their year-end review entirely or give their numbers a cursory glance. In this Slingshot episode, Matt Edmundson shares the framework that saved LEGO from bankruptcy and reveals why accountability partners increase goal achievement by 95%.

Episode Summary

Matt opens with the remarkable story of LEGO's near-collapse in 2003, when the company discovered it hadn't generated economic profit for over a decade. Through confronting brutal facts with honest review, they transformed into one of the world's most successful brands. We explore...

What does the Nativity story have to do with running an eCommerce business? In this special Christmas Day message, Matt Edmundson draws some beautifully tenuous parallels between shepherds, mangers, and Joseph, and the journey of every Digital David building something meaningful.

Episode Summary

This isn't a typical episode with frameworks and downloads. It's a cup of tea and a heartfelt thank you. Matt reflects on the meaning of Advent (the arrival of something wonderful) and finds unexpected connections between the Christmas story and the eCommerce journey. From early customers who become unlikely evangelists, to bootstrap...

Most eCommerce brands settle for pop-up opt-in rates of 3-5% whilst competitors achieve 10-15%. Shaan Arora, CEO of Alia Popups, reveals the systematic testing approach used by 3,000 brands including Peloton and Nike to dramatically improve email collection without destroying margins.

We explore why copy matters more than design, how mystery discounts outperform fixed offers, the difference between mobile and desktop timing, and why holdout tests prove pop-ups increase both conversion rates and AOV despite the annoyance factor. Shaan shares data-driven insights from 100 million monthly pop-up views.

Key Point Timestamps:

02:17 - The biggest pop-up...

Most eCommerce stores with large product catalogues share a common problem that quietly kills growth. It's not their products, pricing, or marketing budget—it's their site structure. Sam Wright, founder of Blink SEO and creator of Macalytics, reveals why taxonomy is the biggest drag on growth for stores doing £3-5 million annually, and exactly how to fix it using Search Console data.

We explore why collection pages represent 35% of all search impressions (more than products and blogs combined), how to determine the right level of granularity for your categorisation, and why most stores aren't deep enough with the...

What if one video per week could generate referral-quality leads for your eCommerce business? Nate Woodbury reveals how to leverage YouTube's search algorithm instead of chasing viral views, creating educational content that brings dream customers directly to you.

Episode Summary

We explore how eCommerce businesses can generate consistent, high-quality leads through strategic YouTube content. Nate Woodbury, who has produced over 60 YouTube channels, shares his Leaf Strategy—focusing on answering specific 8+ word questions with low search volume (as few as 10 searches per month) to build authority systematically. Rather than competing for viral views, this approach prioritises ed...

On Thanksgiving Day, whilst American families gather to express gratitude, eCommerce businesses gear up for the most transactional weekend of the year. Matt Edmundson explores why businesses that win long-term aren't those with the best Black Friday discounts, but those that genuinely appreciate the humans behind the transactions.

Episode Summary

Matt shares the Gratitude Audit - a three-level framework distinguishing between no appreciation, automated appreciation, and personal gratitude. Through the story of transforming a beauty business that achieved 40% repeat purchase rates and 20% revenue growth, he demonstrates how culturally embedding thankfulness creates customers who become brand...

After building over 200 Shopify stores, Ben Sharf has discovered that nearly every e-commerce brand—whether doing $1 million or $50 million annually—describes their website as a source of frustration rather than growth. In this episode, we explore why complexity has become the norm and exactly how to fix it.

Ben, co-founder of Platter, shares insights from working with brands that have accumulated technical debt through widget overload, deleted apps that leave code behind, and convoluted customer journeys that kill conversions. We dig into his three-part simplification framework, the power of cart drawers over cart pages, and why revenue per...

Email marketing delivers 30 to 40 times the return of any other marketing channel, yet most Black Friday campaigns vanish into spam folders before customers even see them. Robby Bryant from Campaign Monitor reveals why the big three mailbox providers—Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft—now act as sheriffs, policing email deliverability like never before.

Episode Summary

We explore the seismic shift in email deliverability over the past five years, as consolidated mailbox providers transformed from passive gatekeepers into active sheriffs. Robby breaks down the authentication trinity (DKIM, SPF, DMARC) that determines whether your emails even make it past...

What if scaling your eCommerce business isn't about better ads, but about understanding why customers buy from you? Louise Doyle shares how she built Needi from a struggling DTC gifting site into a £2 million corporate gifting business by refusing to treat gifts like commodities.

Episode Summary

Louise and her co-founder Steph launched Needi in 2021 with ambitious DTC plans, only to discover the brutal reality of customer acquisition costs and overwhelming competition. Within months, they pivoted to B2B corporate gifting, where they found desperate demand for their psychology-driven approach. By asking why clients want to g...

Customer acquisition costs have surged 222% since 2013, with Google and Facebook CPCs climbing relentlessly. But what if the solution isn't just doubling down on retention or throwing more money at ads?

Matt Edmundson introduces the FUEL Framework—a systematic approach to customer growth that doesn't rely on a single channel, doesn't assume yesterday's tactics will work tomorrow, and doesn't leave you vulnerable when platforms change their algorithms. Through Foundation, Unlock, Elevate, and Leapfrog strategies, this framework addresses all three levers of business growth: acquiring customers, increasing purchase frequency, and raising average order value.

Ke...

Most entrepreneurs dream of building from scratch, but Michael Simpson took a different path. After running an Amazon arbitrage side hustle, he spent 18 months searching for an established eCommerce business to buy rather than building one from the ground up.

Four years after purchasing an 18-year-old business selling Catholic products, Michael candidly shares what most buyers won't: the reality behind the broker presentations, the challenges of inherited technical debt, and the daily cashflow discipline that kept him in the game during survival mode.

We explore the SBA loan process that made 90% financing possible, why he...

Less than 30% of customers buy a second time, and subscription brands lose 50% within 90 days. Ken Rapp from BluStream reveals why this isn't a marketing problem—it's a post-purchase problem that's costing brands millions in repeat revenue.

Episode Summary

The conversation explores what Ken calls the "doorstep to delight" phase—that critical window between clicking buy and becoming a loyal customer. Through stories of dog probiotics, cracked guitars, and missing vanilla extract, Ken demonstrates how brands lose connection with customers the moment a purchase is complete. He breaks down his three-stage framework for product ownership (unboxing, usag...

Alex Back's team at Couch posts content about Ashley Furniture, and just two days later, ChatGPT and Google AI change their answers about the brand's quality. In this episode, we explore the systematic approach to building authority in AI search that's transforming how furniture brands—and all e-commerce businesses—can influence what millions of people learn from large language models.

After running a successful e-commerce furniture brand for 13 years, Alex now helps furniture retailers through Couch, his marketing platform. We dive into the remarkable shift happening in digital marketing, where understanding how LLMs consume and cite content has...

What if the secret to Amazon success isn't about outsmarting competitors, but about seducing an algorithm? Tim Wilson from Product Wind reveals how his team identified seven specific signals that make Amazon's algorithm fall in love with products, whilst most brands unknowingly fight the wrong war.

We explore Tim's revolutionary approach to Amazon marketing, moving from traditional social media buzz campaigns to what he calls 'marketing to the algorithm.' Through real examples including a French company with 0.1% conversion rates and a pregnancy pillow brand discovering unexpected use cases, Tim demonstrates why mastering fundamentals and understanding algorithmic...

Summer 2025 is officially over, and whilst most eCommerce businesses breathed a sigh of relief after surviving another 'inevitable' slow season, one team discovered something remarkable: they grew 19% year-on-year during what should have been their worst period.

Matt Edmundson reveals the post-summer analysis that challenged everything we assume about seasonal trading. By questioning one simple default assumption - that summer slumps are inevitable - and understanding that August performance depends on March and April planning, this approach transformed summer from a write-off period into a competitive advantage.

Discover why 70% of summer purchases happen in March-May, how...

Sean Stone reveals why successful Shopify strategies often destroy Amazon performance and how treating Amazon as a unique marketplace can transform your results. His agency works with million-dollar brands achieving 20% conversion rates on Amazon whilst Shopify sellers celebrate 3%.

We explore why Amazon shoppers behave completely differently from website visitors, how the platform's algorithm rewards different behaviours, and why your product bundling strategy needs a complete rethink. Sean shares his PAIR framework (Promotions, Advertising, Inventory, Rankability) and introduces his free Conversion Rate Benchmark Buddy tool that helps sellers identify which products can realistically rank on Amazon.

...

Digital marketing veteran Vlad Zhovtenko reveals why data has become the single biggest lever in modern e-commerce marketing. After 25 years in the industry, he explains how businesses can transform from guessing to growing by owning and leveraging their customer data strategically.

We explore how the shift from platform-dependent marketing to data ownership creates competitive advantages, why TikTok's rise as a search engine changes everything, and how AI is reshaping how customers discover and buy products. Vlad shares his practical framework for identifying the 1-2 metrics that actually drive business growth, avoiding the AI analysis trap, and adapting...

Your website's gonna get rammed on Black Friday - but are you actually ready? In the fourth instalment of our Black Friday strategy series, Matt Edmundson reveals nine battle-tested tips that address the operational realities most brands completely ignore.

Episode Summary

This episode cuts through generic Black Friday advice to focus on what actually happens when your traffic explodes, customer service gets flooded, and 70% of sales shift to mobile devices. Matt introduces the 'mom test' - a simple but powerful framework for validating your Black Friday offers before they go live. We explore why Black...

Most eCommerce brands make the same Black Friday mistake: blasting identical offers to their entire email list. Matt Edmundson explains why this approach "just feels wrong" and shares a VIP list strategy that segments customers into "soulmates," "lovers," and those "about to dump you." Learn how to create self-selecting VIP lists, test offers early, leverage SMS marketing, and turn your best customers into referral engines.

Key Point Timestamps:

What if the secret to Black Friday success isn't just about discounts, but about building relationships that last? In this second episode of our Black Friday strategy miniseries, Matt Edmundson reveals the Knowledge Trust Matrix—a simple framework that transforms one-time buyers into lifetime customers.

Episode Summary

Matt challenges the conventional approach to Black Friday customer acquisition, where brands focus on extracting maximum profit from new customers rather than building foundations for long-term relationships. Through the Knowledge Trust Matrix, he demonstrates how shifting this mindset can dramatically increase customer lifetime value. The framework centres on mo...

Ever wondered why some brands skip Black Friday entirely and still win? Matt Edmundson reveals the framework that protects margins whilst creating compelling offers that actually increase customer lifetime value during Black Friday.

Episode Summary

In this first episode of our Black Friday mini-series, we explore why everything about Black Friday success comes down to your offer—and why that offer doesn't have to destroy your margins. Matt shares strategies from years of running Black Friday campaigns across multiple businesses, including some that opted out entirely. We discuss the critical ratio of margin to lifetime va...

Learning Is Not the Same as Implementation

After recording 200+ episodes of the eCommerce Podcast, Matt Edmundson has noticed something troubling: everyone's taking notes, but nobody's taking action. In this candid solo episode, we explore why only 5% of what we learn actually gets implemented and what we can do about it.

Episode Summary

Matt opens up about his own struggle with implementation, sharing how he's accumulated countless frameworks, templates, and expert advice while only putting about 5% into practice. Through personal stories including his £38 million business lesson, he challenges the common trap of endless learning wit...

Ever wondered why your online customers disappear whilst brick-and-mortar shoppers get personalised guidance? Shauli Mizrahi reveals how AI sales assistants are revolutionising eCommerce by recreating that personal touch digitally, delivering 5x ROI guarantees and transforming casual browsers into loyal customers.

We explore how Rep AI's behavioural intelligence framework predicts the exact moment shoppers need assistance, the surprising psychology behind human-AI trust, and why treating AI as a sales tool rather than customer support creates measurable revenue increases. Discover the future of conversational commerce and practical steps to implement AI assistants without technical expertise.

Key Point...