Shopify merchants generated $14 billion over BFCM weekend—but the real test starts now with fulfillment execution and operational strategy.

In this episode, discover:

• Why apparel, beauty, and toys grew 20-40% YoY while you're strategically timing inventory to avoid cash pressure (the inbound spike happened one week later than last year)
• How international markets exploded with Canada up 400% and Australia 250%, creating immediate expansion opportunities you can execute this quarter
• The exact moment to transition from self-fulfillment to 3PL—and why focusing on your core competency beats operational heroics at any revenue stage

James Solier is Senior Vice President of Central Operations at ShipBob. He oversees fulfillment operations serving thousands of DTC brands from startup to household names.

Whether you're doing $50K months or $5M months, this conversation delivers actionable insights you can implement this week.

📝 Full show notes, strategic takeaways, and resources: https://ecommercefastlane.com/podcast/episode-438/

Connect with us:

🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/stevenhutt
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shutt/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thrivingwithshopify

Bluetooth scanners failing during your busiest checkout rush is about to become a problem of the past.

In this episode, discover:

• How Shopify's new POS Hub eliminates the wireless peripheral failures that generate most retail support tickets—using wired connections that work with legacy hardware worth thousands
• Why 1-hour local delivery via Uber Direct integration matters more in the final December week (retail's biggest) than during Black Friday weekend
• How to enroll in-store customers into subscriptions and manage stock counts natively on POS across multiple global markets

Ray Reddy is VP of Retail at Shopify. He leads the team behind POS innovations for brick-and-mortar brands operating from single locations to global retail chains.

Whether you're doing $10K months or $1M months, this conversation delivers actionable insights you can implement this week.

📝 Full show notes, strategic takeaways, and resources: https://ecommercefastlane.com/podcast/episode-437/

Connect with us:

🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/stevenhutt
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shutt/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thrivingwithshopify

Most DTC brands lose 15-30% of their margin to return processing mistakes they don't even know they're making.

In this episode, discover:

• Why the "chaos corner" in your warehouse costs more than the actual refunds—from restocking delays to inventory write-offs that silently destroy profit margins
• How 50-500% return volume spikes in January-February create your biggest hidden opportunity to recover margin (not just process faster)
• The 5-minute Shopify integration that turns return data into actionable P&L insights before your next BFCM wave hits

Kyle Bertin is Co-founder and CEO of Two Boxes, a returns processing platform. His work touring major fulfillment centers at Outrider revealed the same problem everywhere: billion-dollar logistics operations with returns sections stuck 30 years in the past.

Whether you're doing $10K months or $1M months, this conversation delivers actionable insights you can implement this week.

📝 Full show notes, strategic takeaways, and resources: https://ecommercefastlane.com/podcast/episode-436/

Connect with us:

🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/stevenhutt
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shutt/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thrivingwithshopify

Most e-commerce teams are drowning in manual work that AI should be handling—but there's a massive gap between AI hype and AI that actually works.

In this episode, discover:

• How autonomous agents differ from chatbots and query tools—no more babysitting or constant prompting required for repetitive tasks
• The exact process one D2C fitness brand used to identify influencers from their top 5% customers in 5 minutes (previously took a team of interns months)
• Why the disconnect between data scientists and marketers is costing you money, and how AI agents bridge that gap to free up your team for strategic work

Ibby Syed is co-founder of Cotera and was one of the first data scientists at Peloton during their hypergrowth phase. He watched DTC brands scale rapidly while drowning in scattered customer data across disconnected tools.

Whether you're doing $10K months or $1M months, this conversation delivers actionable insights you can implement this week.

📝 Full show notes, strategic takeaways, and resources: https://ecommercefastlane.com/podcast/episode-435/

Connect with us:

🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/stevenhutt
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shutt/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thrivingwithshopify

You're paying affiliate commissions on customers who were already buying from you—Josh Kennedy calls this the "$20 billion mistake."

In this episode, discover:

• Why 2/3 of affiliate partnerships drain profit instead of driving growth—loyalty platforms and coupon sites intercept checkout without creating value
• The search-first framework that generated $10M in real revenue—reverse-engineer where customers already look for solutions, then build direct creator relationships
• How to audit your top 10 partners for cannibalization—switching from last-click to multi-touch attribution reveals who actually influences decisions versus who games the system

Josh Kennedy is Founder of Imagine Marketing. He's generated over $10 million in documented affiliate revenue by focusing on upper-funnel content partnerships that drive new customers instead of intercepting existing ones.

Whether you're doing $10K months or $1M months, this conversation delivers actionable insights you can implement this week.

📝 Full show notes, strategic takeaways, and resources: https://ecommercefastlane.com/podcast/episode-434/

Connect with us:

🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/stevenhutt
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shutt/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thrivingwithshopify

The customer acquisition playbook that built your business three years ago is actively bleeding money today.

In this episode, discover:

• Why single-channel strategies are crushing margins as CPMs creep up year over year—and the integrated SEO + paid media approach that's reducing customer acquisition costs by treating channels as complementary systems, not competing budgets
• How to extract actionable BFCM insights within 1-2 weeks while you still have Q4 runway to capitalize on Christmas traffic, gift card redemptions, and January clearance
• The "messy middle" reality where customers hit 6-8 touchpoints in 15 minutes—and why brand recall now drives transactions before they reach your cart

Russ Macumber is Co-Founder & Managing Director at Impressive Digital. He's worked with e-commerce brands from $2 million to $500 million+ in revenue since 1999, navigating the entire evolution from traditional marketing through today's multi-channel reality.

Whether you're doing $10K months or $1M months, this conversation delivers actionable insights you can implement this week.

📝 Full show notes, strategic takeaways, and resources: https://ecommercefastlane.com/podcast/episode-433/

Connect with us:

🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/stevenhutt
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shutt/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thrivingwithshopify

Here's what most brands get wrong about discounting: they launch site-wide sales that spike orders for a few days, then train customers to never buy at full price again.

In this episode, discover:

• Why quantity-based discounting ("buy more, save more") doesn't condition customers to wait for promotions and can be a permanent offer that protects margins while lifting AOV by 30-40%.
• The critical difference between bulk tiered pricing and volume bundles—and how to match discount structures to how customers actually want to buy your products instead of just copying competitors.
• How to use strategic discounting to offset rising CAC from Google algorithm changes, with frameworks that work whether you're spending $500 or $50K monthly on ads.

Katie Keith is the Founder and CEO of Barn2, serving 100,000+ stores with insights backed by millions of transactions across the WooCommerce ecosystem, now bringing that expertise to Shopify.

Whether you're doing $10K months or $1M months, this conversation delivers actionable insights you can implement this week.

📝 Full show notes, strategic takeaways, and resources: https://ecommercefastlane.com/podcast/episode-432/

Connect with us:

🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/stevenhutt
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shutt/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thrivingwithshopify

Most founders don't realize they're stuck in the ad creative grind until they're months deep into it.

Everyone's chasing the same AI tools to pump out images and copy, but here's what they're missing: the real bottleneck isn't creating ads—it's knowing which ones will actually convert before you spend a single dollar testing them.

Think about your options for a second. You could drop $15,000 with an agency and wait four to six weeks for tested ad variants. Or you could spend $50 and get 20 AI-generated, consumer-validated ad concepts in under 15 minutes—complete with data showing exactly which ones will perform best. A year ago, that second option didn't exist. But today, something's shifted. Small to mid-sized brands that've been locked out of the sophisticated testing that eight-figure operations run are finally getting access to enterprise-level consumer intelligence.

Today's guest is Armen Mkrtchyan, CEO and co-founder of Extuitive, a company that emerged from Flagship Pioneering—the same innovation lab behind Moderna. Armen and his team built something remarkable: a proprietary database of over 150,000 AI consumer agents trained on real people living in the US. These agents can predict purchase intent, skepticism triggers, and price sensitivity before you launch a single campaign.

This isn't just another AI image generator churning out generic assets. This is validated creative testing at a scale that was previously impossible for most brands. Whether you're prepping for Black Friday or planning Q1 launches, understanding how AI consumer validation works could fundamentally change your approach to creative production.

Let's get into it.

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