Ecommerce Conversations

Paolo Vidali has a suggestion for merchants looking to add advanced features to their ecommerce sites: Be careful. Focus first on profitability, he says, and solve the basics of product returns, customer service, and free shipping. Paolo is a developer and marketer who launched Hidden Gears, an ecommerce agency, in 2014. It's now a Hawaii-based Shopify expert partner with a varied client base...

Nate Lagos is a seasoned conversion rate optimizer, yet a recent A/B test surprised him. A client used all caps in key landing page headlines. Nate, having read a tip on X, suggested they test headlines that capitalized only the first letter of each word. The result? Conversions increased by 25% Nate first appeared on the podcast in 2025, when he addressed Facebook ad performance. For this episode...

Thanks to companies such as Printful, an enterprising entrepreneur can select a product, upload an image to place on it, sync it with her ecommerce site, sell it, and then pay for it. Print-on-demand is big business, and David Hooker is a prominent participant. He's the brand director at Printful and a long-time SaaS executive. In this episode, he addresses POD pricing strategies, sales tacti...

The last few years have been rough for Beardbrand, the direct-to-consumer company that host Eric Bandholz founded over a decade ago. He says pretty much nothing has worked post-pandemic. The business is finally seeing revenue growth, but costs are rising too. In this week's podcast episode, Eric departs from interviewing guests to share his own experiences at Beardbrand and his evolution to a...

In 2019 Dane Witbeck had a problem familiar to parents: What were his kids doing on their smartphones? That problem became his motivation to launch Pinwheel, an Austin, Texas-based seller of Android phones with parental controls for apps, usage limits, monitoring, and more. Fast forward to 2026, and Pinwheel is thriving and profitable. In this episode, Dane shares his company's production pro...

Florence Morin is an artist-turned-engineer-turned-entrepreneur. She graduated from Canada's Polytechnique Montréal in 2013, only to realize she disliked engineering work. She longed to earn a living from making art. Fast forward to 2026, and Florence Art & Drawing is her online art school, launched in 2020, selling classes and instruction. Her 10-person team includes web developers, inst...

For four years Eric Steckling has run two direct-to-consumer brands. Brio, the company he founded in 2014, sells beard trimmers and related goods. In 2022, he acquired Ollie, then a seller of teeth-whitening strips and now an expanded oral care provider. Eric first appeared on the podcast in 2023. In this latest conversation, he addresses Brio's challenges of selling long-lasting goods, Ollie...

Please enjoy this repeat of a popular episode first aired in April 2025. Mehtab Bhogal is the co-founder of Karta Ventures, a Canada-based acquirer of troubled ecommerce businesses. The firm seeks companies with "issues," such as unpaid taxes, regulatory problems, and founder disputes. He says buying distressed companies is like salvaging a crashed car. "What are the parts worth?&qu...

When he appeared on this podcast in 2021, Bryan Mahoney had just co-founded Chord, an ecommerce platform that separated the public frontend from the nuts-and-bolts backend. It was a "headless" structure that enabled merchants to connect with their preferred external providers rather than a one-size-fits-all solution. The problem, Bryan says in retrospect, was a complicated setup that req...

We've hit a plateau at Beardbrand, the direct-to-consumer business I launched 15 years ago. Our revenue is down from its peak. We've made mistakes. The beard care space has dried up. We've moved from a blue ocean of growth and opportunity to a red ocean of fierce competition. If Beardbrand grows, a competitor loses, and vice versa. In this episode, I'll depart from my typical i...

Contrary to much U.S. sentiment, Molson Hart sees opportunity in China. His direct-to-consumer toy brand, Viahart, sells mostly on Amazon, though growth has slowed in recent years. China, he says, offers promise. In this our third interview (following episodes in 2022 and 2024 ), recorded from an X live stream, he shares his plans to sell toys in China, addressing cultural nuances, legalities, sho...

Chris Wichert is an investment banker turned direct-to-consumer entrepreneur. His luxury shoe brand, Koio, launched in 2015 and quickly scaled. Then the pandemic hit. By late 2022, he says, the D2C hype and funding had collapsed. He slashed costs, stabilized cash flow, and successfully exited the company. In this episode, he shares his story of boom, bust, and survival. For an edited and condensed...

Host Eric Bandholz has interviewed a slew of impressive entrepreneurs on this podcast. He says Drew Fallon is among the most versatile. Drew last appeared on the show in 2022 when he had co-founded a tattoo skincare company. Before that he was an investment banker. He now runs Iris, an AI-driven financial modeling platform, while also tracking and reporting on consumer-focused M&A transactions...

For years EcomFuel has surveyed its community of ecommerce merchants about their growth, margins, tactics, and more. The company released this year's findings last week. In this episode, founder Andrew Youderian recaps the report, addressing the state of ecommerce among 300 participating businesses — mostly seven, eight, and nine-figure brands. For an edited and condensed transcript with embe...

Molson Hart is the founder of Viahart, a D2C toy brand, and Edison, a legal technology company. He says every entrepreneur should own two businesses, where one offers more opportunities to scale, is more profitable, or diversifies risk. I'm all in on Beardbrand, my own D2C brand launched in 2014. Molson is a two-time guest on the podcast. His comment got me thinking about an attractive second...

Dave Diederen is the founder of Syntra, a Netherlands-based conversion rate optimization agency. He encourages ecommerce brands to test product pages, ads, and, well, everything.  He says merchants often prioritize their sites' aesthetics over copy and content, a big mistake. "Content and copy play a very big role in conversions, if not the biggest," he states. In this episode, he s...

Since 2013 Cherene Aubert has managed, advised, and executed ecommerce marketing campaigns. She's worked for agencies, merchants, and as a freelance consultant. Her D2C advisory firm, Growth Capital, helps scale premium, high-growth brands. Experience guides her advice. Brands are too quick to discount slow-moving products, she says. Bundles or buy-one-get-one offers are often better. Higher-...

Ray Hua is the director of ecommerce at Vessi, a Canada-based direct-to-consumer seller of waterproof sneakers. The brand launched in 2017 after its founders developed and patented breathable fabric that repels water. Ray joined the company in 2021. In this episode, he shares the challenges of targeting the right audience, cross-border selling, diversifying, and more. For an edited and condensed t...

In 2019 Nasrin Jafari was a middle school teacher in New York City. She had no ecommerce experience but was drawn to creating and building, which led her to sew and sell face masks during Covid. Fast forward to 2026, and Mixed, her direct-to-consumer fashion brand, designs and produces female apparel and accessories. Referring to the company's launch, she says, "I had no idea how to make...

Kaleigh Moore is a 12-year freelance writer and editor. She has contributed to Shopify, Forbes, Vogue, Adweek, and various B2B providers, among others. She's now grappling with the promise and limits of AI. She calls AI a "fire hose of information" that greatly increases efficiency. She also cautions on what it cannot do, such as interview humans or learn from experience. She shares...

Occasionally on the podcast host Eric Bandholz departs from interviewing guests to share his own experiences running Beardbrand, the D2C company he founded in 2012. In this episode, he addresses his favorite ecommerce tools in 2026, 18 platforms and apps essential to his business — from foundational site infrastructure to solutions for marketing, operations, creative, and more.   For an edited and...

Chris Hall is an ecommerce entrepreneur turned media operator. His new "Ecomm Cowboy" show broadcasts live Monday through Friday on X and YouTube. The mission, he says, is twofold: deliver daily news to sellers and offer companionship to those working alone. Chris first appeared on the podcast in 2023 as the marketing head of a D2C brand. In this our latest conversation, he addresses his...

Please enjoy this repeat of a popular episode first aired in September 2024. David Heinemeier Hansson is the creator of the Ruby on Rails software framework, the co-founder of Basecamp, a member of Shopify's board of directors, an investor in multiple tech startups, a racecar driver, and a family man with children. He's a modern-day polymath. Yet his workday calendar is not full of appoi...

Phillip Jackson's media company, Future Commerce, focuses on trends and developments in business. The company surveyed U.S. shoppers during the 2025 holiday season. He says one insight stood out: when AI recommends a product, 77% of respondents leave the platform to buy on the brand's site. Phillip first appeared on the podcast in early 2024. In this, his latest episode, he addresses the...

Frank Kosarek is the co-founder of BizPort, a mergers-and-acquisitions marketplace launched in November 2025. Before that, he was head of acquisitions for a large ecommerce aggregator. He says buyers of ecommerce businesses today focus on discretionary earnings, not revenue, and seek recurring sales, such as subscriptions. He addresses those items, the state of ecommerce M&A, and more in this...