Kurt Elster, Paul Reda

The Unofficial Shopify Podcast

Business EN ↓ 542 episodes

NEW EPISODES EVERY TUESDAY, SUBSCRIBE FOR UNBEATABLE ECOM RECON – Every Tuesday since 2014, host Kurt Elster shares the Shopify success stories that nobody tells you about, straight from the entrepreneurs living it. Subscribe for a raw look at what it really takes to succeed on Shopify.

Author

Kurt Elster, Paul Reda

Category

Business

Latest episode

Jul 7, 2026

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Episodes

How Portland Leather Hit $500M + Top 50 on Shopify 05.08.2025

Also on YouTube: youtu.be/nckQhAvYA-Q "We'll have done over 500 million in total sales. We'll do 310 million in the next 18 months." Curtis Matsko went from art festivals to a top 50 Shopify store by doing everything conventional wisdom says not to do. His company controls every step from raw material procurement to customer delivery, achieving top 50 Shopify status while maintaining 50% repeat cu...

How Shine Supply Hit $7M/yr Without Paid Ads 29.07.2025

Also Available on YouTube: youtu.be/_nqN9HyOpxM What happens when a 23-year-old refuses to play the ecommerce advertising game? Colby Stevens built Shine Supply into a $7M detailing brand using nothing but Instagram ASMR videos, authentic storytelling, and a "people over profit" philosophy. No paid ads until last month. No Amazon. No selling out to scale. Instead: 80,000 Instagram followers, hundr...

Viral Mattress Ads & Crowdfunding 22.07.2025

Available on YouTube: [youtu.be/wDlijQtbLJo](https://youtu.be/wDlijQtbLJo) What if your brand could sell a million orders before shipping a single product? Bryant Garvin, marketing lead at Ozlo Sleep and former CMO of Groove Life, did exactly that. In this episode, he shares how performance branding, differentiated product, and a viral video formula helped Ozlo launch with massive traction. From h...

What 20M Shopify Surveys Reveal About Attribution 15.07.2025

Watch the video interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/TMVqWfaddG8 Shopify store owners: what if one simple question could improve your ad spend, creative, and segmentation? In this episode of The Unofficial Shopify Podcast , Matt Bahr, founder of Fairing, unpacks what 20 million post-purchase surveys taught him about attribution—and why most brands still get it wrong. Learn how to track what real...

Top Shopify Conversion Mistakes 08.07.2025

Also on YouTube... What’s really holding your Shopify store back? After 10,000 UX audits, Oddit co-founder Shaun Brandt has answers, and most stores are making the same 7 mistakes. Menus that bury the merch. Popups that hijack the screen. Product pages with zero context. This episode is a takedown of bad ecommerce decisions, packed with fixes that actually make you more money. Whether you’re runni...

SEO for AI: What Works, What’s Snake Oil 01.07.2025

Available on YouTube: youtu.be/qdpFmuFD8yE Shopify merchants are getting pitched AI SEO “solutions” left and right—none of them proven. So I called Jason Berkowitz, an SEO who actually knows the game, to answer the real question: what should you actually do to rank in an AI-powered world? (Spoiler: most of it’s nonsense.) We break down what’s real, what’s trash, and why good SEO still wins—even in...

How Divorce, Cancer, and TikTok Built a Shopify Brand 24.06.2025

Sara Olsher started Mighty + Bright as a handmade calendar to help her toddler cope with divorce. A decade (and one breast cancer diagnosis) later, it’s a full-time Shopify business helping kids, adults, and neurodivergent folks navigate tough life stuff with visual structure. In this episode, Sara shares how she bootstrapped the brand, embraced customer feedback, and scaled with purpose—not just...

Shopify POS V10: What’s New? 17.06.2025

Also on YouTube: youtu.be/4lOLw1k4ocA Shopify VP of Retail, Ray Reddy, joins to walk through what’s new in POS V10. Faster checkouts Split fulfillment Custom branding Better search If you sell in person, this episode is for you. Show Links Shopify POS Shopify Editions (Summer 2025) Ray Reddy on LinkedIn Sponsors Zipify – Build high-converting sales funnels Cleverific – Smart order editing for Shop...

Inside Shopify Editions.dev 2025 10.06.2025

Watch on YouTube Shopify unveiled a sweeping AI-first vision at Editions.dev 2025, and it's got their partners buzzing. In this episode, we go beyond the keynote to bring you on-the-ground reactions from developers, partners, and skeptics alike. Featuring interviews with: Anne Thomas (Design Packs) Ezra Firestone (Zipify) Jamil Bhuya (Otherhalf Studio) Karl Meisterheim (Liquid Weekly) We dig into:...

How BRĒZ Built a $28M Better-For-You Buzz Brand on Shopify 03.06.2025

What if your Shopify brand could sell 16 million cans and hit $28M in its first full year? Aaron Nosbisch did just that with BRĒZ, a microdose drink brand that taps into the decline of alcohol, the rise of wellness, and a smarter ecommerce playbook. In this episode, he breaks down the entire journey—from ignored category to household name. Show Links Aaron Nosbisch: https://twitter.com/AaronJNosbi...

How a BOGO Deal Bootstrapped Neven Eyewear to Millions 27.05.2025

Also on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fXKVcwl8FS8 How a BOGO Deal Bootstrapped Neven Eyewear to Millions Jonathan Strauss lost a $500 pair of sunglasses jet skiing—and turned that wipeout into Neven Eyewear. What began as a desperate liquidation promo turned into a DTC breakthrough. In this episode, Strauss reveals how a buy-one-get-two offer saved his brand, what’s changed with Meta ads, and why scal...

SEO in 2025: What Still Works for Shopify 20.05.2025

Still trying to crack the SEO code in 2025? Jeff Oxford has worked on 300+ eCommerce sites, and he’s here to share what actually works for Shopify merchants now. From why your $300 product may be killing your rankings to how AI tools can scale your SEO ops, Jeff cuts through the noise. This episode delivers a tactical, no-fluff breakdown of SEO strategy in a search landscape increasingly shaped by...

Meta’s AI Ads Engine Explained (Andromeda + ASC) 13.05.2025

Also available on YouTube: youtu.be/m9YTxRsosJA Meta just rewrote the Facebook ads playbook—and Shopify merchants need to catch up. In this episode of The Unofficial Shopify Podcast , ad strategist Kurt Bullock (Produce Dept) breaks down how Meta’s new AI-driven ad system, Andromeda , is reshaping targeting, delivery, and scale. From embeddings and vectors to Advantage+ campaigns and creative test...

How Bamboo Socks Built a B2B Empire on Faire 06.05.2025

Also available on YouTube: youtu.be/l8ANgFlZK0Y It started with a sock. A turtle sock. That led to a Shopify store, a wholesale boom, and—accidentally—an agency. In this episode, Lucy Jeffrey shares how she turned Bare Kind from a seasonal side hustle into one of Faire’s fastest-growing brands. She walks us through surviving seasonality, scaling through B2B, ditching paid ads, and launching a serv...

How TikTok & Sidekick Helped Sell Out a Skincare Brand 29.04.2025

Also available on YouTube: youtu.be/Pi20dFaHoVg Ben Attwood left agency life to create a men’s skincare brand he actually wanted to use. With no investors, no marketing budget, and no prior product experience, he built Clubhouse Skin using TikTok, Shopify, and a lot of trial and error. In this episode, Ben shares how he: Sold out his first product run—twice Built a loyal customer base by building...

How Smart Brands Win Top-of-Funnel in 2025 22.04.2025

Also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XXSr4Po30oY Paid ads are busted. SEO is back but weirder. Gen Z isn’t using Google. What now? VC Smriti Jayaraman pulls back the curtain on the Shopify brands building futuristic funnels today. We’re talking AI quizzes, voice search, digital oracles, and tech that reads your face to guess your shirt size. It’s strange. It’s smart. And it works. 💡 What W...

700K YouTube Subs to Shopify Sales 15.04.2025

Her fans call her "The Queen of Air Fryers." She gave away recipes. Her fans demanded a cookbook. One $15 PDF later, Cathy Yoder had a 5-figure launch weekend—and she hasn't looked back. With over 700K subscribers, Cathy built a content-powered Shopify business that turns viewers into superfans (and customers). In this episode, Cathy breaks down: How to use YouTube as your #1 lead-gen channel Buil...

Pit Viper: These Shades Print Money 08.04.2025

Pit Viper isn’t for everyone. And that might be the secret to its success. It starts with a guy on a ski trip. His sunglasses break. So, naturally, he walks into a military surplus store, finds an old pair of ballistic glasses from the early 90s, and thinks, these are perfect. Fast forward a few years, and those surplus shades—once traded for beers and ski lifts—have turned into Pit Viper , a bran...

Shopify Dev AMA: Store Spying, AI Tools, and Trends 01.04.2025

Two Shopify Partners get real in an AMA packed with listener questions. Store spying tricks, AI fails, bold 2025 predictions, a garage full of jacked-up cars, and a sneak peek at their next app. What you’ll learn: How to spy on Shopify stores using public endpoints and browser tools What’s broken (and what’s promising) in Shopify’s new AI tools How devs actually use ChatGPT to write Shopify code E...

Lady Gaga’s on Shopify: Go Behind the Build 25.03.2025

Lady Gaga has a new Shopify site. But this isn’t just a merch store. It’s a stage, a story, a digital home —built to evolve as fast as she does. Her team needed something different. A site that could change overnight and feel as immersive as her albums. So they went headless, partnering with Commerce-UI , a Shopify agency known for pushing boundaries. In this episode, Shopify Partner Michal Klim t...

The Store That Won March Madness 18.03.2025

Megan Smalley didn’t plan to build a powerhouse ecommerce brand. Scarlet & Gold started as a creative side project—until she got laid off. Fast forward 12 years, and Scarlet & Gold is one of the only women-owned businesses licensed for NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) merch on Shopify. This March, their Shopify sales are up 74.2% year-over-year —with over 53.6% of those sales tied to March Madness...

10 Shopify Mistakes Killing Your Sales 11.03.2025

Are you making one of these Shopify mistakes? If so, you’re losing sales. In this episode, The Unofficial Shopify Podcast host Kurt Elster teams up with Bold Commerce co-founder Jay Myers to reveal the top 10 mistakes that Shopify merchants make—some of which even big brands get wrong. From neglected checkouts to bloated main menus, they share simple, actionable fixes that can boost conversions an...

Fart-Proof Underwear? This Shopify Brand Says Yes 04.03.2025

Imagine a world where your worst gas-related fears simply… disappear. No awkward moments, no subtle side-eye glances. Just peace, dignity, and activated carbon filters. That’s the world Collin White and his father set out to create when they launched Tootles , a Shopify store selling flatulence-filtering underwear. At first, people laughed. But then, they listened. Because for people with digestiv...

Obvi’s Ron Shah on Fails, Exits & Lessons Learned 25.02.2025

"You start with ‘there’s no way this is me.’ Then you question everything. Then, eventually, you realize—this really could be me." Ron Shah built Obvi into a $100M+ powerhouse, with $40M in top-line revenue in 2024. But not every business he touched turned to gold. Today, Ron gets brutally honest about two brands he started—Coffee Over Cardio and Paw Rangers—that didn’t go as planned. This isn’t y...

How a Twitter Account Became a Thriving Shopify Brand 18.02.2025

“Rainier Watch started as me shouting into the void about whether the mountain was out. Now, it’s a brand in REI. Didn’t see that coming.” David Lindahl started Rainier Watch as a simple Twitter account—just a guy posting updates on whether Mount Rainier was visible that day. No business plan, no grand vision. Just a love for the mountain. But then people started following. They started asking for...

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