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Ecommerce Conversations is the long-running weekly podcast from Practical Ecommerce, hosted by ecommerce entrepreneur Eric Bandholz.
•• Listen in as Eric interviews in-the-trenches founders and executives who address the essentials of launching, growing, and sustaining an online business. Hear their successes, mistakes, and plans — addressing customer acquisition, web traffic, marketing tactics, on-site conversion, shipping, favorite tools, funding, obstacles, and much more.
•• New episodes every Friday. Subscribe to the podcast here, and then read a condensed transcript at https://www.PracticalEcommerce.com/tag/podcasts.
557 Episodes
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Few companies have done more for global prosperity than Alibaba.com. Launched famously in China by Jack Ma, a former school teacher, in 1999, the company now connects 200,000 suppliers with millions of retail merchants. Suppliers grow, retailers diversify, and consumers have more choice for less money. Yet the B2B giant is not perfect. Language differences, intellectual property theft, and quality control can upend a supplier-buyer relationship. Rah Mahtani is Alibaba.com's head of commerc...
For 12 years Andrei Rebrov managed infrastructure and operations at Scentbird, a perfume subscription company he co-founded in 2013. He learned the importance of acquiring the right subscribers, those who stay for a while and generate lifetime value for the business. The key, he says, was accurate, timely analytics to assess channels, creative, and promos. Finsi, his new company, provides those metrics, enabling merchants to predict a prospect's value over the long term. In this episode, An...
Jon Shanahan destroys the myth that founders make lousy employees. He co-founded Stryx, a men's cosmetics provider, in 2017 and is now the marketing head at TRX, the storied exercise equipment company. He has thrived in both roles. He joined TRX in late 2022 amid a post-Covid hangover and a stale legacy brand. Fast forward to late 2025, and TRX is refreshed and flourishing, thanks in part to Jon's entrepreneurial mindset. While at Stryx, Jon appeared on the podcast twice, in 2020 and 2022. ...
In 2020, Karim Abed was the chief financial officer for a Texas-based home builder. The job paid well, he says, but he yearned to launch his own business and reconnect with his Egyptian heritage. Fast forward to 2025, and that business is WYR, a men's apparel brand utilizing Giza cotton, the storied fabric, and small Egypt-based factories. The company is thriving. Karim shares his story with host Eric Bandholz, addressing WYR's initial struggles, subsequent growth, and, yes, the benefits of...
Ecommerce marketers know the challenge of delivering relevant promotions to prospects without violating privacy rules and norms. Yet many providers now offer solutions that do both — personalize offers and respect privacy — for much greater performance. Two of those providers are guests in this week's episode. Sean Larkin is CEO of Fueled, a customer data platform for merchants. Francesco Gatti is CEO of Opensend, a repository of consumer demographic and behavior data. For an edited and con...
Host Eric Bandholz occasionally departs from interviews to share his experiences owning and operating Beardbrand, the direct-to-consumer brand he launched a decade ago. To date, he has addressed hiring, branding, profit-building, priority-setting, exiting, overcoming setbacks, and top business models. This too is a solo episode, addressing entrepreneurial doldrums, when a business is seemingly stuck in no growth or worse. That's been the case with Beardbrand over the past couple of years, as...
Please enjoy this repeat of a popular episode first aired in September 2023. Andrew Faris is the former CEO of 4x400, an ecommerce aggregator. He left that job in 2021 and now consults with merchants and manages their advertising campaigns, mostly on Meta. I asked him for his keys to successful Meta ads, having spent nine years on that platform. "The best ad managers are writers," he told me. And "there's no reason a brand under $50 million in revenue needs an attribution tool." Faris first...
On-again, off-again tariffs have not lessened the opportunities for cross-border expansion. Global consumers still seek quality goods from trusted merchants. Yet success in international selling requires careful attention to fulfillment, customs, duties, and more. That's the role of Passport, the provider of cross-border logistics, localization, and support for ecommerce sellers. In this episode, Alex Yancher, Passport's founder and CEO, shares tactics for profitable global ecommerce sales....
We've all heard the buzz surrounding agentic AI agents. What's missing for many of us is how they can help our business. What is an AI agent? Can it really perform tasks and get things done? In this episode, host Eric Bandholz asks those questions and more to Anthony DelPizzo. He is the head of product marketing with Triple Whale, the Shopify-backed ecommerce analytics platform that has launched its own AI agent called Moby. It responds to ChatGPT-like prompts, suggests marketing channels, a...
Throughout 2025, host Eric Bandholz has occasionally shared his experiences owning and operating Beardbrand, the direct-to-consumer brand he launched in 2014. He has addressed hiring, branding, profit-building, priority-setting, exiting, and overcoming a million-dollar loss. In this episode, he shares what he believes is the best bootstrapped ecommerce model and why others should consider it. For an edited and condensed transcript with embedded audio, see: https://www.practicalecommerce.com...
Customer acquisition costs can ruin a business. Some merchants limit acquisition spend to the gross margin of the first sale. Others look to customers' lifetime value. Yet Taylor Holiday, CEO of the agency Common Thread Collective, profits from acquisition marketing. He calls it "negative CAC." Taylor first appeared on the podcast in 2020. In this episode, he explains his acquisition strategy, experiences with employee ownership, and more. For an edited and condensed transcript with embedd...
John Melizanis believes third-party logistics fees often produce surprise charges. Per-item pricing for picks, packs, and receiving can turn an anticipated $1 per order fee into $2.50 or more, he says. John is the co-founder of ShipDudes, a New Jersey-based 3PL launched in 2020. His company uses flat-rate pricing for pick-and-pack and warehousing, and no markup for shipping. "Brands appreciate knowing their exact costs," he told me. In this episode, John addressed the origins of ShipDudes, ...
Nate Lagos is vice president of marketing for Original Grain, a direct-to-consumer seller of luxury watches. He relies on Facebook advertising, but not for immediate customer acquisition. “Platforms such as Facebook are megaphones, not salespeople,” he says. In this episode, Nate shares his marketing origins, advertising tactics, influencer management, and more. For an edited and condensed transcript with embedded audio, see: https://www.practicalecommerce.com/facebook-megaphone-powers-d2c...
Ray Reddy is a two-time mobile commerce entrepreneur, a Google veteran, and, now, the head of Shopify POS, the company's in-store platform. He says the future of retail is location-agnostic, where shoppers can easily move from online to brick-and-mortar without losing account details, order history, and shipping info. That, he says, is the path of Shopify POS. In this episode, he addresses Shopify's physical-store penetration, the needs of modern shoppers, backend complexities, and more. F...
This year host Eric Bandholz has sprinkled occasional episodes with real-life master classes from Beardbrand, his company. To date he's addressed hiring, branding, profit-building, priority-setting, and exiting. For this installment, he shares Beardbrand’s experience of losing nearly $1 million across 2023 and 2024. It got bad. Cash levels dropped to where they were in year one, 2014. The business was hemorrhaging money. But it survived. It made it through without outside funding. Eric and ...
Next-gen health and wellness is an apt description of MNLY. Luke Hartelust launched the platform in 2021, pronouncing it “Manly,” and then pivoted twice while remaining focused on modern care for men. The current version combines AI with home-based testing, diagnoses, and nutrition. Customers pay an upfront fee and a monthly subscription afterward. In this episode, Luke shared the company’s origins, growth, mistakes, and more. For an edited and condensed transcript with embedded audio, se...
Shakil Prasla once owned 12 ecommerce consumer brands generating $50 million in combined annual revenue with 50 employees. But he grew wary of the fluctuating revenue and non-stop marketing, so he pivoted during Covid to wholesale personal protective equipment. That's when he and I last spoke. The PPE business, Gloves.com, had misgauged demand and lost, initially, a whopping $6 million. He has since recovered and pivoted again, this time to real estate and convenience-store gas stations. He...
Michael Simpson is a New Mexico-based father of seven and a National Guard veteran. Returning from a 2021 deployment, he sought a business to acquire, hoping to avoid his previous job. A listing from a brokerage caught his attention. Discount Catholic Products had launched in 2003 and was for sale. The company's mission appealed to Michael. Plus it was not reliant on Amazon or a single product or imports from China — all key requirements. He purchased the business. Fast forward to 2025, and...
Host Eric Bandholz, a seasoned entrepreneur, evaluates good and bad reasons to sell a business. He says that ideally, founders build a business they love, one that enhances their lives. To Eric, business is one of life's greatest gifts, offering freedom, wealth, connection, and the ability to serve, create, and leave a lasting mark on the world. He reminds us that our possessions — the headphones we use, the tools we carry, the art on our wall — exist because someone built them. Entreprene...
For years Jack Oswald was a touring tennis professional. He aimed for top worldwide rankings, the key to serious earnings. The rankings never came, but constant travel exposed a nagging problem: his tennis bags kept breaking. Thus began his passion for designing a better bag for athletes on the go. And that led to Cancha, a direct-to-consumer seller of sport and travel bags, which he launched in 2019 from his base in the U.K. In this episode, Jack discusses his transition from tennis to ent...
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