eCommerce Conversations

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...