Black Friday is broken. Shopify brands can no longer win by simply offering bigger discounts — the future winners will be the brands that AI can find, understand and recommend when customers are ready to buy.

Black Friday and Cyber Weekend are changing. As customers increasingly use AI shopping assistants, personalised recommendations and new search experiences to discover products, Shopify brands need a new strategy to compete.

In this episode, Nick breaks down how AI will transform ecommerce sales, why the old Black Friday playbook is becoming outdated and how smarter brands are using AI to improve discovery, create better offers and turn seasonal shoppers into long-term customers.

You’ll learn:

• How AI shopping assistants could change Black Friday and ecommerce discovery
• Why Shopify brands need to make their products easier for AI to understand and recommend
• How AI can analyse customer behaviour and create personalised offers
• How brands can use real-time data to improve ad creative and campaign performance
• Why the smartest Shopify brands use Black Friday as a customer acquisition opportunity, not just a discount event
• How to convert Black Friday shoppers into repeat customers after Cyber Weekend

Nick also shares five tools Shopify brands can use to prepare for the biggest shopping period of the year, covering AI-powered marketing, ecommerce SEO, conversion optimisation, inventory planning and fulfilment.

In this episode:
(0:00) - Why Black Friday is broken for Shopify brands
(2:15) - The shift from traditional discounts to AI-driven personalization
(5:42) - How AI agents will handle customer shopping in 2026
(8:30) - Predictive inventory: Using AI to prevent stockouts
(12:10) - The "Death of the Storefront" and the rise of headless commerce
(15:45) - Building a brand that survives the AI revolution
(19:20) - Actionable steps to prepare your Shopify store now

Follow Winning With Shopify for practical ecommerce growth advice every Tuesday and Friday.

Exclusive listener offers:
Ships-A-Lot - Improve fulfilment costs and find hidden shipping margin leaks.
Inventory Planner - Free seven-day inventory bootcamp.
Omnisend - 30% off paid plans for three months with code WINNINGWITHOMNISEND.
Yoast - 15% off Shopify and WordPress with code WWS.
506 - Extended 30-day free trial on any of their three Shopify apps with code WWS.

About Winning With Shopify
Winning With Shopify is powered by Winning With Shopify, helping ecommerce brands grow through practical Shopify strategies, expert interviews and actionable advice.

Spec Digital is a PPC & SEO agency helping ecommerce brands grow through performance marketing.

Most ecommerce brands are built on traffic they don't own. This founder changed that — and it helped him build and sell a £1M Shopify brand.

Jayden Clark built Woodlark Garden Luxury into a seven-figure ecommerce business before selling it for £515,000. But the business started in a vulnerable position - with 95% of revenue coming from Google Ads and very little organic traffic.

In this episode, Jayden reveals how he moved away from relying purely on paid acquisition, built a scalable SEO strategy, increased organic revenue and created a more valuable ecommerce business that became attractive to buyers.

Jayden also shares lessons from his latest ecommerce venture, Camper Nation, which generated £500k in organic revenue in its first 18 months, and explains why building owned traffic can become one of the biggest advantages for Shopify brands.

You’ll learn:

• Why relying too heavily on Google Ads can make your Shopify business vulnerable
• How SEO helped transform a paid traffic business into a valuable ecommerce asset
• Why chasing competitive keywords is often the wrong SEO strategy for growing brands
• How building topical authority can generate thousands of organic visitors
• How long-tail SEO helped capture high-intent customers ready to buy
• Why organic traffic can increase the value and saleability of an ecommerce business
• How Jayden uses SEO strategies across multiple ecommerce brands

In This Episode

(00:00) The Problem With Relying on Paid Ads

(01:15) Why 10% Margins Were Too Risky

(03:44) Building a 50/50 SEO & Paid Ads Strategy

(05:04) Finding High-Intent Ecommerce Keywords

(08:02) Turning Winning Ad Keywords Into SEO Traffic

(11:13) Matching Search Intent to the Customer Journey

(15:49) Selling the Ecommerce Business

(17:08) Why Organic Traffic Increased Business Value

(19:49) Cross-Selling & Increasing Customer Value

(21:48) Turning Ecommerce Traffic Into Leads

(26:04) The Metric That Predicts Future Sales

(29:16) How Smaller Ecommerce Brands Can Win SEO

(31:55) A Low-Cost Ecommerce Backlink Strategy

(35:37) Final Thoughts

We also discuss how Jayden built industry authority, created content that converted visitors into customers and used SEO as a competitive advantage rather than just a traffic channel.

Learn more from Jayden:
Woodlark Garden Luxury: https://woodlarkgardenluxury.co.uk/
Camper Nation: https://campernation.co.uk/
Kiln Crafts: https://kilncrafts.co.uk/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JaydenClarkHTE

Follow Winning With Shopify for practical ecommerce growth advice every Tuesday and Friday.

Exclusive listener offers:
Ships-A-Lot - Improve fulfilment costs and find hidden shipping margin leaks.
Inventory Planner - Free seven-day inventory bootcamp.
Omnisend - 30% off paid plans for three months with code WINNINGWITHOMNISEND.
Yoast - 15% off Shopify and WordPress with code WWS15.
506 - Extended 30-day free trial on any of their three Shopify apps with code WWS.

About Winning With Shopify
Winning With Shopify is powered by Spec Digital, a PPC & SEO agency helping ecommerce brands grow through performance marketing.

Most Shopify brands use Google Ads to drive sales. The fastest-growing brands use it to build a DTC brand.

Google Ads has become one of the most powerful ways for ecommerce brands to find new customers - but many Shopify stores are still optimising for short-term ROAS instead of long-term growth.

In this episode, Nick explains why most Shopify brands get Google Ads wrong and how successful DTC brands use paid search, Shopping ads and customer data to build a scalable acquisition engine.

Want some help with profitably scaling your Google Ads? Reach out to Nick's agency: [email protected]

You’ll learn:

• Why chasing ROAS alone can limit Shopify growth
• The difference between buying clicks and building customers
• How Google Shopping acts as your digital storefront
• Why product feeds, creative and offers matter more than ever
• How leading brands measure profitable customer acquisition
• Why Google Ads and retention need to work together

Nick also shares the biggest mistakes Shopify brands make with Google Ads, why better data leads to better automation and how to build a paid acquisition strategy designed for long-term brand growth.

In this episode:
(00:00) Why Good ROAS Doesn't Always Mean Profit(01:14) Stop Using Google Ads Just to Generate Sales(03:00) ROAS vs Customer Lifetime Value(05:12) The Snowball Effect of Repeat Customers(06:31) The 4 Metrics Shopify Brands Should Track(08:02) Fix Your Google Shopping Customer Journey(11:59) Why Product Feeds Matter So Much(14:04) How to Set a Profitable Google Ads Target(16:09) How to Increase Repeat Purchases & LTV(20:00) How AI Is Changing Google Ads(22:14) 5 Things Scaling Brands Do Differently(25:09) The Key to Profitable Google Ads Scaling

Follow Winning With Shopify for practical ecommerce growth advice every Tuesday and Friday.

Exclusive listener offers:
Ships-A-Lot - Improve fulfilment costs and find hidden shipping margin leaks.
Inventory Planner - Free seven-day inventory bootcamp.
Omnisend - 30% off paid plans for three months with code WINNINGWITHOMNISEND.
Yoast - 15% off Shopify and WordPress with code WWS15.
506 - Extended 30-day free trial on any of their three Shopify apps with code WWS.

About Winning With Shopify
Winning With Shopify is powered by Spec Digital, a PPC & SEO agency helping ecommerce brands grow through performance marketing.

When customers can buy the same products from dozens of retailers, your Shopify store needs to give them a reason to choose you.

In this episode, Nick is joined by Alan Dowell from Escentual, an online beauty retailer specialising in fragrance, skincare and cosmetics, to discuss how brands can differentiate in crowded markets, build customer trust and turn more first-time buyers into loyal customers.

Learn more about Escentual:
https://escentual.com/

Connect with Alan Dowell on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dowell-alan/

They reveal why many ecommerce brands struggle despite selling great products, how removing friction can improve conversion rates and why the best brands focus on customer experience rather than competing purely on price.

You’ll learn:

• How to differentiate when competitors sell the same products
• Why customer education, reviews and trust signals drive conversions
• How removing unnecessary friction can improve the buying journey
• Why having too many Shopify apps could be slowing your store down
• How testing, personalisation and retention create long-term growth
• Why mobile-first experiences are essential for ecommerce success

The episode also covers how removing 70+ Shopify apps improved conversion rates, why brands should test instead of assume, and how better customer communication can create stronger loyalty and repeat purchases.

In this episode:

(00:00) - Competing when everyone sells the same products
(01:21) - How Essential differentiates its ecommerce experience
(02:42) - Removing friction from the customer journey
(05:48) - Why A/B testing beats assumptions
(08:47) - The 70+ Shopify apps problem
(11:41) - Why too many improvements made performance worse
(12:20) - From 3.8% to 5.5% conversion rate
(15:50) - Testing your store like a real customer
(20:02) - Turning first-time buyers into loyal customers
(25:00) - Customer data, loyalty and segmentation
(30:00) - Revenue vs vanity metrics
(32:28) - Turning winning tests into growth
(40:13) - Final takeaways

Follow Winning With Shopify for practical ecommerce growth advice every Tuesday and Friday.

Exclusive listener offers:

Ships-A-Lot - Improve fulfilment costs and find hidden shipping margin leaks.
https://info.shipsalot.com/winning-with-shopify

Inventory Planner - Free seven-day inventory bootcamp.
https://info.brightpearl.com/winning-with-shopify-holiday-planning-bootcamp

Omnisend - 30% off paid plans for three months with code WINNINGWITHOMNISEND.
https://www.omnisend.com/wws/

Yoast - 15% off Shopify and WordPress with code WWS15.
https://yoast.com/product/yoast-seo-shopify/

506 - Extended 30-day free trial on any of their three Shopify apps with code WWS.
https://www.506.io/wws

About Winning With Shopify

Winning With Shopify is powered by Spec Digital, a PPC & SEO agency helping ecommerce brands grow through performance marketing.

https://spec.digital/

Most Shopify brands don't have a traffic problem. They have a conversion problem.

After auditing 50 Shopify stores and analysing hundreds of ecommerce experiences, Nick reveals the biggest mistakes that stop visitors from becoming customers.

In this episode, you'll discover the product page, trust, UX and conversion issues that could be costing your Shopify store sales - and the changes successful DTC brands make to turn more visitors into buyers.

You’ll learn:

• The product page mistakes making customers hesitate before buying
• Why great products fail without trust, proof and clear positioning
• How reviews, content and social proof influence purchase decisions
• Why your mobile experience could be losing potential customers
• The biggest friction points stopping visitors from converting
• How successful Shopify brands continuously improve conversion rates

Nick shares real examples from Shopify stores, explaining how brands can remove buying friction, improve customer confidence and turn more of their existing traffic into revenue.

In this episode:
(00:00) - Why Shopify stores lose sales
(01:42) - The 4 questions every customer needs answered
(02:37) - Mistake #1: Product pages that don't help customers buy
(05:05) - Mistake #2: Lack of trust and price justification
(07:38) - Mistake #3: Poor product photography
(11:21) - Mistake #4: No clear differentiation
(12:00) - Mistake #5: Website friction killing conversions
(13:09) - Mistake #6: Ignoring mobile-first shopping
(15:36) - Mistake #7: Not A/B testing your Shopify store
(21:04) - Final Shopify conversion takeaways

Follow Winning With Shopify for practical ecommerce growth advice every Tuesday and Friday.

Exclusive listener offers:
Ships-A-Lot - Improve fulfilment costs and find hidden shipping margin leaks.
Inventory Planner - Free seven-day inventory bootcamp.
Omnisend - 30% off paid plans for three months with code WINNINGWITHOMNISEND.
Yoast - 15% off Shopify and WordPress with code WWS15.
506 - Extended 30-day free trial on any of their three Shopify apps with code WWS.

About Winning With Shopify
Winning With Shopify is powered by Spec Digital, a PPC & SEO agency helping ecommerce brands grow through performance marketing.

Your Shopify discount strategy could be costing you sales and profit.

Want to test smarter promotions on your Shopify store? Try 506’s Shopify apps with an extended 30-day free trial using code WWS.

Should you offer 10% off, give customers a free gift or encourage shoppers to spend more to unlock a better deal?

In this episode, Nick is joined by Charlie Tyler from 506, the team behind EasyGift, 506 Sale & Bulk Discount, EasyScan and EasyLink, to reveal how Shopify brands can create promotions that increase conversion rates and average order value without unnecessarily sacrificing margin.

You’ll learn:

• When free gifts outperform traditional discounts
• How to use spending thresholds to increase average order value
• Why some promotions train customers to wait for sales
• How to run BOGO offers, quantity breaks and tiered discounts effectively
• The biggest discounting mistakes Shopify brands make

Charlie also shares how growing ecommerce brands can use smarter promotions, urgency and offer structures to increase sales while protecting profitability.

In this episode:
(00:00) - Free gifts vs discounts
(03:45) - How free gifts can increase AOV by 30%
(05:05) - Finding the right free gift threshold
(06:35) - What gifts should you offer customers?
(10:10) - Mystery gifts and digital gifts
(15:10) - Free gifts vs traditional discounts
(20:10) - Automating Shopify discounts and offers
(25:20) - Tiered gifting to increase customer spend

Follow Winning With Shopify for practical ecommerce growth advice every Tuesday and Friday.

Exclusive listener offers:

506 - Extended 30-day free trial on Shopify apps with code WWS.
Ships-A-Lot - Improve fulfilment costs and find hidden shipping margin leaks.
Inventory Planner - Free seven-day inventory bootcamp.
Omnisend - 30% off paid plans for three months with code WINNINGWITHOMNISEND.
Yoast - 15% off Shopify and WordPress with code WWS15.

About Winning With Shopify
Winning With Shopify is powered by Spec Digital, a PPC & SEO agency helping ecommerce brands grow through performance marketing.

Your Shopify store could be invisible to the next generation of shoppers.

As more customers start searching through ChatGPT and AI tools instead of traditional search engines, Shopify brands need to understand one important question: can AI actually find, understand and recommend your products?

In this episode, Nick breaks down why some Shopify products are appearing in AI search results while others are being missed - and what ecommerce brands need to change now to stay visible.

You’ll learn:

• Why your Shopify products might not be appearing in ChatGPT
• How AI search is changing ecommerce discovery
• The product page mistakes making your products harder for AI to understand
• Why structured data, product feeds and reviews matter more than ever
• How to optimise your Shopify store for the future of search

Nick also shares practical Shopify SEO actions brands can take today, from improving product information and collection pages to building the authority signals AI platforms use when recommending products.

In this episode:
(00:00) - Why your products don't show up in ChatGPT
(01:35) - How AI has changed SEO forever
(03:00) - Improve your Shopify product pages for AI search
(08:20) - Why collection pages matter more than ever
(14:05) - Why your product feed could be holding you back
(22:15) - Building trust and authority for AI visibility
(31:10) - Using internal links to help AI understand your store
(43:40) - Creating buying guides AI can recommend
(50:20) - The future of AI SEO and ecommerce search
(52:10) - Final takeaways

Follow Winning With Shopify for practical ecommerce growth advice every Tuesday and Friday.

Listener offers:

Winning with Shopify listeners get an extended 30 day free trial on any of the three. Details at 506.io/wws, code WWS.
Ships-A-Lot - Improve fulfilment costs and find hidden shipping margin leaks.
Inventory Planner - Free seven-day inventory bootcamp.
Omnisend - 30% off paid plans for three months with code WINNINGWITHOMNISEND.

About Winning With Shopify
Winning With Shopify is powered by Spec Digital, a PPC & SEO agency helping ecommerce brands grow through performance marketing.

Your Shopify growth could be limited by something customers never see: your fulfilment operation.

Before building Ships A Lot, twin brothers Max and Zach Zitney were Shopify merchants themselves. They experienced first-hand how warehouse problems, rising shipping costs and unreliable fulfilment could damage margins, customer experience and growth.

In this episode, Max and Zach reveal the fulfilment mistakes that nearly broke their own ecommerce brand - and what growing Shopify brands need to know before scaling operations.

You’ll learn:

• Why fulfilment problems can quietly destroy your Shopify margins
• The biggest warning signs your current 3PL is holding back growth
• How shipping costs and hidden fees impact profitability
• Why poor fulfilment can waste your marketing spend and hurt retention
• What Shopify brands should look for in a scalable 3PL partner

Max and Zach also share how their experience as merchants led them to create Ships A Lot, helping ecommerce brands improve fulfilment visibility, reduce shipping costs and scale more effectively.

In this episode:
(00:00) - Why they started a 3PL
(01:40) - Why their Shopify store struggled
(04:00) - The biggest fulfilment problems
(06:00) - Why fast shipping matters
(09:00) - Creating memorable customer experiences
(12:00) - Scaling personalised fulfilment
(16:00) - White-glove shipping strategies
(19:00) - Cutting shipping costs
(22:00) - Finding hidden margin leaks
(26:00) - Lessons from 10 years in ecommerce
(31:00) - Solving fulfilment problems
(35:00) - Advice for growing Shopify brands

Get your free Parcel Margin Report

Send Ships A Lot one month of your shipping data and receive a one-page analysis showing what you currently pay per order, what you could pay with Ships A Lot and where your margin may be leaking.

Get your free Parcel Margin Report

Listener offers:
Omnisend - 30% off paid plans for three months with code WINNINGWITHOMNISEND.
Inventory Planner - Free seven-day inventory bootcamp.
Yoast - 15% off Shopify SEO with code WWS15.

About Winning With Shopify
Winning With Shopify is powered by Spec Digital, a PPC & SEO agency helping ecommerce brands grow through performance marketing.

Most Shopify brands do not need to send more emails. They need better automations.

Omnisend analysed 27 billion emails and found that automated messages generated 37% of email sales from just 2% of sends.

In this Tea Break Talk, Nick breaks down the three Shopify email automations every ecommerce brand should build first - welcome flows, abandoned cart emails and browse abandonment.

You’ll learn how to turn more visitors into customers, increase repeat purchases, use SMS more effectively and avoid the biggest mistakes brands make with email marketing.

You’ll learn:

• Why sending more campaigns does not always create more revenue
• How to build a welcome series that converts new subscribers
• How abandoned cart emails recover lost sales without relying on discounts
• Why browse abandonment is an overlooked Shopify growth opportunity
• Which email metrics actually matter for ecommerce growth
• How email and SMS should work together throughout the customer journey

In this episode:
(00:00) - Why more emails don't mean more sales
(00:40) - The data from 27 billion emails
(02:05) - Why automation wins
(04:00) - Building the perfect welcome series
(08:50) - Better abandoned cart emails
(10:35) - Browse abandonment strategy
(12:25) - SMS marketing that converts
(16:30) - Email metrics that matter
(20:35) - Omnisend email marketing
(22:25) - The 7-step email marketing audit
(25:10) - Final takeaways

Listener offers:
Omnisend - 30% off paid plans for three months with code WINNINGWITHOMNISEND.
Ships-A-Lot - Improve fulfilment costs, shipping margins and customer experience.
Yoast - 15% off Shopify and WordPress with code WWS15.
Inventory Planner - Free seven-day inventory bootcamp.

About Winning With Shopify
Winning With Shopify is powered by Spec Digital, a PPC & SEO agency for ecommerce brands

A bad customer review might have nothing to do with your product.

Alan Grimsley from Inventory Planner joins Nick to explain why 77% of negative reviews can be traced back to operational problems - and the five Shopify inventory mistakes that quietly damage cash flow, sales and customer trust.

Drawing on his experience across PayPal, Shopify and Sage, Alan explains how overstock, stockouts, unreliable data, poorly planned campaigns and inaccurate supplier lead times can hold back even fast-growing ecommerce brands.

You’ll learn:

• Why excess stock could be consuming your growth budget
• How stockouts send customers and ad spend to competitors
• When spreadsheets stop working for growing Shopify brands
• Why marketing and inventory planning must work together
• How inaccurate lead times undermine your entire forecast

Alan also shares lessons from AYBL, Wild & Stone and Astrid & Miyu, including how better inventory forecasting can protect cash flow, reduce excess stock and keep bestselling products available.

In this episode:
(00:00) - Why most Shopify brands lose money on inventory
(03:06) - Mistake #1: Running out of stock
(08:39) - Mistake #2: Overstock and cash flow problems
(20:15) - Mistake #3: Data and inventory visibility
(25:27) - Mistake #4: Marketing without inventory
(31:46) - Mistake #5: Ignoring lead times
(36:12) - When to use inventory planning software
(38:14) - Key takeaways and final thoughts

Follow Winning With Shopify for practical ecommerce growth advice every Tuesday and Friday.

Free Inventory Planning Bootcamp
Learn how to prevent stockouts and overstocks, reduce inventory holding costs and make more confident purchasing decisions with Inventory Planner’s free seven-day course.
Join the free Inventory Planning Bootcamp

Listener offers:
Seguno - Get a free email customer analysis and strategy session.
Yoast - Get 15% off Shopify and WordPress with code WWS15.
TaxCloud - Get free migration onboarding as a Winning With Shopify listener.

About Winning With ShopifyWinning With Shopify is powered by Spec Digital, a PPC & SEO agency for ecommerce brands.