Leaders on Shopify with John Readman

John Readman

Leaders on Shopify is a new podcast hosted by John Readman, a digital marketing veteran with 25 + years’ experience helping brands accelerate growth online. As founder and CEO of Modo25 and Ask BOSCO®, John has worked with global names such as ASOS, Pepsi, BMW, Superdry and more - and he brings that battle-tested insight straight to this show. Each episode of Leaders on Shopify digs into the real stories, strategies and scaling lessons from executives, founders and experts using the Shopify platform. From practical growth tactics and data-driven marketing to leadership decisions that shape successful e-commerce brands, John’s no-nonsense conversations cut past buzzwords to the ideas that actually move the needle for Shopify merchants - especially those that have scaled or are scaling from mid-market to enterprise. Whether you’re a CMO, founder or Shopify partner, this podcast gives an insight into how leaders are navigating the challenges of rapid growth, mastering analytics and building brands that stand out - all while unlocking more value from the Shopify ecosystem. Expect honest insights, actionable takeaways and a host of guests who’ve lived the journey from early traction to serious scale.

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S1 · E22
Wednesday · 38 min
The wishlist app that knows what your shoppers want before they do...
What if your store knew a shopper was interested in a product before they even added it to their basket? This week on Leaders on Shopify, John sits down with Sakshi Gupta, Product and Engineering Lead at Swym, the company behind Wishlist Plus, one of the most installed and reviewed apps in the entire Shopify ecosystem. Ten years in the app store. 49,000 brands. And a platform that’s quietly evolved from a simple heart icon into a full intent engine, capturing, connecting and converting shopper signals into real revenue. In this episode they cover: Why removing the free plan was one of the best decisions Swym ever made and what they learned from the customers who left. The honest truth about vibe-coded apps flooding the Shopify marketplace, and why human expertise is now a genuine competitive advantage. How Swym handles 1 million requests per minute during BFCM and the tech stack keeping it all running after a decade of continuous evolution. The Built for Shopify badge: six months of pain, two developers, and why Sakshi says it was absolutely worth it. Where Shopify Sidekick is heading, how Swim has built an extension on top of it, and the gap nobody’s talking about yet. Plus: agentic commerce, AI-written code, and why Sakshi thinks the joy of browsing isn’t going anywhere. Find out more : Connect with John -John Readman 👋 🚴‍♂️ 🎙 - ASK BOSCO® | LinkedIn ASK BOSCO® - https://askbosco.io ASK BOSCO® Shopify app - ASK BOSCO Marketing Analytics - ROAS, attribution, marketing analytics & marketing dashboards | Shop… Connect with Sakshi - Sakshi Gupta - Swym | LinkedIn Swym - Swym - Helping e-commerce brands craft a more seamless experience for their customers
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S1 · E20
October 15 · 44 min
When is Shopify the right choice? A dev agency’s honest answer
Brad leads strategy and consultancy at Remarkable Commerce, a Nottingham-based development agency of nearly 100 people that has been building ecommerce technology for 27 years. Its own platform powers around 100 retailers. Brad started out in marketing, then spent a year brand-side as a head of ecommerce, so he knows exactly how it feels to grill an agency. In this episode, Brad tells John Readman how one retailer went from £6m to £250m online in just over a decade, after the infamous “what colour is the dress?” moment took its old site down. He also explains how Remarkable launched the UK’s first Shop Pay checkout on a non-Shopify storefront, and why he thinks personalisation might be making us all a bit stupid. In this conversation, Brad and John discuss: How the dress that broke the internet led to a £6m to £250m growth story The Magento migration that lifted conversion by around 35% in three months When Shopify is the right choice, and when it isn’t How Remarkable launched the UK’s first Shop Pay checkout on a non-Shopify storefront Why Amazon’s UX is “terrible” but we keep shopping there anyway Why Brad has a gripe with personalisation, and why John now buys a physical Sunday paper Why Shopify’s out-of-the-box connection to AI shopping assistants is only basic, and how to get more from it Rescuing Shopify “basket cases”: bugs, bloated app costs and poor code Build or buy: when to use a Shopify app and when to build your own A merchandising tool that reorders products without slowing the site down Who should really own your website tracking, and why the answer is usually nobody Would you trust AI to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on Google Ads? Find out more: Connect with John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnreadman/?isSelfProfile=false Connect with Brad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradlie/ ASK BOSCO®: https://askbosco.io ASK BOSCO® for Shopify: ASK BOSCO Marketing Analytics - ROAS, attribution, marketing analytics & marketing dashboards | Shop Remarkable: Bespoke eCommerce Platform | Remarkable Commerc
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S1 · E19
October 15 · 50 min
The unglamorous secrets behind luxury brands on Shopify
Tom is the founder of WIRO, a Shopify Plus agency for luxury fashion brands. In just over 10 years, WIRO has worked with hundreds of brands, grown to a team of 30 spread across the UK, Europe and Southeast Asia, and become one of a handful of top-tier Shopify partners in the UK and Europe. Tom started out running a design and print studio, convinced that great ecommerce was all about how beautiful a website looks. Now every project starts with data, CRO and SEO. In this episode, he tells John Readman why being selective about who they work with built a stronger agency, why “on brand” can quietly damage a luxury website, and why the next big thing to optimise might not be a storefront at all. In this conversation, Tom and John discuss: The naive design-first mistake Tom made in the early days, and why every decision is now driven by data Why WIRO dropped every other platform to focus solely on Shopify How a lot of growth during COVID nearly became the agency’s own worst enemy Why WIRO says no to a lot of business, and how a clear ICP shaped the agency The most common mistake luxury brands make online Why WIRO avoids the flood of brand-new AI apps The discovery process that has kept every build on budget for the last 12 months Why Tom pushes back when an RFP asks for headless Agentic commerce: why it’s both the most overhyped and the most underrated thing in ecommerce right now Why Tom launched a second business for B2B brands His advice for anyone choosing an agency: why you should only speak to three, and always talk to their past clients Find out more: Connect with John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnreadman/?isSelfProfile=false Connect with Tom: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomscrees/?isSelfProfile=false ASK BOSCO®: https://askbosco.io ASK BOSCO® for Shopify: ASK BOSCO Marketing Analytics - ROAS, attribution, marketing analytics & marketing dashboards | Shop Wiro: eCommerce Growth Specialists in Shopify & Shopify Plus | WIRO
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S1 · E18
October 7 · 28 min
Headless vs native Shopify: when it's worth it, and when it's a waste of money
Five years ago, headless was the hottest thing in ecommerce. Then it went out of fashion. Now it's coming back. So should your brand be doing it? Tom Mucklow-Norell is the co-founder of Superco, a London-based Shopify Platinum Partner working with brands like Represent and Funkin' Cocktails. His view is simple: for most brands, native Shopify is now so good that headless just isn't a smart use of time or money. But there are exceptions, like the famous chef whose recipe content drives such huge organic traffic that headless was the only sensible choice. Tom also explains why big brands are finally leaving Adobe for Shopify, the one part of a migration you can't easily walk back, and how Superco built a B2B trade hub for bartenders on Funkin' Cocktails' first move to Shopify. Plus, why he ignores any tech partner that leads with commission, and why AI agents won't replace the joy of shopping. In this episode: Headless vs native Shopify: when it's worth it, and when it's a waste of money Why headless is suddenly back in fashion Why big brands are finally leaving Adobe for Shopify The migration risk that can set a brand back years Building a B2B trade hub for bartenders with Funkin' Cocktails Why leading with commission is the fastest way to lose an agency's attention Will we ever let AI do our shopping for us? The brands Tom admires most, from Dash Water to Hoka Reach out and connect: John Readman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnreadman/ ASK BOSCO®: https://askbosco.io ASK BOSCO® shopify app: ASK BOSCO Marketing Analytics - ROAS, attribution, marketing analytics & marketing dashboards | Shop… Tom Mucklow-Norell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommucklow/?isSelfProfile=false SuperCo: Superco - Shopify Platinum Partner agency
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S1 · E17
October 6 · 35 min
Why chasing revenue can make you a "busy fool", and why Google will never tell you to spend less
Revenue is up. Margins are down. And you're working harder than ever to stand still. After 18 years in ecommerce and eight Shopify stores selling trade tools, workwear and building materials, Reid, founder of Trade Counter Direct, knows exactly what it feels like to be a "busy fool". In this episode, he shares why chasing revenue can quietly cost you money, why Google will never tell you to spend less, and what he's learned about protecting margin in a market with around 7,000 to 8,000 competitor price changes every week. He also opens up about the trademark dispute that wiped his business off Google for nearly two months, and how it forced a 175,000-product move from Magento to Shopify, done in-house in just three to four weeks. In this episode: Why more revenue doesn't always mean more profit, and the ad spend advice you won't hear from Google How a "be a penny cheaper" pricing strategy leads to a race to the bottom Testing price increases 1% at a time until the sales data tells you to stop Surviving two months off Google and a 175,000-product migration What AI shopping agents that buy at a set price could mean for how retailers price Find out more: ASK BOSCO® - https://askbosco.io ASK BOSCO Shopify app - https://apps.shopify.com/ask-bosco Pricemaster - Profit-First Ecommerce Pricing Automation Software Connect with Reid - https://www.linkedin.com/in/reid-archer-72952b23/
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S1 · E16
September 30 · 34 min
The surprising benefits of adding insurance to your Shopify checkout
What if adding insurance to your Shopify checkout could increase conversion, reduce returns and create a whole new revenue stream? John Readman is joined by Jamie Hamer, serial entrepreneur and founder of Loxa, to look at the surprisingly powerful psychology behind product insurance at checkout. Loxa is an insurtech business helping high-value Shopify merchants offer insurance on everything from furniture and tools to bikes, glasses and catering equipment. Jamie explains how the model works, why simply offering insurance can increase conversion even when customers don't buy it, and why insured products see around a third fewer returns. They cover: Why Loxa built for Shopify first, with some integrations live in as little as three hours Why some products work brilliantly for checkout insurance, while phones and boilers don't How Loxa gets a 93% claims acceptance rate, while using vouchers to bring customers back to the original merchant Why the opportunity doesn't end at checkout, with post-purchase cover and a subscription "wallet" on the horizon And one big question for the future of agentic commerce: will AI shopping agents buy insurance for us? If you sell high-ticket products on Shopify, this is a side of the customer journey you probably haven't thought about enough. Find out more at loxacover.com, connect with Jamie Hamer on LinkedIn, and check out his podcast, Retail is Detail. Find out more: ASK BOSCO® - https://askbosco.io Loxa - https://loxacover.com ASK BOSCO® Shopify app - https://apps.shopify.com/ask-bosco
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S1 · E15
September 23 · 41 min
Forget TikTok Shop: Go live on Shopify instead
Live shopping is working, but you don't need TikTok to do it. More Shopify brands are now streaming live sales directly from their own stores, keeping the customer, the data and the checkout for themselves. Sharon Lee Thony runs SLTC, a Shopify-first agency working mostly with fast-growing beauty, health and wellness brands. She joins John to share what's actually driving results right now: how live shopping on Shopify works in practice, why Meta's returns have quietly slipped for a lot of brands, and why Reddit ads are converting far better than their tiny ad spend suggests they should. Sharon also has one of the more unusual founder stories around. She started SLTC in 2018, sold it to Fiverr in 2020, spent five years as an employee inside her own business, then bought it back at the start of this year. She explains why she did it, and what she's changed now she's back in the founder seat. Listener offer: free live shopping consultation Sharon and the SLTC team are offering Shopify brands a free live shopping consultation. They'll: Review your product catalogue and recommend the products or collection best suited to live shopping Plan your event from start to finish, including promoting it beforehand, support on the day (on camera or coaching on key messages), and email and SMS follow-up to convert your audience afterwards Book your free consultation: Contact Us - Let's Work Together | SLTC Find out more: ASK BOSCO®: https://askbosco.io SLTC: https://sltconsulting.co SLTC Live Shopping, Complimentary Consultation: https://sltconsulting.co/live-shopping-consultation Live Me Up App: https://apps.shopify.com/livemeup?mref=bxiedeep Okendo App: https://www.okendo.io/campaigns/partners?affiliate_id=sltconsulting.co Clients for Live Shopping examples: Miik: http://miik.ca/ Brooklyn Made: https://brooklynmadestore.com/
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September 20 · 35 min
How to spot a good Shopify app in an age of AI generated apps
700 apps launched on Shopify in a single week this year. Most of them shouldn't exist. Some of them are brilliant. And almost nobody can tell the difference. Martin Cox, CEO of Shopify App Co has spent fourteen years on Shopify. He built an agency, sold it, then walked away to start again from nothing. This year alone he's launched four apps, with a fifth landing next week. Every week he sits down with the independent founders behind the apps that actually work. He knows what the junk looks like. He also knows why the best app you've never heard of will probably never get found. In this conversation we get into: Why the app store has stopped being where merchants discover apps What Built for Shopify really tells you, and what it doesn't Whether Sidekick is the biggest opportunity or the biggest threat in the ecosystem Why agentic commerce is still 0.1% of sales, and why the 18x growth headlines are nonsense Find out more: Native app co: https://apps.nativeappco.com/ ASK BOSCO Shopify app: https://apps.shopify.com/ask-bosco
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September 16 · 44 min
Showing your search bar on mobile can lift conversion by 30-50%
Most Shopify stores hide search behind a tiny magnifying glass in the corner. Adam Pearce has the data on what that's costing you. Adam Pearce co-founded Blend Commerce about a decade ago and has worked on around 450 stores. Blend does one thing: conversion optimisation, Shopify brands only. He's blunt about what he still sees on sites turning over two or three million a year. Search that's desktop-only, or buried behind an icon nobody can hit with their thumb. Exposing the bar lifts conversion 30-50%, and customers who use search show 35-40% higher lifetime value. Social video sitting at the bottom of the page instead of second or third in the product gallery, where it moves average order value. Product pages that are still blocks and blocks of text when an accordion would take people straight to what they're actually searching for. He also argues most e-commerce teams are watching the wrong number. He recently told a client their revenue per session was up 78% in three months. The first thing they asked about was conversion rate. Inside this episode: the three apps he recommends to almost everyone, why Blend won't build headless, what a redesign should actually be about, and why brand obsession is the biggest barrier to getting results. The three tools he recommends Rebuy — upsells, cross-sells, personalisation, on-site search Microsoft Clarity — free heat mapping and session recording. Intelligems — A/B testing. Ecom Collab Club: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/ecom-collab-club-37836312093 Blend Commerce: https://blendcommerce.com/ ASK BOSCO® Shopify app: https://apps.shopify.com/ask-bosco
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S1 · E8
September 16 · 35 min
Scaling your Shopify store? The bit everyone forgets.
Most brands scale the fun bit first. More ad spend, more traffic, more orders. Then the warehouse can't keep up, returns pile up, and the bit nobody planned for becomes the bit that breaks the business. Tom Gatenby, CEO of Squashed Pixel has been building on Shopify for 17 years and were one of the first ten partners in the UK. Squashed Pixel now spends as much time on warehousing systems, ERP integrations and order management as it does on storefronts. He's watched a lot of brands find this out the hard way. Useful if you're scaling or thinking about moving platform: How to work out what a platform really costs you — 12 months minimum, three to five years for the truth, and count the apps and conversion fees, not just the monthly bill Why WooCommerce being free usually isn't, once you add servers, SSL and downtime What actually makes brands replatform: being hacked, checkout failing on Black Friday, not being able to ship an idea in under six weeks Why 25 apps costs you more than 25 subscriptions What expanding into the EU really involves before you press go
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September 16 · 42 min
Too many Shopify apps? What your tech stack is really costing you.
Most Shopify merchants have no idea what their tech stack is costing them. Gareth Allen, Founder of Herd Agency, has been building on Shopify since the late 2000s, back when every enterprise brand insisted it was no good for SEO. Thirteen years on, with Herd now a Shopify Premier partner, he's seen what happens when merchants treat the app store like a sweet shop. The cost isn't just the subscriptions. It's the speed hit from apps you uninstalled months ago that left their code behind. It's the external dev resource you need to keep it all hanging together. When Chilly's came to Herd, their stack was what Gareth calls a spaghetti junction - and the biggest win from the migration wasn't the redesign, it was how much came out.
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September 16 · 32 min
How brands like Gymshark and Castore scale with better data infrastructure.
Shopify may be easy to launch on, but scaling brands often hit the same wall: messy integrations, broken data, and tech stacks that can’t keep up. In this episode, Jim Herbert, CEO of Patchworks, breaks down what really happens when a brand grows from $5 million to $20 million and beyond - and why the right infrastructure matters long before Black Friday exposes the cracks. With 26 years in e-commerce and leadership experience spanning Sceneric, Hybris, BigCommerce Europe, and Patchworks, Jim explains why apps work well at the beginning, why they start to fail as complexity grows, and how enterprise brands build a foundation that can scale without creating integration debt.
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S1 · E7
September 9 · 22 min
The £/$/€ millions ecommerce brands are losing by ignoring accessibility
What if one of the biggest untapped growth opportunities in ecommerce isn't better ads, better AI, or better conversion optimization, but simply making your website usable by more people? Imogen from EnableAll joins the podcast to make the case that accessibility isn't a compliance exercise. It's a growth lever. One luxury retail client discovered that 6% of its revenue was coming from customers using an accessibility toolbar, and those customers were converting at 6x the average ecommerce benchmark. So why are so many brands still treating accessibility as a legal checkbox? Imogen breaks down what's actually happening behind the scenes: how inaccessible code excludes customers, what EnableAll changes at the code level, and how tools like screen readers and AI sign language can fundamentally change the way people shop online. Imogen and John also cover the global wave of accessibility legislation, why accessibility 'overlays' have developed such a bad reputation, and why fixing the underlying code matters. Plus which ecommerce verticals are leading the way, and why rushing into agentic commerce before fixing accessibility could actually make the internet less accessible, not more.
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S1 · E7
August 18 · 22 min
An interview with an AI: what Boardy really thinks about Shopify
For the first time on Leaders on Shopify, John sat down with a guest that isn't human. Meet Boardy, an AI "superconnector" that spends its time talking to founders, operators, and investors across the ecommerce ecosystem, built specifically to spot patterns most people miss. Boardy and John talk about whether AI in Shopify is real or hype: it's real where it's reducing manual merchandising, improving forecasting, and helping lean teams move faster, but "fully autonomous growth" claims are still ahead of the evidence. On the App Store, now sitting at 18,000+ apps: still viable, but a generic clone won't survive. This episode discusses agentic commerce. When a shopper buys inside ChatGPT, who actually owns that customer, the brand, or the AI platform they bought through? Boardy's answer: it depends entirely on what data gets passed through, and who owns the first-party relationship is something brands need to actively protect, not assume.
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S1 · E6
August 10 · 37 min
Inside Function18: Golf retail's digital success story with Shopify
Podcast description: Golf used to mean black trousers, black tops, and zero personality. Ben from Function18 helped change that, building a pure-play online golf apparel retailer from the ashes of a struggling bricks-and-mortar business, and riding out two decades of platform migrations, agency relationships, and a completely reshaped industry along the way. In this episode of Leaders on Shopify, John sits down with Ben to talk through the realities of running an ecommerce business for the long haul: why they moved from OSCommerce to Magento to Shopify (and what each platform taught them), the tension of competing with the very brands they stock as those brands go direct-to-consumer, and why golf's changing demographic, driven by younger players and pros being more open about their love of the game, has reshaped who they're selling to. They also get into where AI is already earning its place in the business, from product imagery to number-crunching, and Ben's refreshingly honest take on agentic commerce: useful for some purchases, a hard no for others, and a genuine unknown for everyone in ecommerce right now.
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S1 · E6
July 30 · 39 min
How FireBelly's Mary-Anne Danarzo builds brands that scale on Shopify
Mary-Anne Danarzo, founder of FireBelly, talks about building brands from the ground up, and what it actually takes to scale them. Mary-Anne shares how a career that started in mobile phone accessories sales led to an agency that's helped brands like Color Wow scale on Shopify all the way to a L'Oreal acquisition, including a Magento-to-Shopify migration that doubled their conversion rate overnight. In this episode, we talk about why nobody actually owns conversion rate inside most businesses, the difference between quantitative data and getting on the phone to real customers, and Mary-Anne's approach to building "brand brains". They also cover the AI tools reshaping ecommerce creative, why Shopify keeps winning against platforms like Salesforce Commerce Cloud for fast-scaling brands, and what medium-to-large brands get wrong when they hesitate to migrate.
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S1 · E5
June 24 · 42 min
Scaling a Shopify brand from £1M to £30M: what actually works with Quickfire Digital
What has eight years of working with scaling ecommerce brands taught Nathan Lomax? In this episode the co-founder of Shopify Platinum agency Quickfire Digital, sits down with John Readman to talk about the patterns he sees repeated over again on Shopify. From bot traffic skewing metrics and creating the illusion of a conversion problem, to brands obsessively acquiring new customers while ignoring the ones they already have, Nate is candid about where DTC brands go wrong between £1M and £30M. He also talks about decision paralysis, the temptation to in-house too early, and why some of the fastest-growing brands he's seen simply stopped procrastinating. The episode also covers Quickfire's own journey, from doing social media for a local chip shop to becoming one of a handful of Shopify Platinum agencies in the world, working with Tala, Reebok, Juicy Couture, Beaver Town, and Wrexham FC. Plus: honest takes on headless builds, the AI noise versus AI reality gap, agentic commerce, and how to know when a client relationship isn't working for either side.
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S1 · E4
June 1 · 48 min
How Smol scaled to £45M and why they left Shopify to do it
When do you know it's time to leave your ecommerce platform? Neil Campbell, Chief Growth Officer at Smol, has been through it. His direct-to-consumer cleaning brand built a £45M business on Shopify, with every customer on subscription, starting with a free trial, and then made the call to leave Shopify. In this conversation with John Readman, Neil breaks down the full Smol journey, from early days on Shopify with Recharge as the subscription engine, through to the point where they were building so much custom development around and beyond Shopify that leaving started to make more sense than staying. He shares the moment Shopify's new checkout rollout forced the decision, why being half-in on a platform is often the hardest place to be, and what brands considering the same move need to think about before they take the leap.
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S1 · E3
June 1 · 43 min
Why every brand is moving to Shopify and what comes next
Why are brands that went headless or bespoke quietly migrating back to Shopify? Liam Quinn, Director of Innovation at Visualsoft, one of Europe's largest Shopify partners, has watched the platform go from startup tool to enterprise default. In this episode, John and LIam get into the real cost comparison of Shopify versus Magento, Salesforce, and the other legacy platforms, including why brands that chose the headless or bespoke route are quietly migrating back. Liam shares what a £5,000 monthly agency retainer used to buy versus what it buys now and what the app ecosystem actually looks like for brands trying to scale past five million.
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S1 · E2
April 21 · 32 min
He sold 1.7 million pairs of shoes online last year, here's what he wishes he'd known sooner
How do you grow an online shoe business to £65 million and what nearly breaks along the way? Stuart Paver has been selling footwear online since 1999, making him one of Europe's earliest ecommerce pioneers. In this episode he gets honest about the hidden costs of scaling online retail, why warehousing becomes your biggest headache, how AI is already transforming product photography, and what 25 years in the game tells you about surviving whatever comes next.
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