eCommerce Australia

Hosted by Ryan Martin

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146

Latest episode

Oct 2026

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EN-AU

About the show

Australian eCommerce Podcast - Interviewing Founders, eCommerce Specialists, Leading Australian Marketing Agencies and much more on the eCommerce Australia Podcast. Australian stories about Australian issues, Shopify experts, SEO experts, Founder Stories, eCommerce Managers. We bring the best talent to the microphone to share their experience, with the sole aim of improving your own eCommerce business. Host - Ryan Martin, Founder of Remarkable Digital, an eCommerce SEO and AIO agency. (https://www.remarkabledigital.com.au/)

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October 23, 2026Episode 15045 min

Building a Sports Nutrition Brand on a $30K House Deposit - Maple Movement Founder Dan McDonnell

Dan McDonnell was a pro triathlete with a wrecked gut. After a bacterial infection forced him out of racing, he started fuelling his training with maple syrup and a pinch of salt, and had no gut issues. Two years later, Maple Movement makes all-natural maple energy gels with three ingredients or fewer, used by HYROX athletes, triathletes, runners and NRL and AFL teams. Daniel, who still works as an aviation firefighter, talks with Ryan about putting their $30K house deposit into the business, and how product issues cost them more than $50K in written-off stock and refunds. He explains how handing out 5,000 gels at a single HYROX event, guerrilla-style, beat paying for expo stands, and how LSKD lets them sample for free in its event hubs. Plus, building a 120-person race team and a creator program, growing into 99 Bikes and New Zealand, and why runners keep telling him they hate thick gels. In this episode Pre-chat: getting back into training, and setting priorities as family, then business, then sport Two years in: growth in national retail, Black Friday plans and a tough few months What Maple Movement is: natural maple energy gels with three ingredients or fewer Maple syrup 101: a four-week tapping season, why Canada produces around 90% of the world's supply, and why Maple Movement uses a light grade Why maple syrup has to be pasteurised every time it's repackaged (it isn't antibacterial like honey) The product issues: fermenting sachets, overcooked syrup, maple sugar "pebbles", leaky sachets, and a June batch that swelled up like basketballs Writing off $40K of stock, more than $50K in total, and sending a full box by express to anyone affected Daniel's background: dropping out of engineering, then eight years as an aviation firefighter on Hamilton Island and in Cairns The origin story: years of gut problems on traditional gels, an H. pylori infection, and a pro debut in Taupō fuelled by maple syrup in a bike bottle Asking US brand UnTapped for Australian distribution rights and being turned down ("What's your distribution network like?") The $30K house deposit: spent on company setup, legal and trademarks before they had any maple, plus naming it "Raw Nutrition" first A supplement workshop, a logo designer found through Daniel's sister, and doing all marketing in house Organic content: Ella growing the Instagram to 21,000 followers in two years, and hiring help so she has time to create Why expos at Mooloolaba and an IRONMAN 70.3 lost money, standing next to eight to ten other nutrition brands The HYROX play: handing out 5,000 gels at the door, three or four reels a day, and racing the event too How the LSKD partnership started, and sampling for free in its HYROX hubs Race team vs creator program: 120 athletes across competitive and elite tiers, and a creator program to rely less on Meta ads Ryan's tip: the Brand Pay episode and "customer media" Being turned down by UnTapped again, this time for help with the product issues What's next: national wholesale, New Zealand with a national distributor, and maybe Asia as HYROX grows there Coles and Woolworths? Not for now. E-commerce is the engine that powers wholesale Events in the AI era: why meeting customers in person matters more than ever, and why four-day expos aren't sustainable with a newborn Handing over events: training Daniel's younger brother, "a sleazy car salesman", to tell the brand story "I hate thick gels": what customers say at expos, and why Maple Movement chose a runny texture Mentors: quitting his triathlon coach to pay for a business mentor, Dan Roberts, and the team of four Handling product issues the LSKD way: Adam Sullivan's logo misprint

October 19, 2026Episode 14959 min

Why Your Retail Staff Training Fails by Monday (And How to Fix It) - Bethany Lucht - Known Studios

Brands have modernised their stores, websites and marketing, but most haven't looked hard at what happens when a customer walks through the door. Ryan (Founder - Remarkable Digital ) talks with Bethany, founder of Known Studios , who helps fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands like Aje Athletica, Accent Group, Assembly Label, Shona Joy, Nude Lucy and Viktoria & Woods improve their customer experience and store teams. Bethany explains the "stalemate" in retail right now: staff are so scared of being pushy that they say nothing, and customers are so wary of being sold to that they shut everyone down. She shares why "How are you today?" needs to go, why she treats customers like dinner guests, and why ATV and UPT matter more to store teams than budget. Plus, why one great training day isn't enough, and the app she's building to help training stick. In this episode Pre-chat: getting clearer on her niche after five years, and a new app for embedding training What Known Studios does, and the brands Bethany works with Why Bethany started Known: sitting through outdated training and knowing it wouldn't work in her own store The omnichannel gap: beautiful brand copy online, then no greeting in store. You often learn more from a website in 30 seconds than from a store visit Why in-store conversion is so much higher than online, and why staff need to back up the marketing Bethany's first retail job in the BI-LO deli at 14 and nine months, and choosing fashion over psychology (she now combines both) Ryan's first retail experience at 30, learning from Craig Gaspar at Sports Fever in Perth What brings brands to Known: usually a drop in the numbers, a blanket spending ban, or keeping up with competitors Why e-commerce brands opening physical stores are often getting training right Head office vs the shop floor: why Bethany always spends a day or two in stores before writing training, and takes head office's view "with a grain of salt" Regional managers stuck in meetings for 70% of the day, and why reports aren't gospel Ryan's shout-outs to Ed at Ralph Lauren Chadstone and Mel at Orlebar Brown The retail stalemate: staff too scared of being pushy to approach, customers too guarded to engage Why "How are you today?" and "Are you happy just browsing?" should go The dinner guest approach: welcome them, give them a moment, then come back Why the second approach is where most retail falls down The "why to try or buy": giving customers a reason to bother with the change room in a Melbourne winter Curious conversation starters: around 50 ways to start a conversation that have nothing to do with product ATV and UPT: the most controllable metrics for store teams, and what they reveal that revenue hides Hitting budget by not talking about budget for six weeks, and celebrating a $2 lift in average spend Inside Jobs: sending Bethany into underperforming or overlooked stores to model behaviour on the floor Showing beats telling: why people retain only around 15% of what they're told Looking beyond sales: visual merchandising, wage percentage, rostering, store standards and product knowledge No bad conference sandwiches, Times New Roman or stapled booklets: why training materials should look like the brand The Viktoria & Woods process: a bespoke customer framework, printed learning journals, a national leaders' day in Melbourne, then embedding Why embedding is the hardest part (it's like toilet training a puppy) The Known app: bespoke frameworks, live observation tools, training videos and incentives, linked to store results The Breakfast Club at Pacific Fair (GPT Group): open-brand training sessions every three months What store teams say: lots of "what", never any "how", and all the attention going to the top store Why consistent weekly recognition beats a pizza night or a good Christmas party A shout-out to mutual clients Erin and Chris at Clean Beauty Market How to get in touch with Bethany

October 10, 2026Episode 14837 min

One Customer, Three Profiles: Building a Single Customer View with Lexer (Aaron Luxmoore)

Most brands think they know who their best customers are. Then they put their online and in-store data together and get a surprise. Ryan Martin talks with Aaron Luxmoore, Head of Sales and Partnerships at Lexer, about how the platform has grown from a customer data platform (CDP) into an AI customer intelligence layer. Aaron explains why putting ChatGPT or Claude on top of fragmented data just gives you wrong answers faster, and why the same customer can show up as three different people. He also covers why you shouldn't send every customer the same Black Friday discount, the quickest way to turn one-time buyers into repeat customers, and why Lexer doesn't charge per seat. Plus, how a LinkedIn post turned into Friends in Tech, a networking event with an 850-person list. In this episode Friends in Tech: how one LinkedIn post became an 850-person event list across the east coast, with no sponsors, no pitches and no clients invited Lexer's evolution from CDP to an AI customer intelligence layer The discover, decide, act, observe and learn loop, and why the platform is now used by CEOs, merchandisers and store teams, not just marketing Bringing inventory, margins, store rosters and business context (like store closures) into the data What usually brings a brand to Lexer: "we don't really know our customers", a loyalty program launch, or too many hours lost to spreadsheets Omnichannel reality check: the customer who spent $2K online and $5K in store, and the "one-time buyers" who've actually bought again in store Adding third-party data from Experian (likely income, home ownership, parent status) Wrong answers, fast: the problem with putting AI over fragmented data, and the risk of tying everything to one LLM How one customer with multiple email addresses can look like three different customers Black Friday: why full-price buyers shouldn't get the same discount as everyone else Lexi as "the brains behind Klaviyo": insight, then strategy, then the segment (around 75% of Lexer clients use Klaviyo) Common objections, and why all-in-one platforms tend to be "jack of all trades, master of none" Build vs buy: why building your own customer data layer usually takes two years and more people than expected Implementation down from about six months to 6–12 weeks Why Lexer doesn't charge per seat, and pricing based on the number of customer profiles ROI examples: paying for a year's subscription just by turning one-time buyers into repeat buyers, and feeding top-5% audiences into Meta Who buys: head of digital, CMO and CRM manager, and the champions who bring Lexer with them when they change jobs Multi-brand groups: cross-selling across Cotton On, Cotton On Body and Typo Who it's for: medium to large omnichannel retailers, increasingly smaller and e-commerce-only brands, plus hospitality clients How to get a free demo using your own Shopify and email data

October 3, 2026Episode 14754 min

Sold Out in 24 Hours: Building Fearless Swimwear in Public, with Lyndi & Les Cohen

What happens when a dietitian and a lawyer start a swimwear brand? Ryan talks with Lyndi and Les Cohen, the husband-and-wife team behind Fearless Swimwear . Lyndi, known as The Nude Nutritionist, spent 15 years helping women with body image before deciding the swimsuit was a body image problem to solve. They built in public, let their audience pick the brand name, cuts and colours, and launched to a 15,000-strong waitlist. The pre-order sold out in 24 hours for $200K. They also share the $100K sizing mistake that followed, the "magic sizing" that came out of their waitlist data, why they're stepping away from deep Black Friday discounts, and what Lyndi calls the "embarrassment tax" of building on social. About The Host: Ryan Martin is Founder of Remarkable Digital, a specialist eCommerce SEO marketing agency working with Australian Brands. In this episode Packing orders at Thread Together, and a humbling start to the chat Why a dietitian who specialised in body image decided to start a swimwear brand Building an audience by "listening to the data": body image content beat healthy breakfast content Co-creation: letting the community choose the name, cuts, fabrics and colours, and why 100 poll votes is often enough A 15,000-woman waitlist, a $200K pre-order that sold out in 24 hours, and going straight to a 3PL Trademarks: buying the "Fearless" name for $3K, and the risk of trademark squatting in China Sourcing in China: 36 hours at Intertextile Shanghai, and why you need a swimwear specialist, not a generalist The $50K tech pack lesson, and hiring a head of product with nearly 30 years in swimwear (including the 2000 Olympics swimsuits) The $100K mistake: gifting all their stock to Thread Together when the sizing came up small Magic sizing: 49% of their waitlist wore a different size top and bottom, so they built one-pieces with mixed sizing Long torso styles, and designing for a size 12 to 16 instead of scaling up from a size small Using Refundid checkout insurance to let customers try at home Custom fabrics vs cash flow: simplifying to shorten lead times and the cash conversion cycle Stock planning with no historical data, air freight, and a seven-month lead time on a sold-out style Black Friday: last year's tiered 10–60% discounts, and why this year they're focusing on newness and gift with purchase instead Swimwear's short selling window (September to December), and why March makes more sense for a sale Being "ridiculously honest" with customers about strategy changes The embarrassment tax: why your fails outperform your highlight reel on social Shooting product on real customers with a $4,000 camera instead of professional models Staying close to customer feedback as the team grows Mentors and inspiration: Shelley Sullivan (MCoBeauty) and Emma Grede Long-form content, brand voice, and being the "chief reminding officer" What's next: a ready-to-wear capsule, the US market, and becoming the most recommended swimsuit brand

September 29, 2026Episode 14656 min

Customer Media: Why Your Customers Are Your Best Ad Channel, with Brand Pay's Mike Haywood

What if your customers were your cheapest media channel? Ryan Martin talks with Mike Haywood, Co-founder of BrandPay, about "customer media". BrandPay rewards everyday customers, not influencers, with store credit when they post about brands they already love. Mike explains how a $1-per-like experiment at his AirBnB retreat grew into a world-first build with Meta. He also covers why AI search runs almost entirely on third-party content, and how brands like LSKD now get a new piece of customer content every 33 minutes. On average, the cost per click comes in at about half that of paid media. Mike explains how the idea started. During COVID he ran a hinterland retreat and paid guests $1 per like in wine-cellar credit for posting content. Six months later it was named best holiday home in Australia and featured in Vogue. He also talks about building a world-first integration with Meta, and the psychology that makes customers post (time and effort, not likes). He shares hard numbers on cost per click, spend-back rates and category performance. Why BrandPay separates customer media from UGC and creator content How a $1-per-like guest experiment led to a Vogue feature and a new startup Building with Meta: a world-first API use case and the challenge of fraud prevention Why fixed rewards beat per-like rewards: everyday users think in time and effort, not engagement How the BrandPay wallet works: store credit in Apple Wallet, worth half its value at other brands, with the other half returned to the rewarding brand #ad disclosure, and why customer content doesn't feel like selling AI search and third-party content: Google lowered its follower threshold for showing third-party content in search from 300k to 35k to 10k The review flow: 48-hour auto-approval for reels (24 hours for stories), and 98% approval rates Pricing: a 25% fee on top of rewards, with no SaaS or setup fees Attribution: first-degree clicks at about 50% of paid media cost per click, plus the "BrandPay halo effect" measured via Triple Whale Why brands with real community (Facebook groups, Klaviyo lists) win first 85% of rewards are spent back with the brand, on average within about 5 days Which categories perform best: fashion, beauty, skincare, nutrition, pet food, sunnies and furniture First-mover advantage and the "infinite half-life" of third-party content Product launches: building customer media groups by postcode Beyond e-commerce: distributor brands, service businesses, and TikTok coming soon

September 24, 2026Episode 14557 min

From Dollar Shave Club to Beforeyouspeak: Taking an Aussie DTC Brand into the US | Cam McNeill

Cam McNeill spent ten years at Dollar Shave Club — from managing a member services team in Sydney to running the entire business outside the US. He bought the brand's first Facebook ads in Australia at a $14 CPA, launched Ruggable into the Australian market, and is now Head of Growth at Beforeyouspeak Coffee, taking a nine-year-old Aussie DTC brand into the States. He was living in a van touring America in 2012 when Dollar Shave Club's $3,500 launch video went viral. He rang a mate and said: I wonder how long it'll take to get to Australia. In this episode Cam joins Ryan Martin for a genuinely practical conversation about cross-border ecommerce — how you know you're ready for a new market, what the first six months should actually look like, and why Beforeyouspeak chose the US largely because of one channel that isn't live here yet. WHAT WE COVER • The signals that tell you a market is ready for you — hiding in your DMs, your customer service inbox and your creator requests (and why it's a two-way street: ask them back) • Why market expansion deserves the same rigour as a product launch, and how to build a forecast you feel 80/20 about • The lowest-cost MVP: finding a beachhead, building a waitlist, and contacting the people who already contacted you • Why Beforeyouspeak shipped from Australia at painful margins — and got to conviction fast because those US subscribers are still with them years later • Setting a six-month horizon with real exit criteria, without making it binary • Whether you have to "conquer" Australia first (and Cam's response to that framing) • New Zealand as the soft-launch market most Aussie brands overlook • Why the US comes down to TikTok Shop — and the real difference between an influencer and a creator who only gets paid on GMV delivered • Subscription in 2026: the Amazon Prime promise, subscription fatigue, and why your owned experience has to be equal to or better • Rising Meta costs, AI-driven attribution, and building creative diversity across well-defined personas • Using AI to shorten the distance to a decision, not to generate more noise • Tech stack: Shopify for multi-market, Recharge, Klaviyo, and the new players innovating inside the inbox • Ryan on Microsoft Clarity and internal site search — the highest-intent, least-watched data on your site • How much AI traffic actually matters yet, zero-click search, and why commercial keywords are still safe • Why AI slop might make great designers more valuable, not less

September 21, 2026Episode 14437 min

From Hospital Shifts to Sold-Out Drops I Steph Moore - Hey Sister Scrub Club

Nineteen months ago Steph Moore was a nurse with no fashion background, no ecommerce experience and a copy of Adobe Illustrator she'd taught herself after night shifts. Today Hey Sister Scrub Club sells out drops, has a 6,000-strong email list and was runner-up for Rookie of the Year at the SHE-com awards. In this episode Steph walks Ryan through the whole build: cold-contacting manufacturers until one agreed to work from her own prints and measurements, the sample sets that came back with head holes too small to get into, and the decision to order 360 units across six prints on nothing more than gut feel and a few colleagues' opinions. She's unusually open about the parts most founders leave out. August was her biggest month ever. July was her worst — not because demand dropped, but because she sold out of core sizes and had no stock to sell. Her tech stack is Shopify and almost nothing else: no automated flows, no abandoned cart emails, every one of those 6,000 emails written and sent by hand. She bought Klaviyo ages ago and still hasn't set it up. There's also the shipment that arrived soaking wet after a flooded hangar, the drop where half the orders went out with one print on the front and a different one on the back, and the Pink October collection covered in boobs — designed specifically so a patient would ask "have you checked yours?" Plus: why she won't use a 3PL, what she wants her future warehouse to feel like, and the line that explains why the copycats flooding the fun scrubs market don't worry her much. CHAPTERS (00:40) Meet Steph Moore, founder of Hey Sister Scrub Club (01:00) From nursing shifts to Adobe Illustrator all-nighters (02:16) Cold-contacting manufacturers until one said yes (03:00) Sample problems, and the set that finally worked (04:32) The first drop: 360 units and six prints on gut feel (05:14) Where the name "Hey Sister" came from (07:05) Building an Instagram community before there was stock (08:00) Why she chose a pre-order: cash flow and capacity control (11:07) Growth that's been almost entirely organic (13:01) Global expansion and the US tariff roadblock (14:11) Biggest month ever, right after the worst month ever (15:50) Retail Fest, SHE-com, and learning what CAC and ROAS mean (17:45) An honest look at a very lean tech stack (21:04) The next 12 months: going casual with nursing (24:08) The hardest moments, including a shipment that arrived soaked (28:03) The mixed-print mistake and the "keep it, pay it forward" policy (30:17) "You can replicate the product, but you can't replicate the brand" (31:49) The Pink October drop that got people talking (34:10) Becoming "the Peter Alexander of the scrub world" (36:41) What's next for Hey Sister Scrub Club HEY SISTER SCRUB CLUB REMARKABLE DIGITAL

September 3, 2026Episode 14339 min

From Garage Pallets to Global: How Shawn Singh Built Copper Culture

Shawn Singh was managing 40–50 people at a fintech by day and building a copper drinkware brand between 5pm and 7pm every night. Then Valentine's Day 2025 hit, 250 orders landed over a single weekend, and he and his wife packed every one of them on the living room floor, with 10 pallets of stock stacked in the garage behind them. In this episode, Shawn joins Ryan Martin (Host and Founder of Remarkable Digital ) to unpack how Copper Culture went from an off-the-shelf Shopify theme to a multi-market brand selling into Australia, the US and 17 duty-free markets, and why he'd rather be the best copper drinkware brand outside India than the biggest. It's an honest one: the money lost learning Meta, the 51% jump in the copper price over 12 months, and a live teardown of a supplier sample that scored "7.5 out of 10" and still got rejected. WHAT WE COVER • Why a lunch-and-learn from the Arms of Eve founders was the final push to quit the day job • Building to a few million in lifetime sales on a default Shopify theme • Google first, Meta second: why it took 18–24 months to tame the beast, and what it cost along the way • The Valentine's gift set that changed everything, no discount, just better packaging and a message flip from "you need a copper bottle" to "give your loved ones a copper bottle" • The UGC engine: triggering review requests 48 hours after delivery (not 14 or 21 days) and offering a coupon to upgrade a text review to video • The real science of copper: antimicrobial to 99%+ within three hours, plus the copper toxicity warning Shawn puts on every box • Copper up 51% in 12 months, 300g in a bottle and up to a kilo in a dispenser, how Copper Culture protected margin without passing on the full increase • Manufacturing in India's copper cottage industry: why a supplier that tripled output still can't keep up with a business that grew 6x • Testing new markets and SKUs: 200-300 unit runs, six-week sell-through rules, and why Moscow mule mugs fly in Australia but not the US • Why a real-time profit dashboard is the first thing Shawn checks every morning (and the mate who did $25k in revenue for $800 profit) CHAPTERS 00:00 – Cold open 01:27 – Welcome: Shawn Singh, Copper Culture 01:57 – Rebuilding the site with Clever Conversions 02:11 – The first website his wife designed, and the millions it carried 04:42 – Fintech by day, ecommerce by night 05:36 – The Arms of Eve lunch-and-learn that changed everything 06:00 – Google traction first, then 18–24 months learning Meta 07:20 – Valentine's Day 2025: 250 orders packed in the living room 10:22 – The copper pitch — and the toxicity warning 11:47 – How to actually use a copper bottle day to day 12:50 – Hammered vs polished, and why hammering matters 13:37 – Indian grandparents, an Ayurvedic practitioner, and terrible Amazon bottles 15:32 – The Valentine's gift set and the AOV unlock 16:49 – Demand capture on Google vs demand generation on Meta 18:01 – In-house, offshore, then Swann Studio 19:46 – The UGC machine: the 48-hour post-delivery review trigger 23:19 – Copper up 51%: margins, pricing and a lower CAC 26:11 – Live sample teardown: what a 7.5/10 looks like 30:28 – How a copper jug is actually made, from Chilean copper up 31:46 – Supplier at 3x, business at 6x: pre-orders and air freight 33:46 – Australia, the US, and 17 duty-free markets (Dubai and Saudi next) 34:56 – Expanding the range: 200–300 unit tests and fast-moving SKUs 36:13 – Real-time profit, channel decisions and a creative backlog LINKS Copper Culture: https://copperculture.com.au Clever Conversions (Ilan Hurwitz): [https://cleverconversions.com.au/] Swann Studio: https://swan.studio/ BeProfit: https://beprofit.co Enjoyed this one? Follow the eCommerce Aus Podcast and leave a review it helps more Aussie founders find the show.

August 18, 2026Episode 14241 min

How a WhatsApp Group Became Australia's Biggest Retail Community | Dean Salakas & Jethro Marks

A text message at an airport turned into Australia's biggest retail and eCommerce community in about twelve months: 4,000 members, up to 90 chat groups, and meetups from Ballarat to Dubai. Dean Salakas (The Party People) and Jethro Marks ( The Nile ) join Ryan Martin ( Remarkable Digital ) to explain how Retail Community Group actually works, what it deliberately isn't, and how its members had workarounds in place days before Australia Post announced it was suspending shipping to the US. Dean built a two-person family business into Australia's largest party supplies retailer, offering click-and-collect in 1999 and becoming Google's first advertiser in Australia in 2003 at one cent a click, before exiting eighteen months ago. Jethro co-founded The Nile in 2003 and is now building the world's most trusted bookstore, with US and UK launches on the way. Neither of them set out to build a community. They started a WhatsApp group so they could find each other for a drink at Retail Fest, and it had fifty people in it before Dean's plane landed. Join the Whatsapp here In this episode they unpack the mechanics behind the growth: why the group split into interest-based channels for AI, cross-border trade, HR and open-to-work; how the "pitch slap" keeps unsolicited selling out; and why a moderated, free, no-pay-to-play space has become the place Australian retailers go first when something breaks. They also share what's coming next, including a public events directory, a vendor portal and peer advisory groups for retailers, plus their honest take on the hardest problem ahead: keeping the magic while scaling to a market Jethro estimates at 100,000 people. If you run an online store, work in retail tech, or you're new to eCommerce and feel like you're doing it alone, this one is a practical guide to plugging into the most collaborative industry in the country. Join The Retail Community Here Topics covered: retail community building, Australian eCommerce, cross-border trade and tariffs, Australia Post US shipping suspension, 3PL and fulfilment, retail conferences and events, AI tools for retail, B2B community moderation, thought leadership for service providers.

August 9, 2026Episode 14149 min

A Trillion Dollars in Transactions: What Criteo Sees That You Don't

Running an Australian eCommerce or Shopify store? Your customers have started shopping inside ChatGPT, and shoppers arriving from AI answer engines convert around 1.5x better than any other source. Melbourne eCommerce Aus Event - Tickets Here. Online shopping has become… boring? A recent Criteo study found 77% of Australians describe online shopping as unexciting, and that's just the starting point for one of our most forward-looking conversations yet. Ryan sits down with Matt Hurle from Criteo to unpack the findings of their latest report and what they mean for anyone running an eCommerce business in Australia. Matt brings 20 years in advertising, 15 in digital and 10 in martech, from cold-calling rural businesses out of the Yellow Pages to sitting at the front edge of AI-powered retail media. The big theme: the path to purchase is no longer linear. Consumers are bouncing between publishers, retailer sites, social platforms and AI answer engines like ChatGPT, and increasingly starting their entire shopping journey inside those answer engines, at the very first spark of an idea. Criteo was the first technology company integrated with OpenAI via API and has already run 2,000+ campaigns in that environment. Early signal? Shoppers arriving from ChatGPT convert about 1.5x more efficiently than any other source. We also get into the eternal marketer's tension Ryan sums up perfectly: "The thing I love about digital marketing is you can track every dollar. The thing I hate about digital marketing is you can track every dollar." Attribution, brand vs. performance, the resurgence of SEO (or GEO/AIO, whatever we're calling it this week), influencer strategy, and why customer support and honest reviews now beat polished influencer content for building real trust. Key Takeaways The funnel is dead — long live discovery. Consumers now begin shopping journeys inside AI answer engines, far earlier than the traditional mid-to-lower funnel signals marketers relied on. Brands need to show up higher up the discovery journey. Commerce data is the new gold standard. Moving away from demographics and guesswork toward real commerce signals — what people add to cart, actually buy, and browse before and after. Criteo observes 1T+ in annual eCommerce transactions across 730M+ daily active shoppers. Show up across surfaces, not just your own. Criteo's independence means it serves ads on whichever "surface" (open web, ChatGPT, Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, X) is most likely to convert — not a walled-garden's owned inventory. ChatGPT shoppers convert ~1.5x better. They've researched and validated inside the answer engine, so trust is high by the time they land. SEO/GEO/AIO matters more than ever. As search shifts from keywords to full-sentence, conversational queries, rich product data and verifiable messaging determine whether you appear in AI answers — or get left out of the consideration set entirely. Trust beats polish. Verified reviews and genuine customer support now outweigh paid influencer content. 200 five-star reviews can be less trusted than a 4.7 average. Reply to bad reviews honestly. (Ryan's Nero merino example and Matt's Artisan chopping-board recall story both make the point.) Match the influencer to the job to be done. Celebrities drive reach and exposure; micro-influencers drive engaged, community-level trust and conversion. Different jobs, different tiers. AI answer engines stay out of sensitive categories. OpenAI keeps advertising away from health-related matters, directing people back to their GPs.