Syndic8 Series

Hosted by Syndic8

BusinessInterviews guests

Website RSS feed

Episodes

Latest episode

May 2026

Language

About the show

Practical, data-driven, and forward-thinking conversations about E-Commerce and the ever-changing future of retail at large. Hosted by Chris John, the CEO of Syndic8, a Boston-based SaaS company offering data management solutions for the e-commerce industry.

Listen to episodes

30 recent

May 12, 202638 min

#30 - Closing the Digital Revenue Gap with Ethan Giffin

Ethan Giffin, founder and CEO of B2B e-commerce agency and author of Closing the Digital Revenue Gap, joins Chris John to talk about the friction still holding back B2B commerce. They dig into why so many manufacturers and distributors are still relying on manual order entry, spreadsheets, and outdated buying workflows—and why customers are quietly moving spend toward vendors that make purchasing easier.Ethan breaks down the biggest blockers to B2B e-commerce transformation: internal misalignment, messy ERP integrations, broken pricing structures, and catalogs that were never built for digital. They also cover why modern B2B buyers expect the same seamless experience they get everywhere else online, how AI is making digital transformation more achievable for mid-market companies, and why the companies that wait too long to modernize risk getting left behind.

March 5, 202647 min

#29 - Rethinking Competitive Advantage with Doug Stephens

Retail futurist Doug Stephens joins Chris John to unpack what’s actually changing in commerce right now, and what leaders are missing. They discuss the macro shifts shaping retail, including AI, market volatility, and the continued move toward digital consumption, and why many companies are still chasing efficiency while missing the next sources of advantage.Doug shares one of the core theses behind his upcoming book The Future of Competitive Advantage (June 2): the next edge won’t come from scale or technology alone. It will come from trust, fairness, and intelligence.They also explore why retail needs to think more like art, how AI is reshaping entry-level work and education, and why the biggest risk of the AI era may not be the technology itself, but what it does to the consumer economy.

January 15, 202637 min

#28 - Coaching Through AI Anxiety with Grace Perry

Grace Perry joins Chris John to talk about what most teams are missing with AI: a clear plan for how it changes the work. They cover why most AI projects fail, how leaders can keep it simple, and what it looks like to treat AI like a coachable skill instead of a threat.Grace shares lessons from AWS and Salesforce’s Agentforce work in retail, plus why the “human stuff” still matters most: creativity, emotional intelligence, and relationships.

December 4, 202530 min

#27 - Elevating Product Content into a Strategic Asset with Justin King

In this episode of The Syndic8 Series, Chris John, CEO of Syndic8, sits down with Justin King, Global Managing Director of the B2B E-Commerce Association, to unpack why B2B needs to stop thinking in terms of “e-commerce projects” and start thinking in terms of digitizing the entire business. Justin traces his journey from early blogger to founder to association leader, then explains why most manufacturers and distributors still struggle with the basics: syndicating accurate product content, keeping data fresh, and treating content as a strategic asset rather than a one-off initiative.They get into the hard realities of product data in B2B—millions of SKUs, slow distributor updates, safety and compliance risk when data is wrong—and where things are headed next: AI, voice, image recognition, EU-style product passports, and traceability.

November 21, 202536 min

#26 - Why Product Data Will Decide Who Wins in the AI Commerce Era with Krys Neder

In this episode of The Syndic8 Series, Syndic8 CEO Chris John sits down with PIM consultant and Catalog Insight founder Krys Neder to unpack why product information is quickly becoming a make-or-break asset for brands. Krys shares real-world stories from European fashion and retail—including a global brand nearly delisted from Amazon over poor data—and explains why “garbage in, garbage out” is still the hard truth of any PIM implementation. They dig into the EU’s coming Digital Product Passport regulation for 2027, the exploding volume of product attributes retailers must manage, and how AI agents and hyper-personalized content will completely change what “e-commerce” looks like in the next few years. Along the way, Krys breaks down the three pillars of a successful PIM project—selection, implementation, and change management—and why internal sponsorship and a single source of truth for product data will separate the leaders from everyone else.

March 20, 202533 min

#25 - Using the B2C Ecommerce Playbook for B2B with Brian Beck

Brian Beck, Co-Founder of Master B2B Ecommerce and a Managing Partner at Enceiba, talks to Chris John, CEO of Syndic8, about the rapidly democratizing world of B2B Ecommerce, how B2B businesses can learn from B2C, what to do in a world with less and less distributors, and more.

March 6, 202531 min

#24 - Succeeding in the Consolidating Digital Landscape with Dave Malda

This week, Chris John, CEO of Syndic8, talks to Dave Malda, Director of Partnerships at iPaaS.com, about how to make sure your integration project goes well, how the eCommerce space is rapidly consolidating, how to be where your customers are, and more.

February 13, 202529 min

#23 - Understanding the AI Explosion with Derek Sewell

Chris John, CEO of Syndic8, talks to Derek Sewell, Senior Director of Strategic Growth & Alliances at dataX.ai, about not boiling the ocean when you start getting a data management system in place, why you should stay taxonomy agnostic, the limitations of AI, and more.

January 30, 202539 min

#22 - Linking Your Data Back-of-House and Front-of-House with Jake Athey

Chris John, CEO of Syndic8, talks to Jake Athey, VP of Go-To-Market and Sales for DAM and PIM at Acquia, about how speed to market is the most important metric, how multi-brand organizations can manage their data, how AI and syndication can help you compress your product development cycles, and more.

January 16, 202531 min

#21 - Making Personalized Stores for Customers with Alan Gormley

Chris John talks to talks to Alan Gormley, CEO of Shopbox.ai, about how contextual AI + syndication are the future of retail, how the boundary between physical stores and online shopping is completely gone, why AI in retail needs a serious adjustment, and more.