Shopify 1 Percent Episodes

Is Direct Mail the Meta of 2016 All Over Again? It might be why 82% of the Top 1,000 Shopify Brands Mailing Postcards 😉. I mean, paid acquisition is essentially broken. Attribution is a fantasy, and your Meta dashboard is basically a slot machine at this point.

So when I started hearing Shopify brands quietly crushing it with direct mail (yes, the thing your grandma still gets), I had to dig in. I

If a customer stripped the logo off your Shopify store, would they even recognize it? Phillip Jackson, CEO of Future Commerce, joins the Shopify podcast to unpack why every Shopify brand looks identical, why AEO is the new SEO, and the one thing Shopify merchants will regret ignoring in 2026.

Paid ads are not a growth strategy. They’re a coping mechanism. In this episode, I sat down with Raúl Galera, Growth Lead at ReferralCandy, to talk about building a real Shopify growth engine. A referral flywheel that turns happy customers into your most valuable acquisition channel. 88% of people trust recommendations from people they know, and acquiring a new customer can cost 5 to 25 times more than keeping one. If you want Shopify growth without living in the ads dashboard, this one’s for you.

(* Golden Tickets mentioned in the show are linked below)

Over the past 6 months, we've quietly been testing something with 50 Shopify brands.

I believe there is a massive shift happening in the way people shop. I've been noticing it for a few years now. It's happening right before us, and yet Shopify brands don't have the tools to adapt.

Which is why today's episode is special. I'm finally pulling back the curtain on something that's been consuming my life for the past year: the first brand-...

Most Shopify founders think they’ll sell “someday.” Most will never. Only 20% to 30% of businesses that go to market actually sell, which is a fun little statistic if you enjoy pain. In this episode, I sit down with Lexi Grant, founder of They Got Acquired, to talk about how to build a Shopify business that buyers actually want. We break down profit, SDE, add-backs, founder dependency, and why recurring revenue and repeat customers can push your Shopify valuation into the “this was worth it” zon...

Stop chasing “viral”. Build a series that makes your Shopify brand show up everywhere, every week. In this Shopify podcast episode, Gideon Shalwick breaks down the hero platform strategy, how to repurpose one video across TikTok, Reels, Shorts, and LinkedIn, and the simple system to stay consistent without burnout.

Who's the #1 influencer in the world right now? It's AI.  And if it can’t explain your Shopify brand in one clean paragraph, it won’t recommend you. In this 1% Win, we break down how Shopify brands can become the trusted answer when shoppers ask questions like “how do I solve ___?” or “who are the experts in ___?” You’ll learn how to turn your Shopify store into an authority hub by picking a single problem you can teach for years, then building a repeatable drumbeat across your Shopify site, podcasts, and third-party mentions. We walk through the Claim, Frame, Prove framework, the five core pages every Shopify brand should publish, how to use Shopify metaobjects for reusable FAQs and proof, and how to measure whether AI is starting to mention you.

In this episode, we break down how Shopify Flow works (triggers, conditions, actions) and walk through 10 best Shopify flow automations you can build today, ranked from easy to more advanced.

You’ll learn how to use Shopify Flow to tag and route high-value orders, identify VIPs, protect yourself from fraud, prevent inventory surprises, clean up return “zombie” cases, and set up winback systems that don’t rely on constant discounting. We also cover where tools like Slack, Google Sheets, Sidekick, and Omnisend fit in to turn Shopify into an actual operating system for your brand.

Most Shopify stores are not losing sales because their ads are bad. They’re losing sales because of the smallest little words on their store!. In this episode, I roast the innocent-looking “Shipping calculated at checkout” and explain why it quietly trains buyers to expect a surprise. Baymard’s research puts numbers on the pain: around 70% of carts are abandoned, and 39% of shoppers bail when extra costs feel too high, with another 14% leaving when they can’t see the total upfront. This is Shopi...

Hand written notes are all the craze right now! The reason why is we are getting worse at the easiest part of ecommerce. Making people feel like humans. David Wachs, CEO of Handwrytten, explains why a real handwritten note (yes, real pen) can beat the 135+ emails a day noise, lift repeat purchases, reviews, and referrals, and turn your Shopify store into the brand people actually

Your Shopify traffic didn't disappear; it just got smarter and moved to AI agents. While you were busy optimizing meta tags for 2015, 84% of e-commerce brands started integrating AI, and the ones doing it right are seeing a 30% higher AOV on orders found through AI search.

If you aren't optimizing for "Answer Engines," you are basically invisible to the modern shopper. I sat down with Nihar Kulkarni from Roswell NYC to discuss why the old agency model is dead and how to make sure the robots actually recommend your products.

In this episode I witnessed our guest LIVE ideate, formulate, and design a completely brand new supplement product in minutes! Even better, we were able to ship it, and make 70% margins, with all our own branding. It was absolutely wild! In this episode we discuss how you can launch a fully compliant, private label supplement brand on Shopify with zero inventory and absolutely no minimums.

Basically every Supplement brand I know on Shopify is crushing it. If you aren't testing high margin consumables on your Shopify store, you are missing out on one of the biggest opportunities in ecommerce right now.

* Make sure to scroll to the bottom for his special offer to listeners *

Shopify just dropped Winter Editions '26, which means you probably should spend time reading the 150+ release notes and try to figure out what "Renaissance" actually means for your margins.

Fear not. I read them so you didn't have to.

On this special roundtable episode of Shopify1Percent, I brought in the heavy hitters—Gavin McKew (Shero Commerce) and Max Rolon (Domaine) to do surgery on the update. We strip away the marketing fluff to find the features that will actually make you money (and the ones you can safely ignore until 2027).

Modern Buyer Brain: Chapter 9

The future of your Shopify brand has nothing to do with better ads or bigger discounts. It has everything to do with who your customers believe they are.

By 2030 loyalty will not mean points. It will mean identity.

In this episode, we explore why the next generation of Shopify winners will build ecosystems, status layers, and belonging, not coupon ladders. You will learn how to design membership experiences people are proud to join and how to create emotional loy...

Modern Buyer Brain: Chapter 8

What if the real power of your Shopify subscription and membership program has nothing to do with your product and everything to do with human psychology?

Membership doesn't just automate revenue. It automates behavior.

In this episode, we unpack why paid members spend 4 times more, why sunk cost fallacy creates irrational loyalty, and how habit loops drive long-term retention. If you want your Shopify customers to stay because they want to, not because they forg...

Modern Buyer Brain: Chapter 7

The modern Shopify buyer is not ignoring you. They are drowning in noise. With 10,000 ads on average hitting them every day and endless product options, customers default to whatever is easiest, fastest, and most familiar.

In this episode, we unpack how the buyer brain has evolved, why friction kills conversions instantly, and how status, identity, and alignment with values shape purchase behavior in 2025. If you want your Shopify brand to cut through the noise in...

Modern Buyer Brain: Chapter 6

The reason your Shopify customers are not loyal is because you're rewarding the wrong behavior.

Points and discounts were built for a world that no longer exists. Today’s buyers want emotion, recognition, surprise, and belonging. In this episode, we uncover why emotional loyalty outperforms transactional rewards, how brands like Chewy and Starbucks turn small moments into lifelong fans, and how Shopify businesses can build real advocacy without bribing customers.
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Modern Buyer Brain: Chapter 5

Here is a question most Shopify founders avoid. What if your marketing strategy is perfectly optimized for the wrong era of ecommerce? Most brands chase cheap CAC, tweak ads daily, and underinvest in the customers who already love them. The result is predictable. Growth stalls. Churn rises. Referrals disappear.

In this episode, we unpack why marketing must evolve, how member marketing delivers the highest ROI, and how engineered exclusivity and referrals can trans...

The real reason your Shopify subscription growth stalled has nothing to do with your product and everything to do with predictable human psychology.

Most brands hit the same wall around six or seven cycles, watching customers cancel even when the product works perfectly. That is subscription fatigue.

In this episode, we dig into why perceived value always decays over time and how top Shopify brands beat fatigue with layered value, emotional benefits, and membership design. If you want subscribers who stay for years, not months, this episode gives you the playbook.

What if the biggest retention problem in your Shopify business is not retention at all, but the customers you are acquiring in the first place?

Most brands obsess over CAC and conversion, then panic when churn hits, never realizing the two are inseparable.

Acquisition is retention.

What if the reason your Shopify customers aren’t loyal has nothing to do with your service and everything to do with the status your brand fails to create?

Most of us work hard to respond faster, offer better support, and throw in discounts, yet loyalty still slips away. The problem is simple. Service is expected. Status is desired. In this episode, I break down how modern buyers crave identity, recognition, and belonging, and how to design a Shopify membership experience people are proud to join.

What if your Shopify brand is not losing customers because of churn, but because you never designed something worth staying for in the first place?

Most brands play defence. They plug holes, fight cancellations, and scramble for acquisition wins while ignoring the identity, psychology, and membership experience customers actually want.

What if I told you the future of Shopify success has nothing to do with discounts, funnels, or “crushing Q4”… and everything to do with psychology? In this episode we "flipped the mics" and sit on the other side getting interviewed.  We unpacked what loyalty actually looks like in 2025 and beyond, why customers are less loyal than a distracted goldfish, why 76 percent of buyers expect personalization instantly, and why paid membership can 4x your revenue. If you run a Shopify business and you want to stop guessing how loyalty works, this episode will change the way you build your brand forever.

🚨 DON'T MISS OUR EXCLUSIVE WEBINAR WITH TONY 🚨. Join us December 16, 1:00pm ET: https://bit.ly/stop-the-leak-dec-16

Your Shopify brand is losing subscribers that you could easily save and your cancellation page needs more help than your ads! In this Shopify podcast, I dive into cancellation flows with ProsperStack CEO Tony Sternberg and break down the tactics that consistently recover 25 to 40 percent of at-risk subscribers. If you care about retention or LTV, hit play.