Ecommerce Conversations
Ecommerce Conversations is the long-running weekly podcast from Practical Ecommerce, hosted by ecommerce entrepreneur Eric Bandholz. •• Listen in as Eric interviews in-the-trenches founders and executives who address the essentials of launching, growing, and sustaining an online business. Hear their successes, mistakes, and plans — addressing customer acquisition, web traffic, marketing tactics, on-site conversion, shipping, favorite tools, funding, obstacles, and much more. •• New episodes every Friday. Subscribe to the podcast here, and then read a condensed transcript at https://www.PracticalEcommerce.com/tag/podcasts.
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Throughout 2025, host Eric Bandholz has occasionally shared his experiences owning and operating Beardbrand, the direct-to-consumer brand he launched in 2014. He has addressed hiring, branding, profit-building, priority-setting, exiting, and overcoming a million-dollar loss. In this episode, he shares what he believes
Customer acquisition costs can ruin a business. Some merchants limit acquisition spend to the gross margin of the first sale. Others look to customers" lifetime value. Yet Taylor Holiday, CEO of the agency Common Thread Collective, profits from acquisition marketing. He calls it "negative CAC." Taylor first appeared on
John Melizanis believes third-party logistics fees often produce surprise charges. Per-item pricing for picks, packs, and receiving can turn an anticipated $1 per order fee into $2.50 or more, he says. John is the co-founder of ShipDudes, a New Jersey-based 3PL launched in 2020. His company uses flat-rate pricing for p
Nate Lagos is vice president of marketing for Original Grain, a direct-to-consumer seller of luxury watches. He relies on Facebook advertising, but not for immediate customer acquisition. “Platforms such as Facebook are megaphones, not salespeople,” he says. In this episode, Nate shares his marketing origins, advertisi
Ray Reddy is a two-time mobile commerce entrepreneur, a Google veteran, and, now, the head of Shopify POS, the company"s in-store platform. He says the future of retail is location-agnostic, where shoppers can easily move from online to brick-and-mortar without losing account details, order history, and shipping info.
This year host Eric Bandholz has sprinkled occasional episodes with real-life master classes from Beardbrand, his company. To date he"s addressed hiring, branding, profit-building, priority-setting, and exiting. For this installment, he shares Beardbrand’s experience of losing nearly $1 million across 2023 and 2024. It
