Shows / The Unofficial Shopify Podcast
The Unofficial Shopify Podcast
NEW EPISODES EVERY TUESDAY, SUBSCRIBE FOR UNBEATABLE ECOM RECON – Every Tuesday since 2014, host Kurt Elster shares the Shopify success stories that nobody tells you about, straight from the entrepreneurs living it. Subscribe for a raw look at what it really takes to succeed on Shopify.
Episodes
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastCampaign Autopilot updates / Shopify Editions Fall '26
"We actually take the media risk when we buy off-app. And if we don't buy well, that's on us. That's not on the merchant." Samir Pradhan ran ads at Pinterest…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastShopify Editions Fall '26: The Exponential Edition
"Shopping is in our blood. It's the one thing that we care about the most, more than anyone else. And so if anyone's gonna do that work, why not us?" Shopify…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastHe Quit Superyachts to Sell Kilns on Shopify
"This is the largest purchase they make after a car and a house." Matt Davy spent his twenties fixing engines on 450-foot superyachts, earning six figures tax…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastBlack Friday Is a Funnel-Clearing Event, Not List Growth
"BFCM is a funnel clearing event, not a list growth event." Jimmy Kim has spent 18 years in email. He built an in-house email tool for his men's clothing…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastShopify Rebuilt the Theme Editor From Scratch: Canvas
"Now everybody knows code. It's called English." On October 1, Shopify launched Canvas, a new theme editor built around Sidekick. Ben Sehl is Director of…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastFrom $25K to $447K a Month: BattlBox's Whatnot Playbook
"Not knowing what we were doing, just bobbling through it, we did a couple thousand dollars an hour and we were like, whoa, this might be something." John…
The Unofficial Shopify Podcast7 Founders, 15 Minutes Each: What's Working in 2026
Kurt spent a day at Beanstalk, an invite-only ecommerce conference at Industry City in Brooklyn, recording 15-minute conversations under a tent. Seven made it…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastKurt & Paul: September Roundup
Discounts are the biggest line item on your P&L that nobody approved. Kurt and Paul answer the questions merchants keep asking, then lay out the Black Friday…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastHow a Nicotine-Free Vape Brand Grows *Without Ads*
He sells vapes with no nicotine. Every ad platform, payment processor, and carrier treats him like Big Tobacco anyway. Conrad Kurth founded Cyclone Pods in…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastShipBob CMO on Peak Season 2026
He's shipped over a billion units. He says your Black Friday gets decided in September. Casey Armstrong, CMO of ShipBob, returns for his third appearance to…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastShopify's New Rev Share, Catalog, and the Next Big Bets Explained
"You think you know what you're doing. Like I work at Shopify. I should be better at it." That's Atlee Clark, Shopify's VP of Partnerships, on running her own…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastShopify's Head of Growth: How to Get Recommended by AI
"It's more than 2x that conversion rate coming from another referral channel." AI shopping agents are already sending buyers to Shopify stores, and they…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastWhy Your Subscription Program Stopped Growing — Matt Holman
Your subscription program is adding customers every month—so why has it stopped growing? Matt Holman, founder of Subscription Prescription and known as “The…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastREPORT: AI is 0.1% of $274M in sales analyzed
"This traffic is nothing. It is a rounding error." Kurt and Paul pulled 24 months of raw order data from 10 established Shopify stores: 94 million sessions…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastHe Sold a Startup, Now He Sells Viral Dog Pajamas
"Man, what didn't I get wrong? It's so much harder." Brian Nolan sold his SaaS company Sellbrite to GoDaddy. Then he bought Darren & Phillip, an Australian dog…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastKurt & Paul: Agentic Rants
Kurt pulled the agentic sales numbers on a store doing $1.8 million a month. ChatGPT drove $4,200 of it. So he dragooned business partner Paul Reda into an…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastShopify's Campaign Autopilot: AI Ad Agent?
"It's an in-house, ready-to-go agency. Which is free for all merchants." That's how Sachin Malhotra, Shopify's Director of Product for Merchant Marketing…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastAgentic Storefronts: You're Already on ChatGPT
"Being on Shopify means you get access to agentic automatically, out of the box." Your store is already selling inside ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Shop…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastHow Shopify POS Got a Minute Faster Per Sale
"I hear store associates asking people in person for their email all the time, and it always is a little bit awkward." Helen Mou runs product for retail at…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastShop: The Sales Channel You Shouldn't Ignore
Also on YouTube: https://youtu.be/bgrJVYiDQKc "If I don't see that purple button at checkout, bye-bye." That's what Shop's buyers tell Kenny Cohen, and it's a…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastInside Shopify's "Everywhere" Edition | Spring 2026
VP of Product Vanessa Lee joins Kurt to break down the 2026 "Everywhere" edition and the years of quiet groundwork behind it: taxonomy, attributes, clustering…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastHow We Built MKC's Montana Landing Page
Also on YouTube Montana Knife Company was finally releasing its first folding knife, a $390 piece their fans had been begging for, and they wanted an…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastTop 1% of Shopify. 8 Figures. Profit in Year 6.
Also available on YouTube "It was a mind and body brokenness. I'll just say like depression." By 39, Chris Lang was running 10 businesses and falling apart. He…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastHe Reviewed 500 Deals Before Buying One Shopify App
"You would probably prefer to take money from Tony Soprano." Jeremy Horowitz has spent a decade in the Shopify ecosystem, scaled brands at Gorgias, and now…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastThe 3 Red Flags That Mean It's Fraud
"I shipped the bike and a couple of weeks later, the real credit card holder got a statement, said I didn't place that order, filed a chargeback, and then the…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastPrint on Demand's Real Playbook w/ David Hooker
"70% of stuff never goes sold. So you have to be prepared to interact with that level of rejection." David Hooker is the brand director for both Printify and…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastEcom Vibe Check: What's Working in 2026
"If your product sucks, you're never going to succeed. A lot of people are trying to solve product problems with marketing spend." Chase Clymer runs Electric…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastThe B2B Quoting Episode
Denis Dyli has spent 13 years building Shopify stores for the businesses nobody wants to talk about: industrial suppliers, janitorial distributors, pipe…
The Unofficial Shopify Podcast76% of Subscribers Never Come Back (Here's the Fix)
"It sucks to lose a customer not because of the product, but because of the mechanism in which they get the product." Jay Myers has spent a decade building one…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastThe 2026 EcomFuel Report
"Succeeding with paid was not about how good your ROAS was. What the paid experts did so well was they had built a business model structurally that allowed…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastA.I. Tool Time with Kurt
Recorded live at Smart Marketer Mentor Tables in Nashville, this is Kurt's full talk on why most people are bad at AI and what to do about it. The pitch was…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastRemembering Casey Bard
This is a memorial republish. Casey Bard, founder of Tacticalories Seasoning Co., died in early April 2026 after a three-year fight with Stage 4 colorectal…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastWhy Shopify Opened B2B to ALL Plans
Shopify just opened up its foundational B2B features to all paid plans, not just Plus. Samir Pradhan, VP of Product at Shopify, joins the show to break down…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastHe Had Zero Audio Experience. Then He Sold $300K in Turntables.
"I don't have any really relevant credentials or qualifications when it comes to this sort of thing." Noam Sugarman got fed up trying to find a stereo system…
The Unofficial Shopify Podcast7 Years to Profit: The Hamster Ball Reinvented
"There were three or four years straight where we were like, if it doesn't go the way we need it to go, we'll close it down at the end of the year -- and then…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastAEO: Get ChatGPT to Recommend Your Brand
"I think this is a revival of SEO, a little bit of a resurrection." SEO expert Patrick Rice is back, and this time he brought receipts. His agency got a…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastThe Shopify Product Network Explained
Amanda Engelman is the Director of Product at Shopify leading advertising and channel expansion. She built the Shopify Product Network, a free app that lets…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastWe Built a Shopify App. Here's What Broke.
"Even if it ends up being something that ends the universe, it at least will have been a fun ride. So let's do it." That's what Karl Meisterheim said when Kurt…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastLive Selling Secrets From a $25M Golf Brand
"Nobody wants to get rich slowly." Nick Mertz started Pins and Aces with $6,000 and zero outside capital. Today, his golf lifestyle brand does $25 million a…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastWhy This Agency Dropped Paid Media (And Got Bigger)
"I kinda told myself I need to take a step back from e-commerce. When I took a step back, e-commerce said no and put me back in." Amer Grozdanic burned out…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastERP Explained w/ GoodDay's Kyle Hency
For most direct-to-consumer brands, the term "ERP" evokes dread. Six-month implementations. Six-figure costs. Software built for factories, not Shopify stores…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastInfluencer Whitelisting: What It Is & How to Start
Here's something most merchants don't realize: you can run paid ads through an influencer's handle instead of your own. It's called whitelisting, and it…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastThe Financial Blind Spot Costing 7-Figure Stores Millions
"You can't control tariffs. You can't control the weather. But you can control what's happening within your business." Salena Knight has audited thousands of…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastA Mushroom Brand's Bet Against Booze
"I would have invested 100% of all of the money that we raised into Meta. I would have done nothing else but secure that one channel first." After launching…
- The Unofficial Shopify Podcast
The First Shop Mini
"Shop has this amazing opportunity to convert shoppers into people that are being entertained by shoppable content." Bill Staley built the first Shop Mini to…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastThe Period Brand That Won $1.5M in Pitch Contests
Dana Roberts spent years watching fifth-grade girls panic through their first periods with ill-fitting products and no preparation. The period care aisle…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastThe €330M Exit Guy Shares His Europe Playbook
"We were close to closing the company two or three times. Every winter was like, okay, that's it. Goodbye company." Chris Erthel built Meller sunglasses from a…
The Unofficial Shopify Podcast$1.7M BFCM: Inside Montana Knife Company's Black Friday
Montana Knife Company pulled in $1.7 million over Black Friday weekend without discounting a single knife. Co-founder Brandon Horoho explains how: five…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastNative A/B Testing Hits Shopify: What You Need to Know
"It's really about helping merchants become more informed, helping them make more bold decisions." Aaron Glazer, Product Lead at Shopify, reveals two features…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastSHOPIFY EDITIONS WINTER '26
Shopify just dropped their "Renaissance Edition" with 150+ product updates. We cut through the noise. Sidekick finally works—I use it daily now for reports…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastWhy Your Creative Strategy Is Burning Cash
"Do you care enough about new customer acquisition? What you care about shows up based off of your actions, not your thoughts or your words." Meta's Andromeda…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastShe Sold 250K Shampoo Bars Without Amazon or Ads
Kate Assaraf tried every plastic-free shampoo bar on the market. They sat in her shower like, and I'm quoting here, "tombstones." Failed products. Dead ends…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastWhat Discounts Actually Make People Buy (Study)
There's this thing that happens when you run an e-commerce store. You know you need to discount, but you're terrified. Terrified of training customers to wait…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastThis Founder Automated Influencer Outreach Completely
So there's this guy, Bora Celik. Software engineer, thirty years in the game. Last year he tells his investors something crazy: SaaS is dead. Not dying. Dead…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastBuff Clucks: From Homework Assignment to 7-Figure Chicken Brand
So there's this moment in 2022 where Celia Hatch wakes up from a dream about chicken supplements called "Chicken Spice." She thinks it's ridiculous. Fast…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastWhat's New in Shopify: November 2025
Shopify just went from 100 variants per product to 2,048. Shopify Partners Kurt Elster and Paul Reda tested it and found out there's a secret limit at 250…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastBlack Friday Starts Early: The 3-Week Email Strategy
Kurt and Filip break down buy-two-get-two offers that crush percentage discounts, why five emails on Black Friday is actually conservative, and the three-week…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastAccessibility: Bet Hannon's 4-Step Fix
"These tools rely on automation that only catches 30% of issues. And for blind users with screen readers? The overlays often conflict with their assistive…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastSmart Marketer Live 2025
I spent three days at Smart Marketer Live in Denver, capturing raw conversations with agency owners, brand founders, and Meta reps about what's actually…
The Unofficial Shopify PodcastJomboy's 3-in-1 Store + ChatGPT Shopping Arrives
So there's this baseball media company. They make shirts about guys with nicknames like "The Big Dumper." And they needed three different store experiences…