What’s next for e-commerce in MENA—and what are we still getting wrong? In this wide-ranging episode of Below the Fold, global commerce leader Oliver White joins us for a refreshingly honest conversation on e-commerce, omnichannel transformation, and the future of digital retail. Co-hosted by Jad Sfeir, this episode dives into everything from cultural resistance in legacy retail to the real risks of over-engineering e-commerce operations. With over 20 years in commerce across the UK and Middle East—helping brands like Sephora and Chalhoub Group navigate transformation—Oliver unpacks hard lessons, painful truths, and the trends you actually need to pay attention to.
🎯 Topics covered:
💡 If you're in e-commerce, retail, or digital transformation—this is a must-listen masterclass.
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[00:00:00] Oliver and Jad, welcome to the show. Welcome to Below the Fold podcast. Super excited to have you guys here. ~Uh, ~this is yet another podcast on e-commerce. Never Enough, never enough content, audible content, video content on e-commerce.
What works, what doesn't work. ~Um, ~how about little intro? ~Uh, ~let's start with Oliver. Sure. ~Um, ~well, look, thanks for having me. ~Uh, ~yeah. I'm Oliver, Oliver White. ~Um, ~I suppose I'm, I'm looking at about 20 ish years now in, in commerce. ~Um, ~predominantly in digital commerce, but but also a little bit in the, in the physical side of things.
In, started out set up a, a, a commerce agency in the uk. ~Um, ~didn't actually know anything about e-commerce, but. 20 years ago, no one else did either. ~Um, ~and we just got lucky, right? Thing I'd say some, a lot of us don't, don't know till now. Yeah. But I didn't wanna announce that. Still learning for the world.
Still learning. Yeah. We're here for a reason. I'm trying to pretend. ~Uh, ~yeah. ~Um, ~and then,~ uh,~ we, we got lucky, right? Right thing, right time, right place. ~Um, ~we scaled that and we would essentially design, build, [00:01:00] run,~ um,~ and operate platforms on behalf of, of, of small to medium sized kind of British. Retailers sold that not for very much money, unfortunately.
~Um, ~and then essentially went to work in, in private equity. So, so most of the, the roles I did in the UK and I fell under the umbrella of, of, of private equity, I just get dropped in and, and essentially try and fix the, the digital side of the business or, or, or, or transform, I suppose is, is, is the kind of modern vernacular, the, the online side of the business, whether that was strategy, tech,~ uh,~ operational side of things, and then yeah, being out back, being out here in the Middle East for.
~Uh, ~about 10 years now. ~Um, ~spent a couple of years in Q eight helping Al Shire set up commerce across a handful of different brands. ~Um, ~came across to Dubai to work with Sephora,~ um,~ and, and help set up and scale their commerce across the region. Did a bit of freelance here and there and, and, and now, yeah.
~Uh, ~work with,~ uh,~ one of the big US advertising groups to, to, to help run their e-commerce practice. Fantastic experience. And Jad, I mean, Jad, this is your third time on the show. ~Uh, ~I'm not sure if, if you need an intro, but I think at, at this [00:02:00] point it just feels like I'm parroting right. ~Um, ~but yeah, I've been in brick and mortar.
I've started out my career in well outta college, in department stores, worked for g ~uh, ~and a lot of,~ uh,~ large format retails. ~Uh. ~Also hypermarket supermarkets, brands, and j you know, I've helped set up their online channels as well. So I've done e-commerce. ~Um, ~and I currently still work with large format.
~Uh, ~I do duty, free duty, paid,~ uh,~ department stores, luxury,~ um,~ for she hoop group as well now. So, ~um, ~yeah, I, I know I have a foot in both worlds, so I know how. ~Um, ~how much of a myth and how difficult it is for act for us to actually realize omnichannel. But we can have more of your take on that,~ um,~ during this podcast.
So I look forward to it. Cool. And,~ uh,~ Jad has prepared a list of questions not to ask you,~ um,~ in, in, in our world today. I does everything, so, but,~ uh,~ no, I, I don't want to dwell too much on questions, but I mean, like, tell us more about, you know. ~Uh, ~[00:03:00] you, you said it yourself. You started out with brick and mortar, and then you bumped into commerce and e-commerce and you start, you know, digitizing platforms for commerce on, on, on the web.
How does, how, how, how exactly does legacy meet,~ uh,~ digital, you know, like how do you, how do you transform, how do you transpose whatever this hundred year retail has been doing into a digital e-commerce that makes sense and is relevant? Yeah, I think, I mean, I think that the, the first barrier to break down as it were is, is, is that whole concept of, of physical and digital.
Mm-hmm. I, I, I, I, I think we're finally getting to a point in time where the concept of online and offline have, have started to, to merge, right? This, this whole concept of, of omnichannel, which has been thrown around for years, but, but has ne never really kind of landed. Yeah. I think if, if, if, if you put yourself in the consumer's shoes now, like I, as a consumer, I'm not.
I don't identify as an online shopper or an offline shopper. Right. I do the vast majority of my shop in online, but I still shop in [00:04:00] stores. I still, I still go to shops. ~Um, ~so I think when you're working with like embedded comm, sort of legacy retailers, the, the, the first thing is, is that kind of cultural transformation to, to actually ensure that the business isn't thinking in terms of fixed channels.
It, it's got us think in terms of consumer journeys,~ um,~ and most consumers will. We'll, we'll do a bit of both when it comes to purchase, right? They, they, they might start their journey online. They might visit a store, they might then purchase online or, or, or whatever. It's not, it's not a linear, it's not a linear journey anymore, if it ever was.
So I think the, the hardest part and the, the, the first thing to address is, is that that that kind of cultural or that perception that, that there's the stores and then there's the website or the app or whatever. It's, it's, it's the same thing, right? It's the same consumers. That, that they interact with, with, with, with both platforms.
So, ~um, ~trans transforming that mindset within, within the organization I think comes first. There's always kind of the, the, the, the people challenge, right? The, the, the structural challenge. I think still today, [00:05:00] there isn't really a, a fixed model or a framework that that brands or retailers use when it comes to commerce.
Commerce sometimes sits as its own. Kind of vertical off to one side. Sometimes it sits under it, sometimes it sits under merchandising. Sometimes it sits under sales. Under retail sales. Exactly. And everyone does something different. So I think finding the right organizational model or structure for the particular business is, is the second thing.
Mm-hmm. Right. And, and then you build out from there. I think,~ uh,~ what's, what's very relevant about what you said is that culture comes first, right? Like the transformation of the culture comes before the transformation of the company into digital assets, which,~ uh,~ is very interesting because the biggest friction points that we've seen, especially in in large format stores or multi-branch stores, is the adoption of digital as another viable channel by the salespeople of the physical stores.
Exactly. And it's very interesting to see that they de they, they depict [00:06:00] it as a, as a challenger and as competition. Yeah. You know, where it was very difficult for us to start thinking about metrics and how we incentivize people in physical channel to actually adhere and push for digital adoption.
Exactly. I mean, especially in the luxury space, right. If you've got retail teams that, that are incentivized on sales performance. Yeah. Whether that's at an individual store basis. Getting them to recognize the value that the digital experience brings to them. And in trying to kind of recognize sales that, that finish online, that that might have started in the store, and making sure that the, the people that were involved in that experience are, are recognized is, is kind of the, the, the key thing.
~Uh, ~it it, it was a journey, you know, ~uh, ~throughout, earlier in my career when we set up the first e-commerce in, in some of the previous companies I worked in. ~Uh, ~the top leadership would say, okay, but since ~uh, ~e-commerce is doing most of the job, then we shouldn't incentivize the sales person the same incentive as the, if they did the whole journey with the customer in store big.
No-no. You know, [00:07:00] because if you do that, then what's the incentive for the sales person to fulfill your order online? Exactly. If he's getting less money for it, and you immediately create that friction. Right, exactly. Immediate becomes that aspect. Exactly. You're the, the one that's creating it by saying, oh, they're not on the same, they're not on par.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So interesting. Okay. ~Um, ~what about operational obsessions? You know, like, ~uh, ~when does e-commerce become over-engineered? ~Uh, ~when, when do you think much too much becomes too much? Actually pretty quickly, to be honest. Especially, especially in this,~ uh,~ this, this, this might not be a, a very fair thing to say, but especially in this part of the world, right?
'cause I think a lot of, of the big retail organizations here have, have not, perhaps not so much today, but certainly if you go back 2, 3, 4. Plus years. Yeah. A lot of the senior commerce leadership here,~ uh,~ people like me, right? They, they're transplants were, were brought in from other, other markets and you, you're typically paid a slightly inflated salary in this part of the world versus say, Europe.
~Um, ~so you have to, you have to prove your worth. Mm-hmm. So. I, I, I feel a lot of the big retail organizations [00:08:00] here engineer these really complex e-commerce operations architectures, and it's quite often because someone is trying to justify their, their, their salary, right? Yeah. And the average tenure, the average lifespan of a, a chief digital officer or chief commerce officer or, or whatever kind of label you want to give, give them is, is short here, it's, it's kinda 18 months, two years.
So that person moves out. Someone else comes in and you, you repeat the same cycle all of a sudden. Right? Well, I need to, I need to prove that, that I can make this better. And it, it, it's, you people never start with the basics. They always start with the right. We've gotta re-platform. Mm-hmm. All right. We need to, we need to introduce this and, and, and you take on these big kind of initiatives that are under unthought, under planned, and it it, it's almost like US government, you, you bring in a president of the United States, they've got a four year tenure.
~Um, ~they wanna do all these big things, but you've only got four years. Right. You, you, you, you can't necessarily, unless you get success, there's only so much you can do. Exactly. You actually, a good tenure [00:09:00] would be for you to start the ball rowing for your successor to take over. Right. Exactly. Nobody has this kind of thought process.
Yeah. Especially in Dubai. In practical terms, you mean investing, for example, in a piece of MarTech. Huge amounts of money, but only ending up using 10% of it. Exactly. And you see that all the time here. And I, I, I, I mean, you see, you're seeing that now a little bit, I think potentially with like retail media.
Retail media is like one of the, the, the, the kind of in, in favor topics at the moment within the commerce space. How can I monetize my, my own platform audience? My, my first party data, I can do that by, by selling advertising space or, or, or, or, or selling,~ um,~ selling that data so that OO other companies can serve media on, on, on third party platforms.
But that's actually really complex. Not necessarily from a tech perspective, but, but, but it's a big business change. 'cause all of a sudden you go from selling product to selling data. Media. Media. So there's lots of layers between the tech and the actual kind of revenue that comes in from that. And, and.
And it's not, it's not [00:10:00] just, it's, it's not a golden ticket, right. It's not a guaranteed in, in inflow of, of, of high margin revenue. Mm-hmm. You've, you've gotta sort of build that out. You've gotta have a business that's ready to do that. So, yeah. That's a long-winded answer to the question. Yeah. No, it's,~ uh,~ let's, I mean, let, let us take it where it, where it's taking us.
Right. That's what's interesting about it, is that it's never clear cut. Yeah. It's never, it's never a small question with a small answer and direct straight point. And as you said, it's all trial and error. Exactly. That's all we've been doing. And, and going into trial and error, which was the brand that taught you the hardest harshest lesson you would say from your career so far?
I, I mean there's, yeah, there's been some pretty painful lessons all along the journey to be honest. ~Um, uh, ~and, and different lessons, different lessons all along the journey as well. I think,~ um,~ I think going back to when I first started out in, in commerce,~ um,~ and we were sort of designing, building and, and, and kind of operating sort of sites on, on behalf of brands.
You, you, you would think you'd kind of cracked it. You would do something that made an impact, whether it was something that suddenly [00:11:00] pushed up, conversions, something that, that, that, that helped them pull down operating cost. And you think that's it? Brilliant. We'll, we'll just roll that out across the other, the other brands that we're working with.
And it cookie cutter. Exactly. It would never only works in the kitchen. Exactly. Exactly. You, you would, you would never see the results that you expected to see or hope to see when you, when you did the same. Agree. Because, again, because different people, different cultures, different organizations, the structure mentalities.
I've had the same exact pain points. Exactly. Yeah. But it doesn't matter where it is, whether it's digital performance, operational, or, or in the stores, it, it really is very true. Right? Yeah. There's, there's no way you can take something, it just adopt it across,~ um,~ especially with people that have been like you in different countries, you know, you kind of like, it's already difficult to get it inside the same city.
Imagine if youre trying to do the same thing across countries. Yeah. I always see people kind of. Promoting playbooks on commerce and stuff. Yeah. And, and sure there's certain sort of concepts or, or, or, or, or ideas that the methodology, the method methodology works, right. You know, the, the research, [00:12:00] the understanding and principle.
Yeah, exactly. But then, but the empirical is always, is always, you've gotta, you've gotta do it on a case by, so I mean, that, that was always a, a pretty painful lesson back at the time. I mean, I think, ~um. ~I think I've always, for, for the early part of my career, I always underappreciated or, or undervalued the impact of, again, it's an overused word, but culture, right?
So I moved from, from the UK to Q eight, and I, I was super conscious. I was su super cognitive of the fact that I was going from London to Q eight, read loads of books about local culture, et cetera, how to. Behave in the, nothing prepares you. Right. Nothing really prepares you for, to be honest, I was massively over prepared in that sense because I went, I went to a company that was essentially European run.
Okay. A lot of the senior management there were, were, were, were Brits actually. ~Um, ~so it was, it was pretty familiar to what I was used to. And then I, I went from from Q eight to Dubai to work with Sephora. And didn't give a second thought to culture. I was like, I figured it all out now I know everything.
And it was a, it was a [00:13:00] massive shock, right? Because it, it's a, it's a French run company. Mm-hmm. But kind of with part local ownerships. It's, and everyone in that organization is a mix of cultures. Right? You don't have just English people, you don't have just French people. Everyone is kind of. Syrians Lebanese, or a mix?
Yeah. I, I, I was born here, but I grew up here and, and I studied French speaking, studied, I dunno, from where exactly. Yeah. So it, it, it ways of doing things just completely change and, and, and ways of getting thing done, things done crucially were just completely unfamiliar to me. So there was quite a painful learning experience and yeah, there's been, there's been plenty of others along the way.
Okay, let's go technical. Okay. If there was, this is where I'm exposed. This is where everything comes out. ~Uh, ~if you were to eliminate like one very used dashboard metrics Yeah. You know, in, in e-commerce and how we track performance, which one would it be? I, it is a, it's a difficult question 'cause I mean we were chatting sort of off, off camera before, and.
~Uh, ~don't say that to [00:14:00] people, but there's,~ uh,~ I, I mean, you can't, there's no one metric that on its own really offers that much value, I think. Mm-hmm. Consumers are complex. Yeah. The, the, the journeys we go on to purchase are, are complex. How we buy, what devices we're buying on,~ uh,~ what, what payment methods.
There's so many variables. Along, along the journey to purchase that. Yeah. One metrics doesn't give you a, a view on that, right? In a lot of cases, 10 metrics don't give you a view. You've got, you've got to have the right balance of, of, of, of qualitative and quantitative and, and, and data and kind of human intuition, right?
You've gotta, you've, I think one of the most valuable things that people who work in commerce is, is, is, is being able to understand, like consumer empathy, whatever, whatever you wanna call it, but being able to understand, right? Why is, why is a consumer. Buying from me versus one of my competitors. What does a consumer want when they come and interact with me?
Whether that's in a physical store or or, or [00:15:00] on a website. Being able to understand that and then layer data over the top of that to get a better understanding of, of where you're right, where you're wrong, where you could be better. I think is, is, is is the kind of nirvana, if you like. Mm-hmm. So, so to, to answer the question just one metric on its own, I mean dashboard, I mean, ROI is is something I hate, right?
It's, it's, yeah. Just evaluating everything through the lens of, of of ROI is, is, is, is kind of a, a trigger. Mm-hmm. I suppose for me. Mm-hmm. ~Um, ~it makes it cold, impersonal, right? ~Uh, ~yeah. And it just, it, it's, it's very narrow. Yeah. So going to something that I, I completely agree with you, and that's very interesting, is that the first layer is to understand why the customer buys from us.
Yes. Whether it's digital or physical. ~Uh, ~how would you establish that? Like how, how would you, how, what would you recommend for companies to understand the why? I mean, fundamentally, you, you've gotta talk to consumers. Okay. ~Um, ~whatever form that that might take, that might take, [00:16:00] whether that's kind of interviews or that's social listening or whatever.
You, you, you, you've got to listen to what your consumers are, are saying. ~Um, ~because everything ultimately stems from there. That's always a dangerous game because how you ask people a question influences what, what answer you get back. Right. So it is a, I think it's an underrated, it's an underrated kind of area of, of, of, of commerce.
Mm-hmm. To be able to actually properly speak to consumers. Yeah. Without influencing what they. What they're gonna tell you back and then, and then turn that kind of anecdotal insight into something meaningful, I think is, is super important. Mm-hmm. You, you, you've gotta understand your landscape, your, your, your competitive landscape.
What are your competitors doing? ~Um, ~what's working for them? Why is it working for them? You've gotta understand kind of the broader kind of market lands landscape. So there's, there's lots of information out there. I think it's just very difficult to actually. Dilute that, or distill that is probably a better word, into, into something that, that is actually actually actionable.
[00:17:00] Okay. Interesting. ~Um, ~so what about the future of, of commerce, right? ~Um, ~I mean right now we've, we're talking about hyper-personalization, you know, and, and AI and conversational commerce, and what's your take on all of this? What do you think are gonna be. What, what are the false profits in all of, in all of these, and what are, in your opinion, the trends that are gonna stick to the next decade?
Sure. I mean, personalization is another trigger word for me. I think I, I might be being unfair, but for as long as I can remember back,~ uh,~ when I first started in, in commerce, I feel like I was going to conferences or, or reading things that we're talking about. How personalization is gonna transform commerce and how consumers were demanding personalization.
And if you didn't deliver it, no one's gonna buy from you. But if we kinda strip away the noise and look at what imp practical terms personalization is today, still putting your first name at the top of the email. Yeah. Well, welcome Oliver. Right. It's [00:18:00] still, it does, it doesn't go much beyond that, right? I, I'm still logging into like, if, if you use fashion as an example 'cause it's quite relatable.
I'm, I'm still logging in. To that top fashion retailers and having to select men's clothing. Mm-hmm. ~Um, ~I've never bought women's clothing. Maybe that's a phase I'll get to later in life, but for now, I, I, I, I, I don't shop women's clothing yet. Some of the biggest, best websites out there still by default offer me women's clothing.
Mm-hmm. I have to select men, like I buy the same two or three sizes every time I shop, the same two or three brands. My color palette is blue, black, and gray. I don't. Wear consistent. Yeah, exactly. I, I can't pull off bright colors. Like I'm not, I'm not a trend setter. I'm, I'm a pretty basic individual when it comes to what I wear, but every time I go onto one of these platforms, I have to apply all of these filters and, and there is no personalization beyond.
People that bought this also bought this, or like, you might like this. Do you think it's coming or do you think we're [00:19:00] just, you know, I think we might repeating the same thing over and over and over and over again. I, I think we might just completely leapfrog it. Like you, you, you ask about the, the future I think.
The, the, the future is probably, and again this, this, I'm reluctant to use the word because it will become an overused word, but agen commerce, I think is, is, is WI was just at a very interesting conference about agen ai. I dunno if you saw the, the, the, the Google,~ um,~ developer conference the other day. But yes, but I mean, some of the capabilities that are now that they're not really the future, they're, they're, they're sort of now.
They are, they are. They've been implemented. Exactly, exactly. Orchestrators are real. So whether you like it, they're not necessarily mass adoption yet, but the the capabilities are there. I, I think as a consumer that's super exciting. As someone who, who earns a salary from Commerce, it's quite terrifying.
I'm not sure. I guess you, why, I'm not sure what value I'll allow to if AI can do everything that you do right now. Well, yeah. I mean, if, if, if, if I'm opening the, if I'm opening an app, whether that's Google or chat g PT or whatever, and I'm saying listen. ~Um, ~I, [00:20:00] I want to, I want a, a blue long sleeve polo shirt in this material between this price range available in this size.
Why are you bothering? You can take a picture, upload and, yeah, true. Yeah. Yeah. You don't even need to go through the showing thing of describing it for I'm showing my age. Yeah, exactly. I could just take, you could probably like save the image from online. Just plug it in and then find me this, this is my price range.
Find me the best deal, find me something with whatever, and, and if it serves me back. All the choices that I would normally spend quite a long time searching through Google for and offers and price comparing and Exactly, yeah. And I mean, it, it will know my address before long. It will save my car details before long and it will just ask me like, do you want to, do you wanna buy this?
I can have it shipped in three days. And I'll say, yes, visa did launch actually, and I,~ uh,~ solution Visa. Yes, they launched an AI solution that will go and buy. Products for you. Exactly. That's why I'm not, orchestrators are real. I mean, for, for people that are listening to us and don't know what art crusaders are, it's,~ uh,~ it, it's, it's an ai,~ um,~ you know, [00:21:00] it's an ai,~ uh,~ I would say concert leader,~ uh,~ that is,~ um,~ funneling through different agentic ais that will do different jobs for it and then feed it back into it so that it would then continue processing until it finds you the best solution for the task at hand.
So it's, it's, it's surreal in some sense. And I understand Oliver when he's saying, you know, it's, it's not, it's not a threat because for me it's an exhilarating process where you can clone yourself, you know? 'cause you can, you can, you can now have Oliver on five different jobs, you know, doing the exact same things and being as competent because he knows how to prompt these ais in order to do that.
Yeah. And this is where, you know, I, I think I speak quite enough about AI on LinkedIn myself, but there's a lot of other people, and I think it's completely true. ~Uh, ~a AI will never replace people. It, it's people that know how to use AI that will replace people. Yeah. This is where the difference is. Right.
And back on the,~ uh,~ personalization point. ~Um, ~and what are the blockers for personalization? [00:22:00] So I trigger him. So feel my blood right. Feel my blood pressure rising. Yeah. ~Um, ~so. I wouldn't say it, it's a matter of capabilities or, or culture or people. I would say it's a tech challenge because of the lack of platform speaking to each other.
So a website may not know you because of consent, for example, because of the cookie,~ uh,~ becoming,~ uh,~ more and more useless. ~Um, ~and so perhaps with ai, if you have a companion. You, you only talk to this companion, you've given this companion,~ uh,~ all the data about yourself and it can absorb all this data and now it can become super personalized.
Would you say it's a tech issue then a tech,~ uh,~ challenge? I, I, I don't know. Like the tech has been there for years. Mm-hmm. Like good tech got commoditized in, in, in, in the commerce world. Good tech got commoditized years ago. Right. It, [00:23:00] it's not a, it's not a wildly ambitious technical. Ambition. I think it comes from and, and, and consent.
I'm slightly on the fence with consent. Yeah. Because consent was a, was a big thing for a while, but, but it seems to be relaxing a little bit now and I think as con consumers, I, I, I think broadly speaking, people are pretty relaxed about consent. I give my consent for, I mean, I work in the industry. Yeah. I still give my consent for everything without a second thought.
Right. ~Um. Uh, ~so I, I think that the data's there. Yeah. The texts there, I don't, I think it's still a, I think it's still a, a failing of, of, of the, of the willingness of, of retailers. Of Right. Of brands. Yeah. And there are, I suppose there are kind of business complications in the sense that if you are, if you're personalizing the assortment that, that your consumers see too much.
If you are a retailer that sells multiple brands, you, you, you, you're gonna get a bit of pushback from certain brands,~ um,~ because they want their products to be visible the maximum amount of time. ~Um, ~[00:24:00] but yeah, I, I couldn't really give you. An honest, clear answer to that. I, I dunno what the block, the blockage is with, with, with personalization.
Yeah. That's part of the, that's part of the, the frustration. Yeah. But, but there is a, a, a,~ um,~ no doubt that we are moving towards a one stop shop perhaps for e-commerce rather than multiple touchpoint, right. Multiple apps for us, which is scary. Conduct our shopping. I mean, it's scary from a, a business perspective, talking about marketing, like media, like shopping, commerce.
Commerce itself. Yeah. So shopping instead of going through various websites and apps for you to buy from retailers now with Agentic ai, I don't agree. You would. You would go and I would not agree with that. Do your shopping from one place. I think there are people that would do that for sure. Yeah. And.
Like the same way that today you have people on the spectrum. Because like, let's think about it this way. Initially we had people that would go to model brand stores and multi-brand stores. Then we had people that would go to multi-brand stores, exclusively [00:25:00] modern brand stores. Exclusively or online?
Exclusively. Right. On the spectrum we're talking. So there are people that might do all three. There might people that would do two outta three, and people that would just do one thing. Same thing. A Gente guy for me is a fourth. Channel now, so you're gonna go, you're gonna have people that are still going to e-commerce because they like the experience of that specific channel.
Mm-hmm. There are other people that will go to stores that because they like this specific store and there are other people that would go to a to AI because it just makes their life easier. Yeah. I, I don't think it's, I mean, the e-commerce is gonna destroy brick and mortar thing that started in the early two thousands, right?
Yeah. I mean, we're still here. Brick and mortar is still alive and well, still prolific, still opening stores like crazy. Everybody, every company. Mm-hmm. Some companies have problems. Yes, some, some e-commerce have problems as well. Tomorrow, some guys might have problems. So, ~uh, ~you know, it's, it's, I don't think anybody's gonna replace every, anybody.
I just think it's just gonna layer on top of each other and, you know, create a seamless journey that is,~ uh,~ hybrid for [00:26:00] some,~ uh,~ you know, mono channel for others. And, and it's just gonna continue that way. Yeah. ~Um, ~but I, I think that AI was, or these,~ um,~ companions are bound for growth in the sense of Sure, for sure.
The experience that they can deliver to the end user. So right now, if you look at. ~Uh, ~the, some of the leading AI interfaces, right? Mm-hmm. It's very text heavy, text,~ uh, um, ~centric. Yeah. But sooner or later, who knows, they might be able be able to bring you the entire collection of a brand, you know, with visuals and maybe perhaps a way for you to try them on, on the, on the interface itself.
And so these AI interfaces can one, you know, one way or another become aggregators for these retail brands? For sure. And that will eat up a little bit from other apps. We, we already see it today. There's a lot of applications that are coming in, like ai, personal shoppers. Mm-hmm. ~Uh, ~you know, that would go out and you would have, you're gonna have applications that are soly going to use AI for drop shipping.
They're, they're gonna, they're gonna be cra scrambling around the web, getting you [00:27:00] products, recommending it for you. You're a street,~ uh,~ lifestyle guy. Okay? This, these are, this is the shirt from Una. Mm-hmm. This is the pants from Amazon. This is the, you know what I mean? And, and then you just click, okay, I wanna buy all of four.
And then it will do everything for you. Literally. It will use your card information, your data information, your personal,~ uh,~ your name and everything. And just like two days later, you'll find all four boxes in front of your doorstep. There isn't much data about it now, but. People are talking and saying that AI is taking a little bit of Google search queries, right?
And Google search is obviously a gate for websites, for brand websites and apps. Mm-hmm. ~Um, ~and so with AI taking some of that,~ uh,~ search volume, some of those search volumes, what does that mean for brands that I, I think it's interesting that, 'cause I think was it, was it April, which is the first month in history that Google search volumes have ever dropped?
~Um, ~but if you, the big headline Yeah, exactly. Google's in trouble. Exactly, exactly. Just, yeah, just gone. Yeah. And, and obviously the, yeah. The press reaction to that is, that's it, it's the [00:28:00] end of search, but forget it. Everyone's selling their Google shares. ~Um, ~but then if you, if you, if you watch the, the, the Google Developer Conference the other day, Google is just evolving their search product.
Mm-hmm. So AI is now embedded within Google search product and. You and you can see it. Right? Exactly. So when you use Chrome now, the first recommendation is an AI recommendation. Exactly. And, and, and, and the, the virtual Tryon feature that they're releasing in the US later this year is just embedded within search.
So it will serve you back product recommendations in a kind of Google shopping esque style. And you'll be able to click a button that says Virtual Tryon, where you could just upload. ~Uh, ~any old picture of yourself and it will, it, it will dispose the, the, the product image on, on you in a really sort of hyper realistic way.
Mm-hmm. So the, the search products will just evolve. Mm-hmm. To, to be, to, to, to be ai, which I think is, is, is, is what people miss. And I think that your, your earlier point, I think where there's, where, where there's good potential here is when, when e-commerce came along, ev for years, everyone was like death of the high street [00:29:00] and especially.
~Uh, ~British, British press is always desperately miserable and always kind of the end of the world is coming. The US was a lot more dramatic, like it was Hollywood esque, you know, the, the, that's it. Stores are gone, boarded up shops and, and, and yeah, apocalyptic kind of malls. ~Um, ~but, but retail evolved.
E-commerce forced retail agreed to evolve. Right. You lost the brands. Focus on experience, you know? Exactly. Actually give somebody, give, give people a reason to come to your store. Exactly. That is not. I just wanna buy a shirt. And we, we lost the brands that were just rails of discounted clothing in stores.
Because consumers demanded more from retail experiences. Correct. And I think we're, we're, we're probably at a point in time. I'm guilty of this. I think a lot of people that work in commerce are guilty of this, of talking about how it commerce moves so quickly. Like we, we, we create this idea that we are at the very forefront of retail and we're carving a path for everyone else.
And if you're not working in commerce, you're, you're, you're left behind. But it, it's nonsense really. 'cause commerce [00:30:00] hasn't, hasn't evolved that much over the last, say, 10 years. Right. You, you, you have a couple of inflection points where all of a sudden things change, like iPhone comes along, it's all about mm-hmm.
Responsive design, mobile first apps, et cetera. So you have these kind of big inflection points, but websites still broadly look the same as they did say 10 years ago. Mm-hmm. I, I still look back at retailers I worked for 10 years ago, and the website's pretty much the same as the, as the one, the one I put put in at the time.
I think with like agentic commerce and, and ai, I think it's gonna force. People who sell online to, to step up, right? Mm-hmm. 'cause consumers are going to demand or come to your D two C platform and I'll shop with you. It's gonna elevate every experience of the, of the previous channels. Exactly. So it lifts the whole, it lifts the whole kind of retail shopping experience up for everyone.
So as, as we can all see, we could stay here for hours, but unfortunately we're limited in time. So we're gonna step into the next,~ uh,~ part of it. ~Uh, ~teams. How'd you grow them? Who'd you, how'd you [00:31:00] recruit? What's. What's your, like two, three tricks or advice that you could give people? Because searching for the right e-commerce leadership roles are always, you know, a pain point.
Yeah. And we were discussing it initially, right. ~Uh, ~so tell us how, how'd you do it? ~Um, ~it's not, it's not a very nice, nice term, but I, I always focus on, I, I think soft skills, I hate that term, but I can't think of a better one, are becoming more important than ever. Right. I. Fundamentally, I don't think e-commerce is that complex.
It's it's selling stuff to people who, who, who buy stuff, right? At its very core. So sure there are specialisms within that. You need people who understand data. You need people to understand ux, you need developers, you need, you need architects, et cetera. All, all, all, all along that process. But, but at its core, you, you, you, you are someone who wants to sell something to, to someone else.
Mm-hmm. So I, I always think. At least what I always look for is, is people who can empathize with, with the consumer. People can understand empathy. Empathy would be the one trait. [00:32:00] You think that is one of the most important. Empathy with the, with the consumer and, and, and people who are good to work with. I think that's an underrated quality, right?
You can teach skills, people can learn new things quite, quite easily. But you, you want people who understand the consumer and. I know it ultimately Good, good to work with, right? Yeah. How'd you search for empathy? I mean, how do you probe for it, right? Because it's a tough quality to measure, especially in a few interviews.
Yeah, I could. Good question. I think when I tend to, into, I, I tend not, not to focus on the technical skills partly 'cause I don't know if I'm always qualified to, to be the one to evaluate someone's technical capabilities, but I I, I'll ask them, you know, where do you shop? How do you shop? And I'll just get them to talk about what they buy and how they buy and, and, and, and try and relate that to.
To, to, to, to the role that I'm speaking to them about. Right. And how, how does, how do you think that has an implication here? I think also ask them, you know, if they've been in a tough situation and have, they've, how they've dealt with it. Right. And just like probe and see if, [00:33:00] if they did it with empathy, best experiences, then yes.
Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Cool. ~Um, ~last five minutes, I guess. Yeah. I mean, we, we have a few, a bit of time for a couple more questions. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But I really wanna dig into all of unfiltered, right? So I'd like to know more about the person sitting across me at the table. So, ~um, uh, ~if, if, okay, so I see,~ uh,~ I see you're active on LinkedIn.
If you, if you, if you had to, if we, let's say we erase your profile and you had to start from scratch and you have to describe yourself in one sentence, what it would be. That's,~ uh,~ I, I mean I'm so dependent on AI now to write for me that I don't think I could give you, I think we all are intelligent sentence, aren't we?
Are Aren, we off the cuff. Yeah, I just, we all, yeah, I'm not, I'm not, unfortunately, I didn't have that kind of Donald Trump s quality where I can just, we can ask you I what you would write about you in one sentence. Yeah. I mean, given my search history on, on Chat, I'm not sure I'd, I'd like to share that with anyone.
~Um. ~Yeah. I, I, I mean, I, I think LinkedIn has changed so much over [00:34:00] the last, I guess, post, post COVID, I suppose like everything else, everybody's excited, exhilarated, and happy to be there. Right. Yeah. Everything's game changing. ~Uh, ~that's another trick words. Yeah. Happy to be here. I like this. Yeah. I think I used to love Link.
I used to be such a valuable tool. I used to get so much good quality information there. Now, I guess like all social channels, it's, it's sifting through, it's sifting through the noise. It's sifting through the people that are there because. They that, you know, just cl chasing versus people that this is where it's more important than ever for you to engage and actually tell Yeah.
The algorithm, what you like, what you wanna see, what you, right. So I think my, my approach to LinkedIn now is, is, is keep it, keep it concise, right? Yeah. ~Um, ~don't, don't try and over, don't try and over explain. Don't try and,~ um,~ kind of over-engineer what, what you're trying to say. Just, just keep it, keep it, keep it, keep it, keep it concise.
Keep it to the point. Be, be helpful. Yeah. Off of value. Yeah. I think this is, this would be something I would be interested in on LinkedIn. So the concise one sentence, I, I did, I actually did this. I shouldn't say this 'cause it'll sound like I'm looking for a new job. [00:35:00] I'm not. ~Um, uh, ~but I actually did this the other day.
Don't please, whoever's listening to me from Yeah. I actually did this the other day. So I think, I think, and I, I used AI for it. So I think it says, uh uh, leading lean digital teams and large E-commerce p and ls. I like that. Yeah. Okay. Straight to the point. Simple. Yeah. Leading lean digital teams. It has a nice ring to it as well.
Yeah. Yeah. A little bit of less literation, well done. The eye, it's all about the prompt and,~ um,~ what's the one hill,~ um,~ you'll still be willing to die on no matter how unpopular it is in a boardroom. I mean, this tends to be, I would say, quite popular in the boardroom, but, but difficult to execute beyond it for me.
E-commerce is, is ultimately retail and retail needs to be profitable. So for, for me, anything that's that, that, that I'm doing for, for, for a business, I, I want that to contribute towards bottom line, not top line, but, but. Bottom line. Most e-commerce [00:36:00] businesses, I think this is still true today, it's becoming less true because focus is shifting.
But too many e-commerce businesses today are still unprofitable, right? There's, they're still, there's still a net cost business, the old Amazon model, right? It's a bit because of what Jeff Bezos built in the early two thousands, growing the company tenfold exactly over year, over year. And everybody still has this ideology that, oh, in order to grow, you need to focus on the top line and forget about the bottom line.
But then. Yeah. Am Amazon retail is still unprofitable as globally, right? I think in North America it's, yeah, Amazon retail is a standalone is profitable, but globally it nce. But the strategy of Amazon is, is astonishing in the sense where it created parallel businesses that are hyper profitable. Exactly.
You know, like AWS, for example, by itself. Yeah. ~Um, uh, ~and allowing Amazon retail to continue being growth. Focus, you know, but, but that's a, a relatively unique model that Correct. Most retailers can't adopt. Right? You're not, if, if you are a traditional inverted commerce retailer, you're not adopting commerce to, to build out a [00:37:00] parallel revenue stream.
Right. You're adopting commerce to, to, to, to protect your core business and to grow your goals. That's your main focus and your main money, money maker. You better make sure it is money making. Right? Exactly. You've gotta get your, your unit economics right. ~Um, ~and you've gotta get. You've gotta get them right from, from from the start.
It it, so I think the, yeah, to answer the question, the hill I'll die on is that that unit economics, profitability needs to, needs to be at the center of, of kind of anything. Completely agree. Cool. You wanna go freestyle? Good stuff. ~Uh, ~freestyle style. We could, we could do freestyle. I have two questions for you Oliver.
Sure. The first one is if we were to cover another,~ uh,~ or we, if we were to plan another episode on e-commerce, what would be 1, 2, 2 or three topics that you, you think we should cover? ~Um, ~a good question. I think, I think the, it, it's, it's not kind of the, the sexy [00:38:00] part of commerce, but I think the, the, the, the how.
How businesses incorporate e-commerce into their, into their business, into their structure, I think is is is kind of under-discussed. Yeah. And we, we touched on it right at the beginning, but where does e-commerce sit? What, what, what does an e-commerce organizational structure look like? You know, what, what, what roles, what, what, what, what specialties, what functionalities?
I, I think that's quite an interesting topic because I still, as I said before, I still don't think there's a, and there'll never be, there'll never be a one size fits all. Framework or model. Right. But I, I don't even think there's kind of four or five broadly accepted sort of versions of what good looks like there.
So I think that that's, that's can be quite an interesting topic. I think. ~Um, ~I mean we've touched on it today, but the future of the future of e-commerce is it, it's often over discussed. Mm-hmm. Because the pace of change I think, has stall a little bit in recent years, but I think we're probably now approaching another big inflection point [00:39:00] change.
I stalled. It, it,~ uh,~ up until the last couple of years. Okay. So I think if, if, if we talking today Oh, yeah, I see what you mean. I see. Yeah. We're talking today, all of a sudden with, with with AI and some of the things we've talked about today, there, there is now like an acceleration and Yeah. And, and, but, but I think that's why we almost as an industry need to, need to, need to revisit what the future of e-commerce looks like because we, I've been saying the same thing.
Most people have been saying the same thing for, for quite some time. And now I think we've got sort of tangible visibility of what some of the. Some of the developments look like, I think there's, there's, now, now is where we start thinking about, right. What does that next big leap look like? Yeah. Mm-hmm.
~Um, ~and I think that's quite, quite interesting. ~Um, ~yeah. Cool. I think,~ uh,~ there's, there's this sentence that a, a friend of mine said at a panel a couple of days ago. I, I keep on repeating it, but I loved it so much that it just made, it summarizes what you just said. ~Um, uh, ~evolution or, or, or. ~Um, ~technology was intergenerational up to ai and today we're intergenerational.
So the leaps [00:40:00] are happening within our generations. Yes. And they're not passing from one generation to the other. I like that. I'm gonna steal it. Yeah, that's cool. I've been stealing, I've been, I've, you know, I've been repeating it ever since he said it. You'll gradually stop saying that you got it from somewhere else and it'll become yours.
Yeah. Your friend just missed his chance to be sure. I think I'm gonna repeat it so much that everybody's gonna say I said it. Yeah. That's the way, that's the way to do it. But, but honestly, it's, it, it really, it really, yeah. You know, struck home for me. Yeah. ~Uh, ~the other question I had for you is. Are you a podcast listener and what are your favorite shows?
Yeah, I, I, I've got, I've got an unhealthy taste in podcasts, to be honest. ~Um, ~I, I listen to podcasts like a, a, a middle-aged divorced woman will listen to podcasts, so, ~uh, ~quite, quite best women. Yeah. ~Um, ~quite a lot of true crime. ~Uh ~Oh, nice. Okay. Nice. I, I, I lost. Yeah, there's a, what was it? There's a series right on, on, I think it's, I can't remember where a, a crime in, you know, they live in a building.
They [00:41:00] listen to a podcast about Oh, yeah. ~Um, ~only murders in the building. Yes, exactly. Yeah, it's good that, yeah, I watch that,~ uh,~ new series coming soon. ~Uh, um, ~yeah, so a lot, a lot of, a lot of true crime. ~Um, ~anything, anything where, lost a lot of sport podcasts. ~Um. ~I've, I've almost stopped watching sport now.
I just consume sport through Okay. Through the medium of podcast. Wow. Okay. Which kind of defeats the whole purpose of sport. Yeah. Kinda right? ~Um, ~yeah. An eclectic, an eclectic mix. Yeah. I, I, yeah. I like the, the weird stuff. Okay. Cool. Cool. Good stuff. Well, ~uh, ~we hope that you become also a fan of the show. I have.
I should have stressed, I have listened to Below the fold. Yes. Alright. And watched it. Yeah. So I'm a fan. Okay. Fantastic. Fantastic. Good to know. Thank you for coming. Thank you for being here. Ja, thank you for Awesome. Thanks for having, being part of. Yeah, always a pleasure. Thank you. However, it was a really, really very engaging conversation.
I really enjoyed it. Thanks guys. Yeah. Good talking with you both. Thank you.