Commerce Connect Podcast

As D2C manager for OLLY, a health and wellness brand owned by Unilever, Jennifer Peters is responsible for every aspect of OLLY's ecommerce store: customer experience, marketing inventory, payment gateways and more. Peters says as OLLY matures, her team has to constantly re-evaluate their strategy.  “A lot of things that worked two years ago, they don't work anymore,” Peters explained. “I think one of the tougher pieces of that is figuring out where the issues are and then prioritizing them.”  Learn more as Peter's talks with Digital River's Emily Burton in the latest Commerce Connect podcast.

After spending years on the agency side helping brands spin up online stores, Jennifer Peters decided it was time to work full-time on just one brand. As Direct to Consumer Manager for OLLY, Peters jumped in right after OLLY became part of the Unilever family – giving her a brand with a start-up mentality, and […]

Astound co-founder Igor Gorin has seen a fair amount of change in his life. His family immigrated to the Bay Area from the former Soviet Union in the 1980's, specifically the region that is now Ukraine. Gorin clearly saw opportunity on the horizon as he met other entrepreneurial students who, once in college, created a […]

Carter Jensen is the Global Lead for Direct to Consumer at General Mills. His team works with the company's incubator program, focused on emerging brands, using digital strategies to gain insights and test theories to bring new products to life at General Mills.With his start-up background, Jensen is used to using every tool at his disposal to glean information that can help propel a brand forward. At General Mills, that includes launching storefronts in 5-10 days, working with founders to validate product market fit, naming, messaging and more. While the site may sell product, the real reward is the data captured from the site.  Learn more from Jensen as he sits down with Digital River's Mike Nicholas to talk about the importance of a D2C site when launching a new brand.

General Mills has been around for nearly 100 years, and the food giant has been innovating all along the way. Carter Jensen is the Global Lead for Direct to Consumer at General Mills. His team works with the company's incubator program, focused on emerging brands, using digital strategies to gain insights and test theories to […]

Astound is a powerhouse in digital commerce, helping companies strategize and build ecommerce sites to delight customers around the world. Igor Gorin is co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, which puts him at the forefront of ecommerce trends. In this conversation with Digital River's Emily Burton, Gorin shares his secrets for ecommerce success. Chief among them, agility.

Kelly Goetsch is Chief Strategy Officer for commercetools, a German-based company changing the way we think about ecommerce. commercetools (spelled with a lower-case c) is an API-first multi-tenant SaaS commerce platform dedicated to the idea of modern composable commerce. Headless commerce started with commercetools. Goetsch says commercetools’ solutions are based off a catalogue of around […]

Kelly Goetsch, chief strategy officer for commercetools, is an  evangelist for a headless approach to ecommerce. He's recruited leaders from some of the biggest names in ecommerce to advance the idea of microservices, API-first, cloud-native, multi-tenant SaaS and headless (MACH). Learn more about the MACH Alliance, commercetools' groundbreaking approach to ecommerce and what Goetsch thinks about the future of ecommerce as he sits down with Digital River's Ted Rogers for the Commerce Connect podcast.

Mike Schmid considers himself a start-up kind of a guy, which is one reason he decided it was time to leave his high-profile gig at Apple to try his hand at a company he'd been eyeing for some time, Seattle-based Rec Room. With more than 37-million users worldwide, the free-to-use platform allows creators to customize interactive rooms, and build experiences for others to share. Late last year, the company announced $145-million in new funding, bringing the company's valuation to $3.5 billion. Heady stuff for a start-up that first got off the ground in 2016. The pandemic pushed growth even further. Learn more about Rec Room's plans for self-publishing, and how Schmid views Rec Room's place in the so-called Metaverse.

Mike Schmid considers himself a start-up kind of a guy, which is one reason he decided it was time to leave his high-profile gig at Apple to try his hand at a company he'd been eyeing for some time, Seattle-based Rec Room. With more than 37-million users worldwide, the free-to-use platform allows creators to customize interactive rooms, and build experiences for others to share. Late last year, the company announced $145-million in new funding, bringing the company's valuation to $3.5 billion. Heady stuff for a start-up that first got off the ground in 2016. The pandemic pushed growth even further. Learn more about Rec Room's plans for self-publishing, and how Schmid views Rec Room's place in the so-called Metaverse.

Becoming a fraud fighter was not on Mark Michelon's radar when he interviewed for a finance job at a new company called Orbitz. He got the job and was asked to look at a problem the company was having with chargebacks on its new website. It turned out to be a fraud ring. Soon, Michelon […]

Becoming a fraud fighter was not on Mark Michelon's radar when he interviewed for a finance job at a new company. He got the job and was asked to look at a problem the company was having with chargebacks on its new website. It turned out to be a fraud ring.  Michelon was hooked, and his finance path pivoted to ecommerce fraud prevention. Now, as president of Accertify, an American Express Company, Michelon is one of the good guys working to stay ahead of ecommerce fraudsters. Learn more about how you can improve your fraud strategy in this edition of Digital River's Commerce Connect podcast.

Phillip Jackson and Brian Lange are former competitors turned co-conspirators. Together they founded Future Commerce, which helps brands create a strategic vision that will shape the future of their retail and digital channels. Not content to leave it there, Jackson and Lange want to help brands bring about change for their customers and even the world.

Explore the future of ecommerce with Phillip Jackson and Brian Lange, former competitors turned co-conspirators. Together they founded Future Commerce, which helps ecommerce brands create a strategic vision that will shape the future of their retail and digital channels. Not content to leave it there, Jackson and Lange want to help brands bring about change […]

Jim Herbert is an unabashed cheerleader of the Open SaaS approach at BigCommerce, Herbert now finds himself in the middle of the biggest product announcement for BigCommerce in recent years, it's new Multi-Storefront solution that will give merchants even more flexibility and ease of use.Digital River's Jason Nyhus recently spoke with Herbert about Multi-Storefront, Open SaaS and how flexibility is key for brands striving for long-term success.

Uday Kotla, vice president and global business head for Infosys Digital Experience joins Digital River's Jason Nyhus for a look forward after a blistering two years of growth in the ecommerce industry. What are companies looking for now? Which industries are seeing the most transformation, and how is Infosys addressing the global demand? It's been a wild ride for ecommerce, and Uday suggests the most interesting changes are still to come.

Jim Herbert is an unabashed cheerleader of the Open SaaS approach at BigCommerce, Herbert now finds himself in the middle of the biggest product announcement for BigCommerce in recent years, it's new Multi-Storefront solution that will give merchants even more flexibility and ease of use. Digital River's Jason Nyhus recently spoke with Herbert about Multi-Storefront, Open SaaS and how flexibility is key for brands striving for long-term success.

If the idea of getting a late-night delivery of Ben & Jerry's ice cream to your doorstep sounds appealing, you can thank Unilever's Amy Brix for making it a reality for European customers. Now Director of Ecommerce in Germany for Unilever, Brix is responsible for the overall execution of Unilever's ecommerce strategy in Germany. Brix sat down with Digital River's CMO, Ted Rogers, to talk about ecommerce trends, and what that means for shoppers craving convenience.

If the idea of getting a late-night delivery of Ben & Jerry's ice cream to your doorstep sounds appealing, you can thank Unilever's Amy Brix for making it a reality for European customers. Now Director of Ecommerce in Germany for Unilever, Brix is responsible for the overall execution of Unilever's ecommerce strategy in Germany. Brix sat down with Digital River's CMO, Ted Rogers, to talk about ecommerce trends, and what that means for shoppers craving convenience.

Uday Kotla, vice president and global business head for Infosys Digital Experience joins Digital River's Jason Nyhus for a look forward after a blistering two years of growth in the ecommerce industry. What are companies looking for now? Which industries are seeing the most transformation, and how is Infosys addressing the global demand? It's been a wild ride for ecommerce, and Uday suggests the most interesting changes are still to come.

Dave Tu is president of DCL Logistics,  a Bay Area company with 40 years in the business of delivering for clients with complex distribution requirements.  Dave sits down with Digital River's Jason Nyhus to talk about how his company is navigating the challenges brought by a global pandemic, and what steps ecommerce brands should be taking to meet customer expectations in 2022. 

Dave Tu is president of DCL Logistics, a Bay Area company with 40 years in the business of delivering for clients with complex distribution requirements. Dave sits down with Digital River's Jason Nyhus to talk about how his company is navigating the challenges brought by a global pandemic, and what steps ecommerce brands should be taking to meet customer expectations in 2022.

Jared Blank is Chief Marketing Officer for VTEX - North America, a digital commerce platform for enterprise B2B and B2C ecommerce brands. From his early days in ecommerce at Tommy Hilfiger to now helping some of the world's best-known brands set their D2C ecommerce strategies, Jared knows what it takes to create true innovation. In this conversation with Digital River's Jason Nyhus, Jared shares his views on what the future holds for D2C ecommerce.

Jared Blank is Chief Marketing Officer for VTEX – North America, a digital commerce platform for enterprise B2B and B2C ecommerce brands. From his early days in ecommerce at Tommy Hilfiger to now helping some of the world’s best-known brands set their D2C ecommerce strategies, Jared knows what it takes to create true innovation. In […]

When Paul Rios first started selling into Latin America for HubSpot several years ago, he remembers that customers were surprised and delighted that he could speak in their preferred language, Spanish. Nowadays, the game has changed, and customers expect communication in their native language. In this podcast, Rios, director of sales, Latin America direct, sits […]

Paul Rios noticed something interesting when he started at HubSpot ten years ago. Some of the inbound leads at the CRM platform provider were from Latin America. And they were largely being ignored. Paul realized the market had enormous potential - so he asked to work on it as a side project until the company was able to put resources behind Paul's work.  In this episode, Paul, now Director of Sales, Latin America Direct, shares some of what he's learned building up HubSpot's business in this lucrative and complex market.

As cross border commerce continues its skyrocketing growth, governments around the globe are focusing intently on getting their share of the pie in the form of taxes and tariffs—even for low-value transactions. That's why brands must make tax compliance a key part of their cross-border strategy, says Evan Wright, director of growth, cross border at […]

There's a gold rush underway and you can see it in container ships stacked up at major world ports - it's cross border ecommerce. Avalara's Evan Wright told Digital River's Jason Nyhus that while there's plenty of opportunity, there is also plenty of risk if brands don't understand the complexities of cross border selling. Learn more in this episode of Commerce Connect.

The digital revolution has made its way to B2B purchasing, and no one knows that better than TreviPay CEO Brandon Spear. Far from simply being in the right place at the right time, Brandon has been working to build a company that offers businesses a way to exceed their customers’ expectations. In this episode of […]

The digital revolution has made its way to B2B purchasing, and no one knows that better than TreviPay CEO Brandon Spear. Far from simply being in the right place at the right time, Brandon has been working to build a company that offers businesses a way to exceed their customers' expectations. In this episode of Digital River's Commerce Connect, Brandon joins host Natalie Wires for a deeper dive into the future of B2B purchasing, and how companies can leverage those changes in a digital first world.

Fusebill co-founder and CEO Tyler Eyamie saw the promise of subscriptions years ago. Now, companies that never envisioned offering their products via subscriptions are seeing opportunity (not to mention dollar signs). Tyler joins Digital River's Jason Nyhus to talk about what Fusebill offers its customers, and a future for subscriptions that could benefit consumers as well as brands.

As one of the world's earliest ecommerce brands, Dell has always been a D2C innovator. From its earliest days of selling custom-built PCs through mail-order catalogues to being the third-largest PC vendor in the world by market share*, Dell has learned lessons applicable to just about any ecommerce brand. In this podcast, Harsh Acharya, vice […]

Dell's Harsh Acharya has seen it all at Dell - from his days as a software engineer to his current role as VP of Ecommerce Technology and Product.  Harsh talks with Digital River's Jason Nyhus about where he sees the future of B2B ecommerce, and how Dell has kept its team on point during the pandemic.

Vaimo’s Brian Dearth and ecommerce expert Jason Loehr talk with Digital River’s Jason Nyhus about the challenges and rewards of going direct to consumer in the highly regulated spirits industry.  Why company culture is key to any digital transformation.

Vaimo's Brian Dearth and ecommerce expert Jason Loehr talk with Digital River's Jason Nyhus about the challenges and rewards of going direct to consumer in the highly regulated spirits industry.  Why company culture is key to any digital transformation.

In ecommerce, the rules of the traditional sales funnel no longer apply. That's why CPG brands must make the maximum Return on Effort (ROE) for everything they do, from creative campaigns to the brand's digital platform, says Surabhi Pokhriyal, global head of digital commerce for Colgate-Palmolive. In this podcast, Pokhriyal sits down with Jason Nyhus, […]

Surabhi Pokhriyal has worked with iconic CPG brands over her more than 15 year career. Now Global Head of Digital Commerce at Colgate-Palmolive, Surabhi is pushing innovation in new directions across multiple channels. She lets the data guide her, with the customer as her north star. In this edition of Commerce Connect, Surabhi tells Digital River's Jason Nyhus why success today depends on shedding ideas from the past that don't work in today's digital, customer-first world.  She also recommends a few podcasts you can check out, including Brave Commerce with Rachel Tipograff and Sarah Hofstetter.

Organizations in the healthcare industry aren't typically early adopters of new technology and business models, so it's taken them some time to figure out a way to leverage a subscription-based model for medical equipment. But GE Healthcare has recently developed healthcare subscription models that work well for providers as well as patients. In this podcast, […]

Todd Donzelli, GE Healthcare's former vice president of program management, could be taking a victory lap after helping the company build a global subscription model during a world-changing pandemic. Instead, he's intent on taking what he's learned about digital transformation at multiple global companies and sharing that expertise more broadly. In this edition of Commerce Connect, Todd and host Natalie Wires talk about how subscriptions are changing the healthcare industry, and what lessons that provides for other B2B companies.

From sophisticated rings that dupe unwitting consumers to so-called “friendly fraud”, Digital River’s Jason Cheung has built his career on stopping the bad guys (and gals). As a member of the Merchant Risk Council, Jason lives and breathes fraud mitigation. In this episode, Jason lays out the fraud landscape for host Natalie Wires, and shows […]

From sophisticated rings that dupe unwitting consumers to so-called "friendly fraud", Digital River's Jason Cheung has built his career on stopping the bad guys (and gals). As a member of the Merchant Risk Council, Jason lives and breathes fraud mitigation. In this episode, Jason lays out the fraud landscape for host Natalie Wires, and shows us why ecommerce brands can never let their guard down.

Back in his days working for telecom companies, Chargify's Paul Lynch understood the pain of billing. Now he heads up a company that manages subscriptions and billing for some of the world's most exciting B2B SaaS businesses. In this episode of Commerce Connect, Paul shares the moment he believes the world changed for billing, and how companies can take a very complicated function and turn it to a competitive advantage.Books mentioned by Paul in this podcast:Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers and Innovators Create and Dominate MarketsNever Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on ItPitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading and Winning the Deal

As the former VP of International Tech Strategy at Walmart Canada, Rick Neuman is no stranger to winning over shoppers. Now he’s with Flipp, connecting shoppers with deals from top global brands. Join Digital River’s Jason Nyhus on this week’s Commerce Connect podcast to learn more about how retailers are finding digital gold as they […]

As the former VP of International Tech Strategy at Walmart Canada, Rick Neuman is no stranger to winning over shoppers. Now he's with Flipp, connecting shoppers with deals from top global brands. Join Digital River's Jason Nyhus on this week's Commerce Connect podcast to learn more about how retailers are finding digital gold as they ditch circular adds for an app-based experience.

While FinTech darling Klarna is a licensed bank with financial products, its brand and trajectory behave more like an upstart ecommerce organization focused on consumer adoption. Klarna, which pioneered the fast-growing Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) payment system, has a market valuation of more than $31 billion and more than 90 million customers around the […]

When four versions of Maya Rudolph astride four tiny horses rode into the Superbowl ad arena this year, Klarna was making a statement to Americans - Buy Now, Pay Later is a force to be reckoned with. Klarna's Director of UK Partnerships, Kevin Ward, joined Digital River's Jason Nyhus for a look at what makes this Swedish success story stand out, and why brands should take a good look at BNPL for their digital strategy.

While some brands are still trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel that was 2020, others vaulted ahead as ecommerce saved the day for both consumers and merchants lucky enough to have an established online presence. How can companies regain their mojo? Gorilla Group’s Caleb Bryant points to the digital ecosystem […]

While some brands are still trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel that was 2020, others vaulted ahead as ecommerce saved the day for both consumers and merchants lucky enough to have an established online presence. How can companies regain their mojo? Gorilla Group's Caleb Bryant points to the digital ecosystem and tells us how Gorilla Group is helping companies plan and execute their strategy.

We’re not the first to say Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta wrote the book on customer success (for the record he did) but we did want to pull back the curtain a bit to learn more about the man who sees opportunity in customer retention. Find out why customer success is not just a job title. […]

We're not the first to say Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta wrote the book on customer success (for the record he did) but we did want to pull back the curtain a bit to learn more about the man who sees opportunity in customer retention. Find out why customer success is not just a job title. Nick tells Digital River's Jason Nyhus customer success is a mindset that can grow value for your company.

Seeing the opportunities in the global pandemic has been important for brands that are not only surviving but thriving in the new normal. PandaDoc, a SaaS platform that streamlines documents and electronic signatures, is one of those organizations. In this podcast, Mikita Mikado, CEO of PandaDoc, talks about the PandaDoc story and how it's grown […]