E113 Finding Peace in E-Commerce: From Chaos to Clarity
Joshua: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to this episode of Commerce Today. I'm going to do something a little bit different today. A couple of things different. So first of all, I want to chat a little bit about the future of e commerce and specifically the future of e commerce agencies. This is something that's been on my mind a lot lately.
AI is changing everything and there's an increasing level of commoditization among e commerce agencies. And it's, I think, an interesting time as an agency owner and as someone that talks to a lot of different merchants that are either working with an agency, selecting a new agency, all that fun stuff.
Also doing something a little bit different in ChatGPT interview me. Not live. I actually thought about doing that. That might be a future episode, but I actually had ChatGPT come up with some questions and going to go through and answer those. I actually haven't pre read these. You're gonna hear my off the cuff responses.
First of all, first question it came up with is being an e commerce for over 25 years. How is the role of an e [00:01:00] commerce agency changed during that time? And, first of all, there weren't really e commerce agencies 25 years ago. Even when I was first getting started There are marketing agencies that made websites.
There were software development agencies, but there wasn't really an e commerce agency. I don't think people would realize the need for a dedicated e commerce agency, but over the years it's definitely evolved. There's so much more commoditization, as I'm going to talk about, but there's also so much more complexity and so many more options now.
So there are extensions and plugins and apps and services to do literally anything that an e commerce business might need. And that lowers the need for customer development from an agency, but really raises the need for. That trusted advisor, someone that's been there. They can cut through all the noise.
Chatting with somebody earlier today that actually is developing a really cool piece of software and a cool app for the e commerce world. But it's telling them the biggest problem you're going to have right now is getting the attention of merchants and of agencies, because [00:02:00] as an agency owner, I have just so many different solution providers that provide different technologies reaching out to me saying, Hey, offer these to your clients, sell these to your clients.
And I know on the merchant side, that. Times 100. It's always so interesting to see when a merchant walks into a conference and especially those conferences that label the badges so that people know you're a merchant you're just sold to constantly. So I think e commerce agencies now can, if they choose to serve as these trusted advisors that aren't just pitching the latest thing they get a commission on, but are really helping their clients sift through all that noise in the marketplace and find the right solutions.
Cough next question is that we're in a time where AI makes it easy for anyone to claim platform and e commerce expertise, so development services are becoming a commodity. What does that mean for e commerce leaders looking for real solutions? So this is what has been on my mind. As I mentioned it is so easy for anybody to claim to [00:03:00] be an expert on anything and everything.
The latest versions of chat GPT and tools like windsurf by Codium really allow you to fake it until you make it. I've seen so many people now that I've known and followed. Over the years, different companies that had a very clear niche, they worked with a very specific set of software. It's like overnight in the past few months.
Now there's 15 different platforms that they say that they have deep expertise in. And that is so makes it so much harder as an e commerce leader at a merchant to find the people that actually know what they're doing. And to really decide, do you even need that? Could you have an in house team that is using the same AI tools that agency is using?
I think it's really changing things. It's probably going to make it harder to find the right agencies in the future. And it really cut through the noise and it's where I see a resurgence in personal relationships really being key and critical. And it's going to be interesting since we had such consolidation over the past five years of private equity firms buying up e commerce agencies, merging [00:04:00] them together, really destroying those personal relationships and connections that so many of those agency brands were built on.
Now all of a sudden they need those and that's not something they can just buy overnight. So next question, and this is a good one from chat GPT. How do these shifts how did they lead you to rethink what creativity is really about? So those of you that know me for a long time. You know that my background is in software engineering.
First and foremost, we have been a technical development agency. Like we do anything and everything e commerce related, but our core strength and where we really started was in software development. And a lot of that has been, worked on a lot of different platforms. Lots of WordPress work, actually a little known fact that If you dig into my LinkedIn, you might have noticed, but most of y'all probably don't know is I worked for Interspire and I worked on Interspire shopping cart, which was the PHP based on premise software that became a little known SAS platform name is big commerce.
And you don't even see Interspire, I think, on my [00:05:00] LinkedIn anymore. They changed it all to big commerce many years ago. But but with all that, Magento and Adobe Commerce have been a core focus. And definitely where a lot of my personal text technical expertise lies. And I think there's still value in that.
I think we have a lot of value. I do. And my company does to offer on the technical side of things. But I'm realizing that really becoming that trusted partner that can help you understand the challenges you're facing and find the best solutions. Find ways to leverage AI and not just AI, but also leverage the next technology and the next technology after that.
But then also, I've been in this industry a long time and I have made some mistakes and I've seen clients make some mistakes. And I think one of the biggest things I have to offer is, Finding those merchants and those companies that want to have not just a great e commerce presence, but to do it in a way that really prioritizes mental health and prioritizes what we've called for a [00:06:00] few years now at Creatuity, peace of mind.
And, you might be saying, what does that have to do with e commerce? Growing up in the dot com boom and bust and in the early days of software development, not the earliest days, but the early days of software development on the web, at least I've seen first hand all these, what we used to call death marches, the software death marches of you set a deadline, you don't necessarily fix the requirements, you don't necessarily fix the budget, but by golly, you're going to hit that deadline and you push and push and you force a team to meet a specific deadline, specific launch date to go live and it's just It's hard on the developers.
It's hard on all the supporting roles around the developers. It's hard on the client. Lots of times it leads to less than ideal launches and it just leads to chaos. And yet there are still so many companies that's how they run their projects, their e commerce development projects. And there's so [00:07:00] many merchants that they just expect that to be their experience.
And I realized that. It doesn't have to be that way. I've talked in previous episodes of commerce today about how, if your site's crashing, especially when there's no deployments, that's not normal. And yet so many people are just used to that. So many, when I first talked to potential client so many times they're going to ask me what about 24 seven support?
What about being on call for when the site crashes? And my response typically is your site shouldn't be crashing. And so that I've, I feel like is overlooked thing in this increasingly commoditized AI world. And that is having the expertise to deliver that peace of mind to say, you know what, we do our projects in such a way that your site's not crashing.
We do our projects in such a way that you're not overrunning your budget. We really avoid those fire drills. And so much of that. is not a technical issue. It's not a software issue. It's not something you can even solve with AI, at least not yet. That is a [00:08:00] process issue. That is a mindset issue.
And so it's interesting as a old school PHP developer from way back that went to school for computer science and engineering. I find that the best thing I can offer the merchants that I'm working with isn't software. And it's actually just How to approach development and how to approach your projects in a way that you can have that peace of mind.
So a good example of that is talking to a great company right now. And one of the first things that always comes up is when do you need your new site to be live? And they said our existing platform contract expires at the end of the year. And I know there's a lot of agencies that then would say, alright, December 31st, we're going live on December 31st.
Or maybe they would at least say, you know what, we don't want to go live on New Year's Eve, we want to go party, we're going to go live on December 30th. I actually, the first thing I did is say, wait, let's look at this. Let's find a new site. The Tuesday, not the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, but the Tuesday, the week before Thanksgiving, and let's make [00:09:00] that our target date, and let's plan on going live then.
Because that way your team, and especially this is a B2B company, B2C company, don't worry, I would never recommend going live with a brand new site the week before Thanksgiving. Seeing people do that that does not lead to peace of mind. But for this B2B company especially, I said, if we can get this thing live before Thanksgiving, that way we go into the holidays with your team knowing that you're not going to have to worry about a last minute contract extension.
You've got everything taken care of. It's going to be easier to have people available to work on the site both on our team and on the merchant side of things. Like it's just going to make for a better experience for everybody. Now, does that mean that We might have to change some schedules and some plans earlier on in the project and really monitor that.
Yeah. But I think that is worth so much more than aiming for a December 30th, December 31st launch date. Again, has nothing to do with technical expertise. It's just lots of experience doing these sort of projects. [00:10:00] So let's see, what else does chat GPT want to ask me? Whoa, this is a good one. Why do so many e commerce projects still struggle with delays, unexpected downtime, and last minute fire drills?
There is this, there's always been this thought of, we can just take any old developer from anywhere in the world, from any background, toss them into a new project. And there are some developers that can get up to speed pretty fast, but there is such value in having a cohesive team, but also such value in having just a team, and trust and have worked with before.
And with knowing even if you're going to work with freelancers, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each of those freelancers. So instead of trying to just, Treat developers like a commodity, which is what so many agencies and so many merchants are doing now Realizing their individual people with strengths and weaknesses knowing those strengths and weaknesses and knowing how to pull together the best team and that's where something new that I am doing more of is Leveraging my connections that I've [00:11:00] developed over all these years in the e commerce space and especially around Magento Adobe Commerce and a few other platforms where I've gotten to know the people that are really good at really specific things.
So if you need a just absolute guru when it comes to managing your e commerce paid ads, I know exactly who to pull in for that. You need someone that can help put together a beautiful new design for your site that's going to convert, but also isn't going to cost you a million dollars to implement in your specific selected front end technology.
I know just the person to talk to for that. So being able to. Not just go out there and say, what's the cheapest front end developer? I can find what's the cheapest backend developer that's available right now. What's the cheapest email automation expert that I can find right now, but saying, who is the absolute best?
Who do I know that has experience, especially if it's a B2B or an omni channel retail situation, who's going to be best and has the most experience in that bringing them into the [00:12:00] project and working with them again, instead of just these. random freelancers that so many agencies seem to outsource to these days.
And that also just helps me understand I'm definitely not anti AI. If you've watched previous episodes of commerce today, I love chat GPT. Thanks to another podcast I listened to, actually, I call them chatty G. So me and chatty G do a lot of work together. But There are developers that are using chat GPT and other AI technologies in a smart way to enhance and augment their work, and there are others that are trying to use it to completely do all of their work, and the results on those, especially if they're working on a platform, they don't actually know aren't great.
So knowing and understanding who's doing the good work around AI out there is also just something that I can bring that really Helps avoid all those delays and downtime and fire drills that I see out of so many other agencies projects All right, so Another question for e commerce [00:13:00] leaders listening right now.
What's the first step? They should take if they're feeling overwhelmed by their current e commerce operations. I think the first thing is breathe realize that two important things realize one You're not alone. That is a very common place to be. However, you also need to realize you don't have to be there.
That doesn't have to be how things operate. And sadly, I have seen some companies where the company's culture is such that, yeah, their e commerce operations are always going to be overwhelming. They're always going to be chaotic. They treat people like garbage. these interchangeable commodities.
They don't treat people well, they don't define their projects well. So many pitfalls and there, I definitely have some friends that over the years I've seen go to work for companies like that and it just burns them out. And they realize that this isn't a platform issue. Although there's plenty of agencies that'll sell you a new platform and say, that'll solve all your problems.
They realize that it's not a them issue. They realized it's not [00:14:00] even necessarily a people issue. It's an issue with the culture in that company. And when you hit that realization, sadly, and especially the job market, it is the way it is right now. I hate to say it, but you have to go somewhere else like that is you have to think of your own.
Health, your own mental health your own career even, and you have to go somewhere else. However, luckily not all companies have that bad of a culture. And the truly great companies will actually be open to feedback and open even changing their culture. And so I would say the next thing is really just take stock of Why do things feel chaotic?
Why do things feel overwhelming? Why are things crashing? Why are things all having to be done at the last minute? And if you want, you can schedule one of those free 30 minute calls with me off my LinkedIn profile. Joshua Warren on LinkedIn with a creativity gold background behind my head. And I can talk you through it as well and just be a sounding board to try to figure out, okay, what's off here?
Because chances are there's two or three things that are off that with just two or three changes, you can actually bring that [00:15:00] peace of mind, bring that yeah, that healthier approach to e commerce, to your projects and to your business. And again, It's not, as much as I would love to build a new website for you, so often it's not a technology problem, it's a process problem.
It is just, there's lots of times a process that was set in place earlier in the company's history, maybe e commerce was smaller, the company was smaller people just didn't know any better. They didn't know the best practice, so they started doing things away, that instead of setting it up for success, and instead of setting it up for, calm but rapid growth, they set it up for constant frustration.
And yeah, getting in there and seeing that. Now sometimes it is technical debt. If you haven't seen my presentation from Meet Magento, Florida about technical debt, go back and watch that. That's on the Creatuity YouTube channel. Because yeah, sometimes you're actually facing technical debt and there might be a need to re-platform or to fix that, but so often it is a mindset within the agency you're working with or a mindset within the company that you're working with.
[00:16:00] So chat GPT, of course, as it always does lately, came up with about 20 more questions that we do not have time for today. But I would definitely recommend you really just stop and think about. how your e commerce operations are working, how you're approaching them. Are you approaching it and getting the results that you want?
Are you doing so in a way that you have good work life balance, you have good mental health, or are you stressed out, overwhelmed, overworked at the end of your rope? Because you don't have to be. And that's, I think for so long especially the older generations, which I guess I'm part of now. We thought that working in tech, working in software means you hustle.
You don't get a lot of sleep. You just are always stressed out, but you're changing the world and you're making lots of money and yada yada. That's a lie. That is not something that doesn't have to be the way tech projects and e commerce projects go. So I know some of you out there, y'all love that hustle.
[00:17:00] And yeah. More power to you. Hope you enjoy it. But for the rest of us that want a calmer approach that delivers great results, but in a sustainable way that provides that peace of mind, definitely encourage you to reach out. Let's chat and stay tuned for future episodes of commerce today.