Anchor of The V Spot. The only news desk covering ecommerce where the autocue is a NetSuite error log. Irish, based in Kerry, working New York hours. Here for retail brands, the SaaS bill nobody reads, and the gap between what a vendor demos and what actually ships. News nightly. Parody hourly.

If you build it, they will come. Not sure than many people know that North East Iowa is home to the set of Field of Dreams. Somewhere in that region a lifetime ago, it was the Dad of Darin Lynch who took a similar approach, he took it on himself to take out a loan for a 40 acre farm and through hard work, grit and the need to keep kids fed, he grew this into hundreds of acres. Corn, beans and 100s of feeder cattle later and quiet satisifaction. Being the eldest Darin didn't always agree with what his Dad said, but he admired what he did. His people skills came from his Mom, who was a teacher. The eldest of 3, Darin took those learnings and the ambition and did his own thing. In his own way. @IrishTitan is a well known part of the fabric of the eCommerce community in the US and beyond. They provide much needed levity alongside their hard work - they give feedback, are open and honest. 22 years in the industry and managing the change with everybody. That is, on its own, remarkable. In this interview I did with Darin for RMW Commerce and Shopware Darin was cognisant of his role in providing clarity, focus and positivity in these ever changing days. Core to his own thinking is not knowing all of the answers but being the trusted partner to help others navigate the way through. For his B2B clients, agentic shopping and challenges change how success should be measured. Many of their orders already come through punch out or the ERP, and some will start happening inside agents. Some visible and many not so much. I don't know Darin as well as others but really am trying to bridge that gap. he talks sense. He talks of community over market share Commerce over eCommerce He pulls no punches. Darin talks about himself as a dinosaur of the industry- grizzzled and wizened. Dinosaurs lived for millions of years, evolved and still live today - we write books about them and movies. We even try to bring them back to life. If this is what he means, then yes, I think for many years we will tell stories of his brilliance in our community. I hope to see more of them. In Irish Titan, they've been describing Agentic Commerce as a Celtic knot (IYFYK) with three strands; each strand needs its own metric: 1) data enrichment 2) discovery 3) checkout On October 29, Irish Titan and ElleVet will be at Agentic Island, Shopware's virtual summit on agentic commerce, hosted by Rick Watson Link to our pod and chat are here: Link to chat with Vinny: lnkd.in/gf59F4YZ Register for Agentic Island (Or not so love island) on October 29: lnkd.in/dYbYi_Nm How are you counting the orders that never touch your commerce platform? #ecommerce #b2becommerce #agenticcommerce Note: This broadcast bumped this weeks V Spot - but regular broadcasting will be back next week.

And watch your bank account grow? Sorry thought we were playing, next marketing line?

Has anyone seen Tyler Durden? He is conspicuously quiet.

The Next Ecommerce Advantage Is Hiding in Your Returns Department - ecommerce podcast - featuring the head of Engineering for @rithumcommerce . Gregor Kiddie. open.substack.com/pub/vinnyo…

Time to set up the VW support line.

Agentic CVR is pretty poor. Is there a world where Ai makes websites so "unsafe" that the defacto "safe place" is agent to agent shopping.

The calm man in the noisy room - The Struggle Bus eCommerce Podcast Season 4 Episode 2 open.substack.com/pub/vinnyo…

Been thinking about BFCM loads. It has all the feeling of being the most challenged one in some time. Yet, we see Adobe predicting $1TN, yes Elon's wealth, in spending this peak season. Consumer confidence on the other hand is somewhere around its's ankles. This morning I watched a Twitter video (forgive me) from a David Strickland (I cannot find him to give him the credit). He said, "The math ain't mathing for ecomm". His thesis, in 2019, a product costing $100 produced resulted in approx $36.84 in contribution margin. Today that is $1.71 before salaries. Or 95.4% less. This is not a clickbait post nor was it for the video. He justifies this, measures it and questions the role of service providers in this new economic scenario. 2 weeks ago I mentioned that the Irish retailer makes approx 2.50 on every 100, so it tracks. Free cash flow is tight and we are relying on peak trading to get us there. We have added uncertainty - Shopify apps being hacked, Revolut down this morning, banks down, supermarket checkouts down. Google cloud is a core infrastructure element and has been so reliable for so long. The fact this particular outage is hitting consumers means it is in mainstream news services too. Fear and uncertainty, 1 month out from Black Friday. Change is the only constant. Your BFCM plans for many will be nailed on, but I am inclined to rip it up - not totally. Hear me out. Meta CACs are soaring - CVR is falling off a cliff, not an uncommon BFCM problem, but stresses the Twitterhood something wild. Brand/Retailer side - make your promo cycle easy. Use your existing customer book to give you control. Merchandise your ass off every day. Respond to weather, Trending topics and deliver messages to beat the daily number. Plans cannot do this. The real certainty around BFCM is that we trained consumers to spread their spend during this time. Your job is day trading. Not monthly or weekly planning. If you are not a high volume seller you need to capitalise on the moment. If you are in the volume game, you need better reasons for me to part with my money, not much more to be honest. Turn inventory into cash. SaaS provider, I said this before. Upgrade your customers to the top tier today and run it until peak ends. Let your top product do your talking. Demonstrate value and dont talk about it - dont let your volume limits be your volume limits. Your job is hard enough - get your size 14's out of your own way. I think the plan will stress you. Work on the basis of group think and accepting things change. Have your trade meeting in the morning, early and be focused. Don't be surprised and don't be dismissive. Example, if you are monzo or a Revolut competitor now you should be reaching for the folder named - Eureka - that moment that could happen but probably wont but we go on the offensive. It happens in governments when snap elections are called, banners and manfiestos appear . Arise BFCM, I dub thee the year of contingency above all.

BFCM Message xitter.cf/i/broadcasts/1DGLdZPPo…

A few scenarios here giving me the ick - some poor soul stuck at toll roads and holding up all other traffic. Some other poor soul on an OnlyFans livestream and had planned on a 15 min dip. Instead is being charged for the 3 plus hours already on site. Probably just chatting now.