eCom Collab Club Podcast - The eCommerce Podcast for DTC Businesses

About eCom Collab Club Podcast - The eCommerce Podcast for DTC Businesses

Get the undocumented, unfiltered, and unscripted confessions, strategies, and secrets of the biggest and fastest-growing DTC brands. Packed with actionable insights, this business podcast will help you grow revenue and master subjects like CRO. Each episode breaks down the wins and painful mistakes that shaped today’s top eCommerce brands. Hosted by Peter Gardner and Adam Pearce, the founders of the eCom Collab Club™ and Blend Commerce, the Shopify CRO agency trusted by DTC businesses to get your visitors to Buy Now, Buy More, & Buy Again.

Publisher

Peter Gardner and Adam Pearce

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

17 Jan 2025

Latest episode

7 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

58 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   7 Oct 2026

   How Do You Survive The Internet After 230 Years in Business?

   How do you pull a business founded in 1795 into modern eCommerce without destroying the thing that made it survive for eight generations? That’s the slightly terrifying job facing Joe Jaques, eighth-generation leader of Jaques of London. And despite running one of Britain’s oldest family businesses, Joe isn’t particularly interested in doing things the way they’ve always been done. In this episode of the eCom Collab Club® Podcast, Adam Pearce talks to Joe about taking a heritage retail business online, moving towards DTC, navigating Amazon and Shopify, using AI to transform creative testing and learning when customer behaviour should overrule your own instincts. Because having 230 years of history is lovely. It doesn’t make CAC, cash flow or container prices disappear. Joe talks candidly about joining a family business he originally had no intention of working for, the arguments that came with trying to modernise it and the enormous acceleration Jaques experienced during COVID. Adam and Joe get into what happened next – and why understanding "the boring financial stuff" earlier is one of the biggest lessons Joe would pass on to other founders. They also explore how Jaques approaches customers today, including using dozens of micro-personas, testing creative at scale with AI and recognising that what customers tell you they want and what they actually buy aren't always the same thing. They get into: – Taking an eighth-generation family business into eCommerce – Moving from traditional retail towards DTC – The realities of Amazon vs Shopify – How Jaques is using AI to produce and test advertising creative – Why Joe thinks brands should treat AI like a new employee – Understanding what parents really want when buying toys – Building advertising around 67 customer micro-personas – Why customer behaviour can be more useful than customer opinion – The financial consequences of rapid growth – How rising container costs added roughly £1 million to shipping – Why turnover isn't the same thing as building a healthy business – And whether an eventual ninth generation will want anything to do with it... About Joe Jaques Joe Jaques is the eighth generation of his family to lead Jaques of London, the British toys and games business founded in 1795. After initially having no plans to join the company, Joe eventually came into the business through sales before helping drive its move into eCommerce and DTC. Today, he's combining more than two centuries of brand heritage with modern performance marketing, customer data and AI – while trying not to be the generation that cocks it all up. About Adam Pearce Adam Pearce is Co-Founder of Blend Commerce and eCom Collab Club®, the community bringing together eCommerce brands, agencies and technology providers. On the eCom Collab Club® Podcast, Adam sits down with founders, operators and industry experts to get into the decisions, mistakes and lessons behind actually growing an eCommerce business. Links & Resources Joe Jaques on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/joe-jaques-6b6a22a (https://uk.linkedin.com/in/joe-jaques-6b6a22a) Jaques of London: https://www.jaqueslondon.co.uk/ (https://www.jaqueslondon.co.uk/) Adam Pearce on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/shopifyexpertadampearce (https://uk.linkedin.com/in/shopifyexpertadampearce) eCom Collab Club® on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-ecom-collab-club (https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-ecom-collab-club) More from eCom Collab Club®: https://linktr.ee/ecomcollabclub (https://linktr.ee/ecomcollabclub) 🎧 Follow the podcast for more conversations about eCommerce growth, DTC, customer acquisition, retention, AI, CRO and the reality of building brands online. Because apparently even after 230 years, there are still new ways to make running a business complicated.

2. 

   28 Aug 2026

   Selling Alcohol Online: The Decisions That Build a Drinks Brand

   Selling cocktails online sounds like a lovely business. Until you remember your product is liquid, glass, alcohol and needs to arrive looking like something you'd actually want to drink. Adam sits down with Tom Mayes, Co-Founder of Edmunds Cocktails, to talk about the decisions behind growing the business from two brothers making cocktails at home to producing around 1.5 million cocktails a year. And it turns out quite a few of those decisions come down to one thing: How much control are you willing to give up? Tom and his brother Paul have kept fulfilment in-house for years – partly because their product makes outsourcing complicated and partly, Tom admits, because they're control freaks. But as Edmunds has grown, that's becoming harder to justify. Then there's Amazon. Edmunds isn't currently selling there, preferring to grow its own DTC channel and keep hold of the customer relationship and data. But when millions of potential customers are already searching somewhere else, at what point does protecting your DTC business mean leaving money on the table? Adam and Tom get into all of it. They also chat about: –How a business built for hospitality accidentally found a huge DTC opportunity during COVID –Going from roughly £10k to £50k in online sales almost overnight – The realities of fulfilling cocktails yourself – Why something as simple as a garnish made outsourcing considerably more complicated – Where Amazon could fit into Edmunds' future without becoming the whole strategy – The danger of becoming too dependent on someone else's platform – Why Tom wishes they'd documented the Edmunds journey from day one – Staying close enough to customers to spot new product opportunities – Bootstrapping the business to around £1.2m before raising investment – Personalisation, gifting and what's next for the brand And, naturally, cocktail Christmas crackers. About the guest Tom Mayes is Co-Founder of Edmunds Cocktails, which he launched alongside his brother Paul in 2019. What started with cocktails made at home has grown into a business producing more than 1.5 million cocktails a year and supplying over 1,200 venues and retailers, including PizzaExpress and Nobu Hotels. About the host Adam Pearce is Co-Founder of Blend Commerce and eCom Collab Club®, where he brings together the founders, operators and people actually doing the work behind growing eCommerce brands. On the eCom Collab Club® Podcast, Adam gets into the decisions, disasters, lessons and occasional bits of brilliance that don't tend to make it into the polished LinkedIn version. Booze. Boxes. Bezos. What could possibly go wrong? 🍸

3. 

   7 Aug 2026

   Building Demand in a Market That Doesn't Exist Yet

   What happens when your biggest competitor isn't another brand? It's the belief that your customer doesn't need what you're selling. In this episode of the eCom Collab Club® Podcast, Adam Pearce sits down with Jake Xu, Co-Founder of Shakeup Cosmetics, to talk about the realities of building a men's skincare and cosmetics brand in a market where stigma, stereotypes and customer education are all part of the acquisition strategy. And Jake's journey hasn't exactly been straightforward. He and his identical twin brother Shane went from running a creative agency together to launching Shakeup into Harvey Nichols in 2019. Three months later... COVID hit. With UK retail effectively disappearing overnight, they accelerated their international plans and launched into China — a move Jake says helped save the business. Today, Shakeup is a certified B Corp selling through more than 1,300 stores globally. Adam and Jake unpack what they've learned along the way, including why educating a market comes with a hefty price tag, why the same product can attract completely different customers in different countries, and why localisation needs to go much further than translating some website copy. They also get into omni-channel growth, cash flow, the dangers of trying to run two businesses at once and Jake's refreshingly flexible attitude towards five-year plans. But some of the best lessons come from the customers themselves. Jake shares the story of one man with rosacea whose reaction to trying Shakeup completely reframed what the brand was really selling. Not makeup. Confidence. In this episode: – Going from agency owner to consumer brand founder – Building a business with your identical twin – Launching Shakeup just before COVID – Why expanding into China helped save the company – The cost of educating customers in a new category – Challenging stigma around men's skincare and cosmetics – Why Shakeup chose omnichannel over DTC-only – How customer behaviour changes across international markets – Localisation and giving distributors creative freedom – Balancing ambitious growth with cash flow – Why Jake isn't a fan of rigid long-term plans – The customer story that changed how he thought about Shakeup If you're building a challenger brand, entering a new category or trying to sell something your audience doesn't immediately understand, there's loads in this one. About the guest Jake Xu is Co-Founder of Shakeup Cosmetics, the men's skincare and cosmetics brand he launched alongside his identical twin brother, Shane. After spending 12 years running a creative agency, Jake moved into the world of consumer brands with Shakeup in 2019. Since then, the business has become a certified B Corp and grown into more than 1,300 stores globally, challenging stereotypes around men's skincare and cosmetics along the way. About the host Adam Pearce is Co-Founder of Blend Commerce and eCom Collab Club®, where he brings together the founders, operators and people actually doing the work behind growing eCommerce brands. On the eCom Collab Club® Podcast, Adam gets into the decisions, disasters, lessons and occasional bits of brilliance that don't tend to make it into the polished LinkedIn version of running a business. Having a brilliant product is only half the battle. First, you've got to convince people to give a sh*t. 🎧 Listen now to find out how this epic brand did exactly that.

Who has been a guest on eCom Collab Club Podcast - The eCommerce Podcast for DTC Businesses

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Amy Anzel
• Rob Manning
• Jack Oswald
• Elizabeth Gooch MBE
• Rich Evans

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

788

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Spotify

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 50 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

62

Social presence

0

YouTube

66

Engagement

32