Velocity Sellers Podcast
We are Velocity Sellers, a full-scale Amazon Agency! Our Podcast features our talented and knowledgeable employees and guests, and of course our host, Velocity Pete. Join us as Velocity Pete interviews these Amazon experts on various topics that will help you boost your Amazon knowledge!
Velocity Sellers Podcast
#102 - Two E‑Commerce Heavyweights Debate How To Grow Faster, Spend Smarter, And Use AI Without Getting Burned
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What if your biggest growth unlock isn’t a new channel, but how you use the ones you already have? Two seasoned operators go head-to-head on the smart way to apply AI, the real winners for 2026 ad spend, and the first hire that sets your brand’s trajectory. The conversation gets specific fast: why letting AI write your SEO is a trap without data, how compliance hallucinations can quietly nuke revenue, and where “amplify, don’t replace” turns AI into a creative force multiplier for images and short-form video.
We weigh “Amazonia” against TikTok’s momentum and land on a pragmatic view: Amazon remains the backbone for scalable, exit-worthy revenue, while TikTok and Reddit create edge opportunities when matched to the right ICP and creative. The hire debate splits the room—growth manager to push demand and break bottlenecks vs COO to build processes first—but both paths win when you commit to testing and clear goals. On wasted spend, we call out untargeted brand campaigns and untested products, then offer a tighter loop: prototype, measure, iterate, scale.
Expect actionable channel strategy. Treat Instagram and Facebook as distinct ecosystems inside Meta. Explore Reddit for efficient, context-rich placements that meet buyers inside candid communities. Max out branded and high-intent search on Google and Amazon to catch ready demand. For the customer journey, we frame friction as price and choice: price must tell a value story, and choice overload demands sharper positioning, clean comparisons, and a single, obvious job-to-be-done. Retention flows from product truth and experience—memorable unboxing, useful follow-ups, and a product that simply works.
We close by showing where AI truly shines right now: accelerating creative. Generate lifestyle images and believable video seconds, then polish with human editing to ship more winning variants across PDPs and feeds. If you want to grow faster without burning cash, this showdown delivers the blueprint. If you learned something useful, follow the show, share with a teammate, and leave a quick review—what tactic are you betting on for 2026?
Welcome And Debate Format
SPEAKER_00We're back with another Velocity Sellers Showdown where we pit two e-commerce geniuses head-to-head on a variety of different topics surrounding the Amazon, TikTok, AI, e-commerce world. If you agree or disagree with anything these two have to say, please leave a comment down below. We want to hear from you. We want to hear your thoughts on any of the following questions. Welcome to the main event. We've got two e-commerce heavyweights stepping into the ring to debate a few questions that we have prepared surrounding the topic of e-commerce, things going on in the world, AI, tariffs, and all this such. And I'm excited to introduce you all to both of them and to get this showdown underway.
SPEAKER_02Hey everybody, Jay Hunter. Uh, you know, well known in the space for Amazon, TikTok, marketing skills. Uh, I've been in this space about 20 years. Excited to be here. And in this corner.
SPEAKER_04What's going on, folks? John Aspinall here. Self-proclaimed CTR GOAT, focused on anything and everything, click-through rate, merchandising, creative optimization, all that kind of goodness.
SPEAKER_02I don't know about self-proclaimed, I think it's community proclaimed GOAT, brothers.
SPEAKER_00Gentlemen, welcome to the second Velocity Showdown. Jay and John.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for having us.
SPEAKER_04What's going on? It's a pleasure to have you. It's an honor. It's an honor and a privilege. Sure.
SPEAKER_00Stole my words right out of my mouth. Stole the words right out of my mouth. That's what I was going to say to have you both here. So Jay and John are both very prevalent in the Amazon, e-commerce, TikTok, LinkedIn space, however you want to describe it. So we're excited to have them here to answer these questions and to really get into some deep level strategy, some deep level debate. Again, I'm very much hoping for a disagreement. I think there will be some. I'm excited to see you both argue your points, fight it out. So, right on to the first question. Again, for those of you joining us who don't know how this works, I will ask John and Jay a question. They will write it down. They will each get about a minute or so to defend their point, and we will go from there. So pretty simple debate style. Um, so yeah, first question right away. What is one way sellers should avoid using AI in 2026? What is one way sellers should avoid using AI in 2026? There's a couple different things I think uh could be answered here. I'm excited to see both of your answers, but all right, let's
AI To Avoid: SEO And Compliance
SPEAKER_00start with John. John, what do you got?
SPEAKER_04SEO.
SPEAKER_00Okay, all right. And Jay, before we elaborate, let John elaborate there, Jay.
SPEAKER_02Uh, you know, I'm coming from a very compliance-heavy category, so I would say compliance.
SPEAKER_00Okay, okay, John, SEO, get talk talk to me about that. You mean just creating keywords for you, research?
SPEAKER_04There's too many times I see people that are going and using ChatGPT and saying, write me the title, write me my bullet points, write me the description and all that stuff and copying and pasting it without looking at market data and actual analytics uh outside of what ChatGPT is just gonna hallucinate and throw at you. And it doesn't always mean that it might visually look okay for writing titles and bullet points, but it might not be performing as well on an SEON for organic rank and search and that kind of thing. So that's one thing I always tell people to steer clear of. Stick to data tools for those kind of things, because at the end of the day, a title on Amazon, as long as you're getting to the point of what it is in the first couple of words, the tail end of it is just stuff that's there for keywords. We all understand and know that, right? No one's looking at the tail end of a title to really boost it what they're clicking on to see if it's really that.
SPEAKER_00So all right. And Jay, any thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_02No, I think I'm I'm in slight agreement, right? I think you do have to be creative about the title. Yeah, I think some hopefully John and I will disagree on some things, but I think here, like, I do agree. Like you can't just copy and paste a chat GPT title or bullets for an Amazon listing, right? They're some component of conversion and then also some component of like, you know, what do the data tools say are the most important keywords and in like what priority order.
SPEAKER_00So and Jay, for your answer specifically, compliance, uh, are you saying that you shouldn't use AI to check if your product is compliant or yeah, I think just for the copy, right?
SPEAKER_02Like what kind of claims you can make around the product that might be compliant, or you know, what keywords are allowed, or like what boundaries you can push. I do find like you know, AI is still a little bit slow to the draw to know like what are the latest rules. Uh and sometimes it you know does hallucinate what it thinks the rules are, which I think can be problematic. And if it's on Amazon compliance, it's such a big piece. You know, if it listens down for even a day or multiple days, you know, it can be a huge loss and quite difficult to fix. So I think for compliance, you got to be very diligent about having, you know, whether it's your compliance team or your lawyers, make sure like what you're saying in the copy you you're allowed to say, and also is gonna be Amazon compliant. Right.
SPEAKER_00Okay. This next one I think will throw a little curveball at you.
Amazonia Vs TikTokistan
SPEAKER_00If you were a feudal lord, who would you pledge fealty to? Amazonia or TikTokistan. I think in medieval times you have a vast amount of land, maybe some knights under you. Who are you swearing the loyalty to? Who's what kingdom are you supporting? Jay, what do we got?
SPEAKER_02Uh I'm going to Amazonia.
SPEAKER_00Okay, over TikTokistan.
SPEAKER_02I think uh, yeah, I think yeah, I was born in Amazonia, so I think I've got to you know stay loyal. Uh yeah, I also just think like, you know, it's still a very concrete channel, right? Like the longevity of the channel is, you know, I think very proven at this stage. I think for TikTok, you're still a new channel. I'm still very bullish on it, but you know, it's it's got a ways to go before I would give it the you know same weight as like an Amazon channel. I think even when you're you know thinking about doing other things like going into retail, Amazon still carries like more weight and support. You're looking to exit your business. Like Amazon has a little bit more validation to it. So I think for those reasons I pick Amazon for sure.
SPEAKER_00Amazonia. Amazonia. And John, are you in the same kingdom or are you in TikTokistan?
SPEAKER_04I am in Amazonia. With the Amazon. I'm shocked Jay didn't pick TikTokistan, to be quite honest with you. But no, like that that's the thing, right? Amazon is the bread and butter, you know, the people always say, you know, with platforms like Walmart or Target, that there's no brand that's ever launched on Walmart or launched on Talker, but there are brands that are launched on Amazon and then propel from there. Um, I will say, like, TikTok is getting there, but in the realm of the not so sexy, not really demonstrable everyday things, you're not seeing that on TikTok, right? Like you're not seeing a TikTok live stream where someone's running the thing 24 hours a day, um, you know, talking about dog pee-pads.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_04I mean, uh at least not yet, right? Or they're not talking about loose leaf paper or pencils and things like that. So I think Amazonia is still king. Okay.
SPEAKER_00I thought that was going to be the case. Um, we like to throw a little fun one in there for you. That was uh courtesy of our executive producer, Darib and Jake. So um moving on though, to again, you I mentioned in the beginning, you guys are really big in the e-commerce
The First Key Hire: Growth Or Ops
SPEAKER_00space. You've been on a lot of different teams, you've managed some different teams. What do you both think is, or what should I say, uh, what's the most essential hire on an e-commerce team? What's the most essential hire on an e-commerce team?
SPEAKER_04Sort of a broad question, a little bit of a broader one, but something that we like like for for an agency, for a brand, for I'm gonna say for a brand.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna say for a brand. Our audience is mostly uh sellers. So imagine a brand, you know, they started it, they're doing really good, uh, they're looking to hire their first employee. Who what what type of employee should they be focusing on? When what department?
SPEAKER_02Oh, this was very tough.
SPEAKER_00I imagine if your assistants are nearby, you'd you'd want to stay an assistant. Um same thing. It's like, oh, who's your favorite person? And your wife's standing next next to you. It's like, oh, of course, it's my wife. All right, uh, we're gonna switch it up here for the fourth question. Let's have you both show your answers at the same time. All right. What do we got? A growth growth manager? Growth manager, and John went with COO.
SPEAKER_04COO, or if you're talking more entry-level operations. Because I think at the end of the day, you can hire everyone else, but if you don't have the policies, procedures, the operations in place, I think everything else is going to fall apart.
SPEAKER_00And Jay, you went with growth managers. That's it sounds like it's almost similar to what John is kind of.
SPEAKER_02No, I would say it's it's pretty much the exact opposite, right? Here we go. Disagree. It's a person that like their only job is to grow sales for you know the e-com channels, whether it's Amazon or Shopify or TikTok, their job is to make the operation person's job very difficult, right? They want to be selling things so fast that the operations team sort of has to catch up. I'm a big uh, you know, break things and then fix them later type of guy. So I do think, you know, John's going what I would say is like probably the more correct route, uh, you know, and conservative route. But I think for me, like the hardest thing to do is to grow fast, uh, you know, and explode a random. So like I think that's the place you want to start.
SPEAKER_00You're saying John's going the safe route and you're being a little bit more adventurous. Is that what I'm that's kind of what I'm hearing here?
SPEAKER_04I'm very much the kind of I don't I don't like to gamble. I don't like to take, I'm not a I'm not a big risk taker.
SPEAKER_00You're a Celtics fan, so you can't really gamble much. Okay, whatever, pal.
SPEAKER_04But my my thing is I I it would keep me up at night, and I I know that that's like Jay's thing where it's like let's grow sales and break it and figure it out later. I would have uh a conniption and be shaking in the corner from high sales with no policies or procedures in place and figuring it out afterwards. So I think I disagree, but I think there's all different kinds of ways to be successful, and everyone has their path, right?
SPEAKER_00Okay. I like it. I like it. Both very different paths here to take. So very interesting. So kind of on that as well, this is my this might be a good question then for both of you. Um moving on to a little bit more cash flow style things. What is the number one thing brands waste money on? Either in the early stages, either in the late stage. What's the number one thing brands waste money on?
SPEAKER_03Trying to think holistically.
SPEAKER_00Right, that's a broad
Biggest Money Wasters
SPEAKER_00category here because again, you have them on a pop shop, you've got multi-million dollar businesses and stuff like that. So all right, gentlemen, let's see what we got. Same time, same time.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I said brand.
SPEAKER_00So you went with the brand, John.
SPEAKER_04I went I went with not testing, not nothing. Not testing anything that they launch. Uh, I call five below um, you know, the mistake, bad bad decision warehouse. So five below, if you've ever been in five below, you'll go and see branded items in there from Disney, Hasbro, all these big things. But in actuality, when you look at it and you think, oh my God, that's that, you know, Disney Hasbro toy that's in Target for $24. How is it in here for $5? But when you get closer, you realize it's that one obscure character from the movie that no one really likes that they couldn't move at Target that got liquidated for pennies on the dollar. So I think there's an immense amount of loss and money that's burned for not testing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Hmm. And Jay, you said brand. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Because I think a brand would want to.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think it it actually it goes a little bit with what John is saying here, right? It's like just a lot of brands, and I said brand because it's a little bit all-encompassing, but like too much money on like a big brand campaign or too much investment around like a brand creative before they really know, like, you know, there's what the brand thinks the brand is, and then there's what the customers think the brand is. And like without testing and learning, you know, and and breaking some things, a lot of brands I think invest too much in like those campaigns or or the creative for the brand, right? Before they fully understand the customer or their or their market fit, right? And so I think not testing enough sort of runs right into that. Um, and I see that quite often. I think that's the number one place. That and uh, you know, wasted advertising spend, but different topic.
SPEAKER_00Moving on to again, again, these are all kind of chained together, all very similar here, but but what is the most underrated growth strategy? It could be from this year, it could be something that you're expecting to see next year, but what is the most underrated growth strategy? Again, well, and this is a very broad, encompassing question, but one word answer, and then we'll get you some elaboration going on in there.
SPEAKER_03Underrated.
SPEAKER_00Underrated. Some of the other LinkedIn people might say you're a fool for suggesting that. Um other e-commerce businesses might say there's
Underrated Growth: OOH And Cold Calls
SPEAKER_00no way I'm gonna do that. It doesn't make any sense. All right. Gentlemen, what do we got?
SPEAKER_04Mine was very general, but I think I think before I show it, I think that well, I'll just show it here.
unknownGood.
SPEAKER_00Cold calling. Okay, that's good. That's good. And Jay out of home?
SPEAKER_01Out of home marketing, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, which I think I'll get some heat for, maybe. But yeah, I mean, I think for me, uh, you know, there's still and it again, it's it's not gonna be uh, you know, direct conflict with what John's talking about, but I think some of the old school in-the-trenches tactics still work very well, right? So, like, you know, I don't advise, you know, a lot of new brands to spend a ton of money on out-of-home marketing, which might be, you know, billboards or bus raps uh or these types of things. But I do think like when you use them strategically, right? Like if you want to get into Walmart, uh, you should buy every billboard in Bettonville for a month, you know, and like really go hard. And I think there's still like a lot of very strategic ways you can use it to you know reach some of your goals, whether that's Walmart retail or something else, like at home can still be very impactful if you have a big TikTok campaign or Amazon campaign. It's a good way to do product launches. And I think today, like uh, you know, a lot of these things go in cycles, but I would say out of home is like pretty affordable right now because a lot of brands are leaning out and leaning into uh you know meta tick tock.
SPEAKER_00Right. So right you're going more digital.
SPEAKER_04No, so my my thing is it's I think it's really coming full cycle that tactics that were considered the norm and then taboo uh 10 years ago. So it went from like door to door, then telephone, then you know, text message, then email, then video email, then you know, UGC video. So it's now coming full circle where we're I'm seeing a lot of agencies, brands, you know, picking up the phone and calling someone because it's not the norm right now, right? People aren't expecting someone to call with a value prop. And if it's good, right, and you're not just saying, hi, I'm here to blah, blah, blah. Right. Think of it from a service provider, think of it from a branding perspective. If you want to get into uh big box retail store, maybe that person is not gonna answer your email because it's a million different emails. But if you get the right person on the phone and have a meaningful message with them, I just I really feel it's going, it's going back around.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. We'll have to try that. I don't start calling some people randomly and just see if that tests your theory there.
SPEAKER_04So you you have to be you have to have thick skin for that. You gotta go into it knowing a a 99 out of 100 gonna hang up in your face, but you just gotta keep on keep on trucking.
SPEAKER_00Keep on trucking. Going back a little bit, unfortunately, from away from both of those answers, going back into a bit of the paid media, we've seen a lot of the rise of, you know, you do Google ads, you do Facebook ads, um, social ads in general, but we want to find the best one. So, which paid ad channel, like the ones I mentioned, Google or Meta, should you be investing the heaviest into for profitable sales growth in 2026? Just those two or any? Any paid sort of media channel, maybe outside of Amazon. I'm gonna also say that you can't say TikTok. Like that's an easy answer. I'm
Where To Spend In 2026 Ads
SPEAKER_00gonna say outside from Amazon and TikTok, which of which paid media channel should you be investing in uh for profitable sales growth in 2026?
SPEAKER_04Aha, Jay, you can't say TikTok.
SPEAKER_00That's a bit of a nerf.
SPEAKER_04I wasn't gonna pick even if I I could pick TikTok, I wouldn't.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. Interesting. Well, let's see what you both decided to go with. John, what did you say? The same time here. Jay with meta. John with Reddit. Very interesting. I want to hear this one first. I got to. Reddit. Reddit ads. I do see them sometimes. You think they're the next big thing or they're the current thing.
SPEAKER_04I think I I think they're currently underutilized and they're gonna be a lot bigger really soon because Reddit is the raw internet. Reddit is where if you really want to know if your product is good or not, and it lands on Reddit in a subreddit or in whatever it is, there is no filter. There is just raw exactly what it is. And you know, when people want to know about a product, sure, you can look at the reviews on Amazon, Walmart here and there. But if you really want to know how people feel, they're gonna look at Reddit. And for me, it's it's very, very purpose-driven. And I I don't know the numbers on like the ROI, but I I feel like it's a lot more uh cost effective uh with the positioning of like the ICP versus something like Google.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I could see it in a very specific targeting of where you can put your products versus, you know, if people are searching for baby things or if they're in baby subreddits or parenting subreddits, you target them with baby products. Okay, I like that. And Jay, you said meta. Is that a similar thought to what John is going with, or is this just because meta is the meta?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think it's still, you know, the largest engine to drive awareness uh for any brand, right? I I think TikTok's catching up, but I still think like having a huge meta engine with like a big content engine behind that is still like the number one way to scale a brand today. Uh I will say the one caveat is like I would be trying to max out my Google and Amazon like search advertising, especially around keywords, like objectively, my brand deserves to win. Uh, but I think if I really wanted to scale, I'd spend like a lot of time and effort on just building like a really large content engine so I could pump a lot of ads that I could A-B test in meta. And I still think meta has like the largest scalability.
SPEAKER_04So I just I just hate when people say meta only because it like just say what you mean, right? If it's Facebook, say Facebook. If it's Instagram, say Instagram. I know it's the same thing, but I think a lot of people get bogged down is when they hear like run ads on meta. But what they what they don't realize is that your product might suck on Instagram because that's not where the ICP is, but might do well on Facebook. So I think when people hear Meta, they think I'm gonna run it everywhere where Meta has it, and they don't get really hyper targeted on this is gonna perform
Friction In The Customer Journey
SPEAKER_04better on Facebook than it is Instagram, you know?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if I was gonna lean in into like a sub-meta channel, it would be Instagram for sure. Like almost 100%. Uh, but like you said, it does does matter what kind of brand you have, right? If you have like a little bit older demographic, I might lean in even harder on Facebook, right? So I just think for most brands though, Instagram is what I really mean. Um I do think there's some component of Facebook being like a great channel.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would have thought if I thought I thought you were talking about Facebook more than Instagram. It's interesting. You think Instagram is the bigger driver.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00See?
SPEAKER_03Isn't it isn't that why isn't that why it's better not to say meta and just say I'm gonna do something.
SPEAKER_00Might give John a point there. No one's keeping points. I am a little bit, but I might give John a point there. It is somewhat confusing. But you did say Reddit, so I might also take that point back. Anyway. Um Reddit.
SPEAKER_04Reddit, Reddit's gonna be the GOAT for 2026. Watch. We'll have to have you back on. Jade on LinkedIn is gonna be in six months talking about blowing up on Reddit.
SPEAKER_00It's his next topic. Kind of on that next topic. We've talked a little bit about demographics now, which is great. A little ICP discussion. So what do you both think on demographics? What is the biggest friction point in the customer journey today? Again, thinking strictly primarily e-commerce customer, what do you think is the biggest friction point in the customer journey? Alrighty. 321, let's see them. Minus choices. Choice. Okay, John? Price. Let's talk about price. Let's get into price. You think things are too expensive? Is it the economy? I don't want to get banned on YouTube for talking about things that they're gonna shut me down for, but you think it's the economy?
Best And Worst Daily Time Uses
SPEAKER_04So I think it's uh I think price is very generalized, meaning you could yes, if you're not the cheapest, that's a friction point. But it's okay not to be the cheapest as long as your product price and your product is positioned for that pricing. I feel like there's a big disconnect and a lot of people don't connect the dots where you know they see themselves, I have to be more expensive because of tariffs, because of manufacturing and stuff like that. But that sometimes it's okay to not always be the cheapest. But if the price and the listing and the graphics and the whole feel don't reflect that price point, I feel like that's a friction point. Where if someone can read through very clearly, you're just more expensive just because you want to charge more, you're not giving me more value, you're not telling me more. I think that brands don't associate their branding and their content and the education back to that price point. And I think that's a big friction point.
SPEAKER_00And Jay, you talked about or you wrote down choice. Is that saying there's too many choices in the market? Or is that people are struggling to pick the best one?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think the number one struggle brands have that, you know, then relates to the customer is just, you know, there's so many options, right? Like at any price point, you can find five products that are relatively similar and do relatively the same thing. And like brands have a very difficult time conveying like why one customer should buy, you know, one product or the other. And I think sometimes like it's actually sometimes there isn't a great reason, right? So I think customers just have like so many options, so many channels to shop from, so many places to consume their content, you know, so many different price points to shop at, or even at those price points, so many different products. Like it's just like tough these days for the customer to know, like, you know, used to be a time where you could go on Amazon and just be like, okay, I want the best spatula. And it was like clear that the best-selling product was likely the best spatula. Just like today, that's like no longer that obvious. And I think it's like very difficult for customers to know, like, is this the best product for me? Is this exactly what I need? Uh so I think choice is just like a tough one right now.
SPEAKER_00Okay. We're talking now on looking back at the year uh in 2025.
Yacht Or Spaceship
SPEAKER_00What has been the best and worst use of your time on a given day? What has been the best and worst use of your time on a given day? Alrighty. I know you got two answers. It's kind of a two-part question here.
SPEAKER_04Well, is it okay if my both my answers are the same thing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That makes it fun. Makes it exciting. We can do that. What do you got? What do we both got here?
SPEAKER_01It's very funny because I have the same, I have the same answer essentially. I don't I can't see John's answer yet, but I think for me it's meetings is the answer to both.
SPEAKER_00Production.
SPEAKER_01Productivity apps. Okay. Both good.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So what productivity apps, John, are you using that is the best and worst time of your day? And why is that the case?
SPEAKER_04I think it's because for me, I'm hyper focused on how to
Best Categories To Launch Now
SPEAKER_04be more productive, how to take my 24 hours and get the max out of them. But I also am self-aware that I have shiny object syndrome. So the minute I get something I like and I'm on it for a month or two, something else comes out, and I'm on to the next one and seeing how that's better. So for me, it's the best thing because when it works, it saves so much time, energy, focus because I don't have to worry about it. But it's also the worst thing because the minute something else, a new AI, pops up over here and does this and does that, then I have shiny object syndrome and I get distracted. But I will say though, uh, just dropping this here, to-doist is the one app that I've kept for the last six months straight. And for me, that's um a record. I think I couldn't live without that tool.
SPEAKER_00Reach out to sponsor the podcast. No. Um, I always gotta plug that in there. Yeah. But okay, so that makes sense. I also am a victim of shiny objects syndrome, you know, it's my own fault. Um, so I'm a victim and a cause error, I guess, of it. Um, so I get that. And Jay, you said meetings. Is that a dig at somebody in particular at your company, or is that just in general?
SPEAKER_02No, I think just in general, right? Like uh, you know, nothing beats a great meeting where like agenda's solid, you get some stuff done, you move something forward, you solve an issue that was taking 20 emails to figure out. Like, nothing better than a meeting like that, but also nothing worse than a meeting with no agenda that could have been an email, right? So, like, I think for me, uh you know, this happens at every business, uh, you know, even if I was consulting somewhere or at business I've been at, but like, yeah, I think like you want to have a good culture around meetings. You want to have meetings when you need them to get stuff done, and like that's about the only time, right? Like, you want to be solving problems when you're on the phone. I think just today, in like very remote environment, it's easy to get caught up of just wanting to be on the phone because you get a little
Turning Buyers Into Loyal Fans
SPEAKER_02bit less, you know, one-on-one time or time with the team. But I do think like you got to try to keep the meetings to be like very efficient, very productive, because otherwise, you know, it slows everyone down. Nothing worse than being on the phone for eight hours and then having to do your normal work, you know.
SPEAKER_00So I agree.
SPEAKER_04And I was just watching a podcast yesterday. Everyone loves or likes or knows Gary Vaynerchuk, but at Vayner Media, he talked about the standard is a 15-minute meeting. He's like, if there has to be a meeting, it's 15 minutes because you only have 15 minutes, get in, get out. Everything is actionable. There's no 40-minute meetings, there's no sitting around waiting. It's it's go.
SPEAKER_00Gary V. I've never heard his full name before, I don't think. His full uh uh government, as the kids say.
SPEAKER_04Well, you know, but it's a personal friend of mine.
SPEAKER_00I gotta give him a right friend of the show. Friend of the show, Gary V. Um, all right. This one's a little bit more, his next question is a little bit more in-depth. It's gonna require you to think very heavily. Um, there's gonna be a lot of critical thinking here, so just get ready. It'll give you some more time to think about this one. If you could own Jeff Bezos' yacht or spaceship, which would it be?
SPEAKER_03Oh, I think that one is uh easy.
SPEAKER_00I think it'll be for the same reason.
SPEAKER_04Um I I know Jay's about that. I I know what kind of lifestyle Jay's about, so I know what he's gonna say.
SPEAKER_00All right, let's see both of your answers. Jay and Jay. I said yacht. All right, and John went with spaceship. Now, Jay, why the yacht? Why does John think he knows your lifestyle? What is he talking about?
SPEAKER_02Honestly, like you know, I'm not I'm not really a big bow or water guy, but I just think a yacht's a lot more practical. Even if you own the spaceship, how often are you gonna take it to space? Probably not that frequently. So uh think you know you could wine and dine a few more people if you have the yacht, you know?
SPEAKER_00Okay, okay. And John, are you thinking about winding and dining people on the way to outer orbit?
SPEAKER_04I am bringing that to the most local astronaut-friendly chop shop, and I'm selling that spaceship, and I am taking all the money, and I think a spaceship is much more valuable in uh you know the pawn shop mentality than uh than a yacht. So I am I'm gonna take the spaceship and I'm gonna run away with the money, and I'll probably get a yacht equal to the one he has and then have money left over, too. So wow, interesting.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's we asked this question at innovation. You never said I couldn't sell it. That's true. I should have learned.
SPEAKER_02I just wasn't sure there was any spaceship chop shops.
SPEAKER_00So now we got two. We have to tweet at Elon and say, hey, Elon, I got Jeff Bezos' spaceship. Do you want to buy it from me? Maybe he'll uh he'll come through and and go for it. So um, but okay. It's it's we like to mix in the fun ones a little bit, you know. So we like to mix in the fun ones here or there. Going back a little bit to the beginning, looking back to the start of a new brand. If you both had to restart, let's say, what would be the best category to start from scratch and launch a new e-commerce brand today? What category? I'm gonna steal these ideas and launch them myself. So I'm full disclosure here. You signed that was part of the agreement you signed that I can use all these tips for my own brands.
SPEAKER_04So hey man, it's it's your ads, Ben. Sure.
SPEAKER_00All right, one word answers. What do we got here? What categories are we thinking of starting e-commerce brands in?
Best Ways To Use AI In 2026
SPEAKER_00Skin care and beauty. So pretty close enough. I'm gonna say VMS stands for something that I'm not aware of.
SPEAKER_02Um just vitamin supplements. I think I had sort of two answers, right? Vitamin supplements or beauty. I just think and skincare falls in here, but these are like the categories that are like the last bastions of of great margins, right? So I think the margins are just really great, which allows you to do a lot of fun stuff on the marketing and product side.
SPEAKER_00John, similar thoughts?
SPEAKER_04We're gonna go with the judges on this. I think uh Jay's disqualified putting two answers there, so I think just deduct two from and/or or you know, and or or it was in there. No, I said I said, I said, I think we're in the same vein of thing. I said skincare, right? And I think Jay also says similar with like supplements because you can make it in America, right? When you start to talk about things that have to be overseas, the hurdle is big. Tariffs, this, that, the third, shipping, you know, uh freight time on water. It it's just it makes more sense. And and the fact that it's it's recurring, it's you know consumable, people are going to buy it again. Um, there's a lot more opportunities. You know, I was always in the realm of you want to sell uh a need item, not a want item. And I'm still in that vein of thinking, right? When you look at launching something, is it a need or is it a want? And in this economy, if it's not a need, it's a want. And people will not always buy if it's their last 50 bucks and it's something they need and something they want, it's always gonna be something they need. Right.
SPEAKER_00All right. Well, it looks like I'm gonna start a bearded something moisturizer for us here. Since we've all got beards here, that'll be perfect. It'll be my first. Actually, you guys can be the face of it if you want. I'll give you, I'll give you each 20%. We'll call that there. All right.
SPEAKER_04You're gonna be broke from selling beard oil. There's a million people doing that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but there's no one like Velocity Pete selling beard oil. So that's that's one of the things that we're we're we're talking about here. So kind of talking on that, uh, you know, looking at the the loyalty of customers of of of fighting for their for their loyalty, um, going back to the the feudal lord question, you know, the loyalty to your your brand or to your kingdom. How do you turn a one-time buyer into a loyal repeat customer? How do you turn a one-time buyer into a loyal repeat customer? But I might have to actually consider it a swamp. I mean, a little bit here.
SPEAKER_01Come on, no, no, I got I got one. I just pull one. I just pulled one this time.
SPEAKER_00All right, good, good, good. All right. What do we got? What do we got? What two answers do you have, Jay?
SPEAKER_01Uh I have I have product on this one.
SPEAKER_00Product and unboxing. Okay. Product is a broad term, but I know I asked for one-word answers, so I walked into that myself. But what do you mean by essentially by the product?
SPEAKER_02The way it I think 50% of retention or loyalty for any brand is how good is your product? Does it work and do the things you said it does? Right. So I think like making a great product is half the battle. I think the other half is what John's going to speak to next, which is like the experience of the product and how you take care of the customer. Okay.
SPEAKER_00And John, you said the unboxing, which, truth be told, again, is someone with sh the shiny object syndrome. I do look a good unboxing. So talk to me a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_04So imagine if you have two soaps that you purchased on Amazon and they both work equally as well with cleaning you. They're both really great. Um, one comes in a brown cardboard box, and one is an experience and it's very giftable. And you open it, it's a magnetic enclosure. It says something about it, it just feels good. You're gonna go with that one again because you had a good unboxing experience. My wife orders on Amazon. It's literally like my house is a 3PL where there's so many packages outside every single time. I have to leave a bottle of like Advil outside for the Amazon worker because her back is on fire, probably. But the every time she opens up something and it's a good experience, she tells me about it and then she looks at the brand further because of the experience. Versus if it was just an okay outfit or an okay accessory, she would like it, but she wouldn't go back to that brand again. But when she has a good experience, she's gonna go back specifically because she likes the feeling. It's that it's that retail therapy that people love.
SPEAKER_00And a lot of people that like to shop just for the sake of shopping.
SPEAKER_04I I hate shopping, dude. I also am not a fan. I I if I go to malls with my wife, I'm I start sweating, I look all over. I have I I don't want to be around people shopping. Uh listen, I I want to yell in the middle of the store, you can do all this online. What are you people doing here? It's a waste of time.
SPEAKER_00You're a mall husband. You have mall husband syndrome. I'll hold the purse. Yeah, I'm good. There you go. You sit down.
SPEAKER_02My family, we have a tradition. We're going we're going to the mall on Black Friday just for the vibes, you know?
SPEAKER_00I I do miss that, I will say. Uh, we were talking earlier about how things come full circle. I think Johnny said now we're back to cold calling. I I actually do see a lot of people at the local mall. Um and um not to go on a a branch here on a blurb, but the the the temperatures down here, I don't know. I'm I live in Orlando and when I lived in Texas, the same thing. It's so hot during the summer that all you do is you drive, you get in your air-conditioned car, you drive over to the mall, you do your steps around the mall. You get a walk-in around the mall. Um, our old landlords used to get four miles a day just walking around the mall. So they're important for some reason.
SPEAKER_04Are you just rubbing it in as I'm sitting here with a vest on, freezing in an office in New York City?
SPEAKER_00A little bit. A little bit, you know. Um we went to Disney yesterday. That's how easy it is for us to get down there. It's just yeah. All righty. To finish off on a bang, to finish off on again another big topic. We are heading into, we're on the precipice of 2026. We're about a month out. And like I said, AI has been the dominant tool, the dominant topic this year, um, the most topical thing, the most topical topic. We're headed into 2026. What do you guys both think? What is the most important way to use AI in 2026? Doesn't have to be for any particular goal, doesn't have to be for specifically for sales, but in the e-commerce business, in the e-commerce world, what is the most important way to use AI in 2026? All right, final answers here. What do we got? Minus creative. And John went with images. Okay. Okay. We had, before I let you get into your answers, we had discussed kind of earlier about how AI is not good for bullets and for titles specifically. So word-facing creative, so to speak, to put it into category. So why do we both think, why do you both think that images and um digital things that you can see more so than you can read, are what AI is going to be excelling in or what um is the most important part of it, Jay?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I think on my side, I'm big all around the board on AI for like amplification, right? Not for replacement. That's how that's how I always view it. I just think for like what you need to be successful today, you know, at scale is like a really large content engine. I think there's just like a lot of ways to use AI to sort of amplify that, right? Whether it's giving you more ideas on on what hooks you can have for the product, what the product's UP USPs are, how you can convey those, or you know, it can do things like generate, you know, product images. It's a little bit better, even I would say, or faster at like replicating product image use. And I think that's a great strategy. You should just find who's doing best in your category and copy some of their best performing, you know, static meta ads and make them slightly better. AI is really good at that. But you know, it can also do like minor video edits and stuff like that. As long as you're not trying to create pure AI content, which I don't think is as good. I think AI is like a big amplifier of creative, like all around.
SPEAKER_00I like that. Okay, and John, is that where you were going? Are you starting from scratch with your AI images?
SPEAKER_04So I'll disagree a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit. Because you know, Jay's come from, you know, big brands, big bucks, big budgets. You know, we could do all these kind of shoots and stuff. And you know, I'm thinking more of the the more SMBs up and coming. I don't have 10, 20 grand for a photo shoot. Um we're living in the real times right now. We're living in the time where you can have a coffee cup that's your branded coffee cup on your desk, and you could take that and you could put that in a lifestyle image. You can put that in a Google VO 3.1 video. Now, and it looks real, but I will with the caveat of editing. So editing anything AI with creative as is is just garbage in, garbage out. So when it comes to like VO 3.1 video that Google is killing it at right now, it all comes down to the editing because it's outputting eight seconds, right? But maybe only three seconds of that are believable. So when the power really comes from editing. So now when you're taking those three seconds, editing it with another three seconds, and then making a whole vibe and feel, that's where it really excels. But that no, we've never lived in a time before where you were able to do that, where you literally have, you know, anyone holding a product, doing a product. It it's it's unreal.
SPEAKER_00It is very scary. You know, I see a lot of AI videos on Twitter that I don't realize they're AI unless there's a community note, and um, it's it concerns me greatly. I'm actually one of the doomers that thinks AI is gonna take over the world. Um, I mean that that loony bin.
SPEAKER_04So you're big you're big you're a big fan of AGI coming soon? No. Yeah. No.
SPEAKER_00Uh I see that like I said, I see the nano banana or not nana banana, whatever Google's thing is, the banana nano and no, nano banana.
SPEAKER_04Nano banana pro is out.
SPEAKER_00Right. Right. It's it's a little scary, you know. And um, so yeah, that's interesting that you both said that. Yeah, you're both contributing to the end of the world. Thank you so much on that side. So all right, but on a podcast side, gentlemen, thank you both for again stepping into the ring, for debating, going head to head a little bit. Um, I appreciate the discussions, I appreciate the answers, and we really appreciate the information. So thank you both for for coming on the Velocity Sellers Showdown.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having us. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00I'll have both Jay and John's LinkedIn down below. Make sure to give them a connect, a follow, send them a message,
Closing And Guest Links
SPEAKER_00tell them to say hi, whatever you want to do, follow them, like their posts, boost their skills, whatever else you do on LinkedIn. Um, and thank you all for watching. I'm your host, Velocity Pete, and we will see you next week.