Your Cart Is Fine; Your Duties Are Not: Why US Shoppers Panic At Checkout with Jamie Vaughan

Confused about what’s actually working in digital commerce right now?
 
You’re not alone. Between US conversion chaos, rising costs, and AI hype, it’s hard to tell what moves the needle and what’s just noise.

On this week’s episode of  The FODcast, host Tim Roedel sits down with Jamie Vaughan, ex MD at Signifly, to cut through the chatter and get practical about what to fix first.

Here’s what we cover: 

• The “Donald effect” impacting US growth - and how to rebuild confidence through landed cost clarity and reassurance
• Conversion that counts: prioritising high-impact experiments using RICE (Reach, Impact, Cost, Effort)
•  Life after cookies: why attribution and cohort analysis (with tools like Triple Whale) are now essentials
•  Turning first-party data into your growth engine - not a last-ditch paid ads replacement

Plus, real examples, clear takeaways, and no fluff.
 
 If you’re scaling, re-platforming, or rethinking your funnel for 2025, you’ll want to hear this one.

🎧 Listen now
 
 #DigitalCommerce #Ecommerce #Shopify #AI #DataStrategy #Search #CRO #FODcast

Simply Commerce is the leading supplier of talent into digital commerce across technology, digital marketing, product, sales, and leadership.

Find our more about our approach and our services within digital commerce recruitment here: https://simply-commerce.co.uk/

Transcript

Season Kickoff & Guest Intro

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to season seven of the podcast, the podcast focused on the future of digital commerce hosted by Simply Commerce. Season seven promises to continue to bring you some of the industry's brightest minds across the globe as we unpick the sector and where it's heading. From war stories to strategy and technology deep dives to future trends. We cover it all as we continue our journey to have one of the most popular podcasts in commerce. Before we start, if you enjoy our content, please do hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you're listening on. Like and share on socials.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Welcome to another episode of the FODCAS, The Future of Digital Commerce. And on today's episode, I am really pleased to be joined by Jamie Vaughan, who is the MD of Signify UK. Jamie, thank you very much for joining us on the episode today.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

You are very welcome. Jamie, it'd be really good for you to give the audience a bit of a background as to who you are and where you've come from.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Sure. Well, yeah, I'm Jamie. I'm MD

Jamie’s Path: Growth To Agency Leadership

SPEAKER_01 1:00

of Signifly in the UK. We are um a Danish company originally, so I sort of founded and then head up the UK shop. Um my background is broadly within growth marketing and e-com and sort of has been since a very early age. Um had kind of a I guess baptism of fire into the world of Facebook ads from an early age with a family business, um, from when I was about 16 and felt like that was a fun, a fun place to play. Um after university, uh joined a sort of funded scale up called Press, um, which is a sort of health and wellness brand running their marketing and e-commerce, um, scaled that really nicely and um felt like I could do it for some more um for some more brands across a few different sectors. So uh joined a small agency, um, I guess what's that now? Seven or so years ago, um, to sort of co-found or re-co-found that business um as a creative performance agency. I was there for four years. We worked with lots of high-growth, uh predominantly premium and luxury brands. Um and yeah, after about four years, came to a logical end there and sold my stake in that. And at a similar time, met the guys at Signiflight and um yeah, had HQ'd in Copenhagen. They um they had a desire to come over to the UK and said, how about it to me, really? So um, yeah, that was two and a half years ago or so now, and um clipping along nicely in the world of digital and design.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

And you've you've actually done a huge amount in what is a relatively short career, really.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah, it's been it's been busy. Um wouldn't necessarily recommend doing two agencies from scratch in a six-year period if you want to keep the grey hairs at bay. Um, but yeah, I think um have always had the ambition um to do sort of entrepreneurial things. And I think when I first came across like performance marketing, I suppose is the broadest version of what um I've been doing lots of and just growing companies, acquiring customers, retaining them more effectively, and all of those things. Um yeah, I've just had, I suppose, itchy feet to try and do that um for as many people in as many places

The “Donald Effect” On International Growth

SPEAKER_01 3:20

as I can.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Well, you've got plenty of experience to help us uh as we go through the process of understanding a bit more about the future of digital commerce as you see it. Um we spoke about this uh briefly before we had the podcast. We've talked about the kind of the state of digital commerce in 2025 as we head rapidly into 2026. Um, from your perspective, what's genuinely changed in the in the in the past 12 to 18 months and what is is just noise?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah, I think well, I think I'll probably be slightly centric to the clients that we have, which broadly are sort of, I suppose, scale up to mid-market um companies operating internationally. I think the thing that's definitely not noise and has been a huge pain in the rear has been uh the Donald effect, um, as we've dubbed it internally. Um, a lot of our clients have, and it's been something that I've done for lots of businesses, is helping them launch into the States. Um, and we've done that effectively. And then sort of over the last 12 or so, particularly, there has just obviously been a lot of difficulty in continuing that growth. Um, it's become more expensive, it's become less effective. Um, and as much as we try to mitigate against all of the things that are, yeah, probably normally described as headwinds in um in the business world, I think they are more than that. It is genuinely quite difficult to make sure that um US customers know that they can competently buy from European or UK-based businesses without getting a big sting upon delivery as an example. Um, I think the data um situation, let's say, from um all of the stuff that happened actually quite a few years ago now with um with yeah, third-party tracking and cookies and all of that sort of stuff, we still feel the effects of that. I think the visibility um that you have in terms of the marketing efforts that you sort of put into your marketing strategies and whatever are just, yeah, it's more, it's a more challenging um situation to see what's working well and what's what's not. Um, and I think there's been a lot of great um suppose developments technically in terms of how to mitigate against that. Um, so for instance, with within Shopify, we've become increasingly reliant on tools like triple well and other sort of smart attribution tools that we're constantly on the lookout for more of as well to see how we can better analyze uh the different cohorts of customers, how we can extend lifetime, and how we can basically more effectively uh acquire new ones. Um but yeah, it's been uh it's been a bit of a turbulent 18 months

Volatility, Conversion Friction & CRO Focus

SPEAKER_01 6:05

for most of our most of our clients. And I think, as I said at the start, particularly those that are operating internationally.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

And you mentioned the Donald effect. Has that has that settled down now? Or is that still something that you're finding causing causing situations, should we say?

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Yeah, um, it's it's slightly month to month at the minute. I suspect I'd have a much clearer view of it after this next quarter, especially for some of our luxury brands that we work with who do a big gifting trade. Um, a couple in particular take sort of 75-ish percent of their revenue from the states um over the last sort of two years. And now September actually particularly was quite a good month. It felt like we'd done quite a lot of stuff to mitigate against the concerns people have around shipping times, costs, duties, etc. Um, and yeah, I think we're now in middle October and it feels like it's tough again. So it just feels quite volatile um and quite uncertain. We keep referring back to Brexit and COVID times, where there is, I think the thing that is the most disruptive to an e-commerce brand's performance is kind of that inertia of just not quite knowing exactly what's going to be happening. Um, and we see that particularly with our Canadian business. There's just been so much noise around what the US might be doing um with their trading agreements with Canada. Um, but it's still always in limbo, always, you know, um, Mr. Trump changes his mind quite frequently, and it's strong strong opinions loosely held most of the time. So um I think it's that inertia that's that's really irritating. I think on the other hand, the US economy is also pumping, and there's a lot of the consumer spending doesn't seem to be um down much. I think it is just hurting those brands that are more like UK um forward or European forward in their messaging, which again, a lot of our luxury brands in particular are about British handcrafted or European style or whatever. Um, and so sort of putting guardrails around um the customer journey to make them feel like they're sort of looked after and we're comforting them that it's not going to be a painful sort of shopping experience just because we're not a US brand uh is still something that we're trying to yeah, come up with the best solutions for.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

I want to go on to the AI um agents pieces in the set, but one last query on this whole Donald

AI Agents, AEO, And Practical Adoption

SPEAKER_02 8:40

effect. Do you think, therefore, that there's a lot of pent up demand with clients holding uh until they get more clarity that we might see then a bigger surge next year?

SPEAKER_01 8:54

It's yeah, though I think that's what I was sort of um holstering for the final for the final quarter. I think um our hope is that when there are some sort of discounts or at least um bigger incentives to purchase, that we're gonna start to see a big flush out of all the sort of awareness that's been raised. Because I think we see that broadly everything from click through to initiate checkout, our numbers are all up, and then the conversion rates in the states have just been hurt quite badly. So that's where we've sort of been focusing our efforts from a CRO perspective is to is to make sure that we're doing as much as we can there. But again, it still seems to be hardy odds. So our our hope is that as the gifting period comes around and um with you know discounting season in November, um, our hope is that we will flush out a load of these customers who've been looking like they're considerate of buying for a while and haven't quite pulled the trigger.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Yeah, makes sense. And if we look at the AI piece, so AI native commerce is a topic. Um it's still quite hotly disputed, actually, from the people that I've spoken to. And with we're thinking about how the agents are going to access the websites, how they're gonna pull data. Um, where do you think the AI AI agents are gonna show up first across the customer experience?

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Um it was a good question. I was trying to just reflect on like where we've started with lots of our clients, because obviously it's the hottest topic. Um aside from people saying where's all of our US revenue disappeared off to. Um but yeah, AI is obviously the conversation that we have daily, hourly. Um I think it's probably split across two things. So I think on-site chat related, whether that's something around FAQs or more effectively triaging support tickets, um enhancing the sort of shopping experience with um suggested products and things like this. Uh I think that's where we started with most, or a lot of our clients are seeing quite a lot of conversion coming through um sort of generative search now. So I guess off-site people are very focused on how they can optimize for AEO and GEO as well as SEO. Um, I think particularly higher consideration items where people are exploring in a very different way to how they have done traditionally on Google, where they explore and then you can hit them with advertising on the basis of what they're trying to explore. Um, we're now having to restructure a lot of the copy on site and uh also explore new channels that sort of feed these AI engines like ChatGPT on the back of obviously just quite a lot of disruption in terms of how people are searching. Um, so that's typically where the conversations have commenced. And we've we use the Rice framework meticulously at Signify with virtually everything that we do, um, which for those who don't know is uh reach impact cost and effect. Um, and we sort of try and sense check everything that we're doing with AI, um with that framework, because I think it's very simple to be drawn into all sorts of shiny sounding things that have decent costs attached to them without actually assessing what is the actual impact here, how much of our customer base is gonna be affected by this. Um and yeah, uh other other such questions, which I think when you start asking the clients that we work with, typically you quite quickly get to a place where it is quite nascent. Um, and I think with something like uh the AEO piece and just optimizing for Chat GPT, Gemini perplexity, et cetera, um, that is something that's relatively high impact and relatively low cost to do. It's more around like content type marketing. So that's that's how we've been having the

Frameworks That De-Romanticise AI Investments

SPEAKER_01 12:55

conversations. And I think as I say, it's it people are either starting on site or they're viewing it from like a customer acquisition standpoint.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Okay, so just let me check on the on the rice. So for me, for me, rice is rest, ice, compression, elevation.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

It's also that. So you said that for each, impact, cost, and effect. I think intercom actually coined it, but we particularly for conversion rate optimization, it's something that we've just used for a long time because there might be something like a conversion rate optimization tactic might be if someone's on Shopify Advanced, it might be to upgrade to plus and then do some custom stuff at checkout. But obviously the cost of doing that is massive, so the impact of it would have to be huge. Um, so we use it as like a framework to basically rate the like the forecasted impact reach cost effort as a uh uh effect, etc. Um all the way through. I also think I've um cocked up E. E is effect or effort. Which one is it? It's effort, but we can say the same. But we we basically rank everything on those different metrics and then do like a traffic like system of which we should do first, which is broadly what's the lowest effort and the highest impact, um, depending on the client, or sometimes it's the lowest cost and the highest impact. Um, that's typically how we do it. And we're trying to do the same with with AI, just because I think, as yeah, you sort of teased at the start of the question, there is just so much noise and so much nasency that it's super easy for it to become a distraction. Um, even with the you know, the levels of traffic being driven by something like a chat GPT still pales into total insignificance in comparison to what Google's driving still. Um, but that change has started, so it feels yeah, a little complacent to not be getting stuck in.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Yeah, indeed. And total cost of ownership when you're looking at platform strategy is something else that's a big, big topic at the moment. And the the whole Donald effect will play into that, as you talked about earlier. But in your

Platform Strategy & Composability Choices

SPEAKER_02 15:05

view, and when you're advising clients, how should a brand choose between things like out of the box, extended theme, and then then the potential more composable options that are available to them?

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Yeah, I mean, it's it's never a simple challenge. I'm actually looking at a whiteboard on the other side of the screen that has the um yeah, the kind of brain vomit from a couple of developers and a couple of project managers from yesterday trying to do this exact exercise. Um our our how or our approach that we have at the start of every um proposal, which sort of very much plays into our Scandinavian roots, is to understand complex and deliver simple. Um, and our team structure is done in such a way where we have got quite a heavy strategy resource to sort of do some more business consulting before we start getting even close to touching Figma, never mind any code. So I think doing a very comprehensive requirements analysis before we start is is the sort of like straightforward answer to to how we do that. Um, but I think we've got, I guess, a development um team that can that can do all sorts of things. So sometimes it is a very simple out of the box thing, and sometimes it's a complex headless setup with Shopify working in the back. Um but we are yeah, slow to undertake those big heavy projects with a ton of front-end development as well as all the configuration that comes with Shopify, uh, unless it's really required. Um, I think we are in a place where we're working with some businesses that are of a scale where they do require it. And then obviously it's important that we we can cater to those needs. But um that's broadly again, the rice can come into that um as well. But like we've got, I suppose we've got a fair few different frameworks that we try and take clients through to actually sense check what they're asking for if they are asking for a custom theme or um or a headless setup or whatever. Um and yeah, just just make sure that we're not spending money for the sake of it because it's obviously normally more expensive to run and everything in the long term as well.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

And and on the on the platform piece, we're seeing Shopify as the

Shopify’s Pull And Migration Trends

SPEAKER_02 17:25

the main driver of any replatforming that's happening. Um is that what you're broadly seeing as well?

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yes. So from an from an e-comm perspective, we exclusively work with Shopify um and have done for a long time, and they're a good part partner of ours. Um, we're a big fan of the platform and have grown lots and lots of businesses through it. So I think we're very loyal there. Um, and that's typically WordPress and Wuicom setup or Magento or whatever else people coming over. Also got um a scenario with a potential client at the minute where they're on craft and they're wanting to go back to Shopify, which they've sort of flipped flat between for a while. Um but yeah, that's that's broadly the direction of travel. And we actually see a huge amount of it on the non-e-com side as well, with WordPress to things like Webflow um and yeah, more sort of headless setups as well. Um, so it feels like there is this migration towards, I suppose, the more new era. Um I don't know if we can still call Shopify new era, but um relative to the others that I just mentioned, we're we're seeing that that journey happening still quite regularly.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Yeah, I I think it's still it's still relatively new in the format that we're seeing it and some of the size of the projects that are starting to happen. Uh, there are not that many of them, but I think as we go into next year, we're going to see a lot more builds of the size of Fenix. This was released a month or so ago. Um, but I mean in an interesting space to watch for sure. Um, one of the things you touched on

Privacy, First-Party Data & Long Nurtures

SPEAKER_02 19:10

briefly was uh restrictions with things like um data third-party tracking. So, how are you, from a data and privacy perspective, advising uh and also encouraging growth within your clients, given that there's a lot more, there's a lot stricter consent around those types of things?

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yeah, I mean, I think I've always been a big campaigner for first party in a general sense, um, basically since I started, just because I think I quickly realized that paying Meta for eyeballs was like over a long term period was a lot more costly than paying Meta to acquire an email and then taking it all sort of offline from the channels, not to pick on Meta, other other providers are available. Um, but yeah, we I think I've always been a big proponent of that. So I think we are really pushing our clients to do effectively generation um and possibly even turn themselves into a bit of a content business um and make their mailer or WhatsApp or um SMS pool or whatever be something that people are actually keen to sign up to, irrespective of needing to buy something today. Um, I think we've we do work with quite a lot of businesses, both on the sort of B2C and B2B side, that have incredibly high tickets, and we have some obscenely long uh conversion windows. We have had one recently that was eight years, um, which was probably a record and also not something that I'm trying to celebrate in any way. That's clearly not the best scenario that it's taken someone that long. But I think it does illustrate the point that if you do get people into a mailing list and have really effective content, um, and again, our sort of team setup within the strategy team is that we've got quite a few really talented copywriters that activate a brand in a way that's not just there's a sale on or um here's the about us from the website or whatever. We are trying to push slightly richer content that people are actually um keen to keen to read, keen to engage with, and then they slightly, I suppose, go towards being more community members as opposed to just a customer base in enclavio or whatever else. So I think we've been pushing that for quite a long time. I think we're just seeing the need for it even to be even greater. Um, and quite a lot of our clients take 20 to even 40% of their turnover through email. So we are doing quite a lot of growth and performance marketing work with a view to actually acquiring emails, not just acquiring a customer you know, directly through an advert and making sure that we can nurture them over a longer time frame.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

So we we kind of moved on a

Marketplaces, Retail Media & Margin Risks

SPEAKER_02 22:00

little bit to the next thing I was gonna go to talk to you about, which is okay. But do you do you think then every brand uh should run retail media uh and join more marketplaces? And and if they're going to do that, what are the things they need to watch out for?

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Yeah, it's a very interesting one. Um and I think it's yeah, well, I mean, the industries sort of speak for themselves, but I mean, back back from the earliest days with uh when I was at press, there was a huge proponent of what we were doing was like a cardo-based stuff. Um, and that was an enormous channel and still is for that business. Um, and obviously, if you're going on a platform like that, you need to support that activation through marketing on there. Um, so I think the first thing to say is if you're gonna take the plunge and go on a Wine App or a Farfetch or whatever else, um Accado, et cetera, if you're gonna do it, do it properly and support the activation. Um, I think we've got a fair few clients that have seen it over time to be very erosive of margin. Um, and that's kind of on two sides, one on the marketplace itself, but also um obviously these marketplaces also chuck a lot of cash themselves at the sort of Google ad side of things, particularly, and then you do start seeing some sort of cannibalization of what would be uh probably uh sort of purchases through your store and then data that you'd have proprietarily, not just through um the the marketplace. So all a bit of a modeled way of saying I'm a bit conflicted. I think if it's uh an obvious opportunity to generate some more revenue, that in its in and of itself sounds great. But yeah, I've seen I've seen more offboarding than I've seen onboarding in recent times, is is probably the truth. You said you said support the activation.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

What what do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_01 24:10

I think it's I mean if you if you're taking the decision to go onto one of these platforms, if you don't actually like go in and if you're yeah, if you're gonna be a bear, be a grizzly type mentality, if you're gonna launch on there, launch properly and work with them to do some marketing activation. And I see a lot of our clients join Amazon so half-heartedly, and then they go, Oh, Amazon's just not a great channel for us. And the reality is it's probably an incredible channel channel for the business, but they're just not giving it the attention that they require. And I think that's just more of the general um contagion, I suppose, that's within a lot of e-commerce businesses where they just spread time, effort, and budget too thinly across a lot of stuff, and then they just go, Oh, that's not really worked that well. Um, and actually, I think it's very hard to say that because the findings that you're getting are completely superficial unless you are properly throwing your hat in the ring. Um, and so I think a

CX That Delights And Drives Results

SPEAKER_01 25:10

cardo is the one that's particularly in my mind where when you launch on a cardo or in physical retail on it for like an FMCG brand, you there is an expectation that you support that launch um quite substantially. And I see a fair few brands doing that in a way that's just not in a big enough way, essentially. And then they view it as oh, that's not work for us, and then they end up offboarding. Um, I don't think that's always the case in terms of recently why people have been offboarding. I think that's more to do with like margin pressure more generally and and trying to focus on that first party database and getting customers that are in there in their own lists and in their own CRMs. Um, but I think I I do think that that's something that people fall foul of.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Yeah. So if you're gonna do it, do it properly, yeah. Is the short answer, I guess. Um customer experience is uh something that's uh uh that's key, as you know, uh particularly across the physical and digital channels. Um but in your view, beyond the kind of look and feel, how does the design element actually change the business result?

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Yeah, it's a good question. One we've been pondering a lot this year. With we've done a slight repositioning of um, I think articulating our position, our sort of inception was around the combination of strategy, creative and tech. Um, and that was the background of our three founders. And I think we've been questioning like what that actually culminates in. And our the new strap that we've been going out with, which people seem to like, is delighting people and driving business. And I think what great CX does or has the power to is to delight the customer. And I think on the basis that you delight someone, they're very likely to engage with you

Maersk Containers: From Cost To Revenue

SPEAKER_01 27:00

more regularly, um, possibly spend more money with you, possibly trust you more, be more loyal, and so on. So I think that's that's where we are trying to play. Um, digital experience is like a huge part of our business. The yeah, the majority of our revenue comes from broadly the DEX space. Um, and I think it basically comes down to being very clued into what your customers want and need, and then helping them through the journey and making it a comfortable and delightful experience.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

And digital is how I define it, physical and digital. Uh, it's a it's a word I'm trying to hashtag on my LinkedIn post and get to get uh some traction. It's not quite got there yet. But from your perspective, um the service design piece, is that in your view, the bridge between the two? Uh or one of the key uh elements to it at least?

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Yeah, I think it's I like fital. I I always used to um I used to have a picture that I put in pictures. It was particularly not again, not to pick on anyone particular, but particularly Magento to Shopify migrations, where I had a very sort of disheveled looking physical storefront with the door hanging off and the paint peeling and dirty windows and all of that. Um and that that I think people when they see that they go, Oh yeah, that is kind of what our our store looks like um or feels like to customers. And yeah, if you give it a fresh look of paint and and so on, that is something that generally performs far better over time. So that's a weird metaphor, I suppose, to answer the question in some degree.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

So one of the things we talked about um before the podcast was actually one of the um key case studies with Mesk, um, the client you've worked with, it'd be really good to get a bit more of that. Perhaps um online brief, um, talk to me about some of the constraints, what the problems you solved and how you solved them, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Yeah, for sure. Uh it's probably one of my favourite cases of ours. It was what convinced me to join the business a few years ago, um, which I think was just a great case of the full sort of effect of what we do when things go really well. And weirdly, with Mask, which people normally know for Captain Phillips, um, it was actually an e-comm case. So uh they basically came with a very simple online brief, which was we have a huge loss leader in shipping containers that are no longer seaworthy. Um, and that's basically to say that they've done a good service and they're just not uh structurally uh ready for going across numerous oceans uh the year round. So um they had an idea around being able to repurpose uh the shipping container structures, and there was sort of different degrees of like quality.

Government Tech: Ambulence And A&E Apps

SPEAKER_01 30:00

And um like how damaged they were essentially. And we basically set about putting a strategy together to sell these no longer seaworthy containers to a range of different um, I guess, stakeholders, if you want to use that word, um, from uh building developers to NGOs that would basically use them. I mean, box parks is normally the um thing that people can familiarize with in London, but in Copenhagen in particular, there's even student accommodation that's built in this very cool, as it would be, uh, architectural sort of um design of numerous shipping containers facilitating like these studio apartments for students. Um, so that went from being like a very big loss leader for that for that business to now being quite a big revenue generator. Um, and that was a Shopify implementation, um, which again I was just finding very obscure to think about how big and sort of multifaceted Shopify has become to be able to cater to a beauty brand and then also selling shipping containers to a range of sort of B2B and B2G audiences. Um, so that was a really cool case. And I think, as I hinted at, the the taking it from like a business design challenge and kind of one of more of a a sort of change management business consulting case through to some really great design work. The the platform looks looks awesome and the UX is super smooth. Um, and then all the way through to to launching it and scaling uh that side of the business for mask. So yeah, a fun case that was done by our amazing team in in Denmark.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Yeah, and you see those uh everywhere now. Um these uh pop-up commerce um shops, I guess they are, um, using the the uh shipper container. So it's a very smart move, and for sure.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Yeah, for sure. And um, yeah, I think it was a fun one where there is like a and as all the other um sort of beneficiaries of that light box spark market, the sort of more, I guess, environmentally friendly, pop-up y nature of it, being able to use Brownfield sites on a temporary basis for a great sort of retail or um hospitality activation or whatever else it is in other countries in the world. Um, but also just yeah, turning turning that sort of side of the business round, which was um, yeah, I suppose really expensive in that they made no revenue and had to get rid of them and and recycle and reuse them, which is all just expensive stuff.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

Uh that's what I was going to ask. What were they what were they actually doing with them previously?

SPEAKER_01 32:39

I think I think they were just basically going to the graveyard essentially. So I think it was broadly melting stuff down and starting all over again. But the actual it's normally it's things like cars and like relatively precious cargo that's going within a shipping container. Um, so obviously they had very tight standards on what was good enough. Um, but even something that was slightly not good enough wouldn't wouldn't fly. Um but those structures, you know, they're obviously big, very robust things. So there's like a grading system within the platform um to sort of ascertain how damaged it is, or I suppose how undamaged it is. And then that sort of justifies different uses for the containers in their sort of second life.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

And there was another one that we touched on as well, which I think the audience would be interested in, which was the uh the on-demand ambulance.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

That one I found interesting to get to know what the kind of before and after journey wasn't, and who who are the users?

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Yeah, for sure. So it's for Acut, which is basically the like the emergency services in in Denmark. Uh, we've been partnering with the Danish government on their journey towards digitalization for quite a few years now. Um, help design like the COVID pass and um the sort of digital health card and the digital driver's license. It's obviously a more digitally advanced uh nation than than we are in the UK. Um, and one of the big mandates that they put in relatively recently was a greater degree of self-service, which the um current UK government are also now talking about a lot

Teams Of The Future & Senior Consultants

SPEAKER_01 34:20

as well. Um, and they've started within the emergency services, both on the ambulance um side, as you've into out, but also with things like AE bookings. So we've basically been uh designing and building um a suite of apps and different technologies to essentially help dangerous be able to book an AE appointment. So it reduces the chance of no shows and all of the different costs that come with that. It's also going to have the ability to upload photos and do some sort of like self-guided um diagnoses so that the doctors that are receiving these patients are more clued up and ready to go, and that has a huge cost-saving um effect on just like healthcare professional time. Um and it's also having a big impact on um patient outcome. So the the case that I think I mentioned to you last time was specifically with ambulances, which I think, in the crudest way to describe it, is basically Uber for ambulances. So one of the findings in sort of all the research that was that was done over the last sort of 18 months was when someone calls an ambulance, if they are in a critical situation and the ambulance is not yet there, they call back and they call back and they call back. And that obviously takes up time from other people's calls being received, um, which has a negative effect on their potential outcomes. But for the person that's ordered the ambulance in the first instance, it is now literally like an Uber type interface where they can see where the ambulance is, the ETA, um, and that has quite a significant stress reduction, which again, generally speaking, improves the potential outcomes of those uh patients that need it. Um, and there's kind of a secondary use case for the ambulance one as well, which is kind of non-emergency uh ambulance booking, which typically is for audiences in care homes and uh those sorts of um those sorts of situations where if the sort of um carer orders the ambulance, they know when it's arriving, they can organize the person that needs to get to the hospital, make sure everything's ready to go. And again, there's just a huge downtime reduction. So it's it's a suite of really smart and really lovely to use uh technologies that just directly correlate with you know the key initiative of of the government, which is to basically enable and empower people to look after themselves and not be so reliant on lumpy call centres and those sorts of things.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Yeah, it sounds very smart, it sounds a world away from what we experience here in the UK.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

It really does. It's

UK vs Nordics vs Canada Dynamics

SPEAKER_01 37:00

always a bit of a weird case study to put to people in the UK because we if we say that we've built government technologies in the UK, in the UK, people normally go, oh, they're terrible. So I hope they're better than they are in the UK.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

Um and we we've covered quite a lot, um, particularly around how technology is changing, how you're providing that customer experience, and and you are advising the businesses that you work with on how they should move forward. Um, that inevitably over time changes the demand for the types of people you'll need in your business to continue to grow. Um, what kind of people and teams do you think you're going to need in the next kind of 18 to 24 months? How and how is it changing in your view?

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Great question. Um well, I think so there's there's some stuff which is getting to be quite concrete. So, for instance, within our technical teams, our developers are able to code and build complex, high-quality stuff more quickly with AI. Um, we're big users of Claude. So I think we can see that there are certain teams where the traditional agency scenario of scaling with headcount might actually be slightly reduced. Um, and that we will be able to harness some of the new technology that is available to us. I say we will, we are doing that already now. And we're just saying that the pace at which we can build um is quicker. I think the the thing that all of that sort of feeds into and the most general trend is that we see huge appetite both from our clients and from the teams that we currently have to work with more very senior, what we call consultants, but I suppose project leaders, advisors, um, also the people that do most of our sales work as well, um, where they sort of there there is just demand for people that have seen lots of situations, that have been through lots of journeys of whether it's replatforming or whether it's building a complex product or if it's going through a rebranding exercise or any of those sorts of things. So I think that's where our sort of biggest focus is, and we typically hire consultants that have a strong T-shape in one of our services. So that might be in brand or in customer experience or e-commerce and growth or tech uh you

2027 Predictions: AI Search And Support

SPEAKER_01 39:30

know bigger technical projects. Um that's typically where we're hiring more of, and particularly in London, where we've obviously just got a bigger market um than we've got in Copenhagen and more people to go and speak to. Um, that's where we're sort of disproportionately hiring towards because we think that's the thing that makes our clients just very happy, is working with super high quality sort of project leaders and people they can pick up the phone to and say, what would you do in this situation? So that's that's probably the the area that I see scaling most quickly.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Okay, that makes sense. Um, what are the differences given you've got uh Copenhagen, Canada, UK, uh, and you're involved in some parts across all of those, but what are the differences in your view in kind of stakehigard stakeholder style speed and scope between the Nordics and the UK?

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Yeah, I think I think or Denmark's I think is is an interesting combination of broadly being quite conservative, but also being super innovative. Um, and for quite a long period of time, I mean Signfly is 15 years old now. So I think for maybe four years, we were like an innovation agency, and we predominately worked with big companies on their innovation projects, not dissimilar to the one that I mentioned with Mask. Um so I think that's that's Denmark. Um, it's obviously a really small country, um, five and a half million people, so it's about half the size of Greater London, which is quite nuts to think about given the amount of big businesses and great startups that are there. Um, but I'd say that's broadly how I've sort of sensed that that market. Um, Canada, I think, is a really tricky one to answer at the moment, just as I said earlier, with the the Trump effect and obviously the the sort of trading um history between the Canada and the US is so so strong and at the minute is is weaker. Um, but I think the trend that we've seen already is a lot of big Canadian businesses buying Canadian and not going down to New York for their design services or um to Austin for tech or whatever else it might be, and they're actually buying from from Canadian um partners. So I think that's that's what we see there. D UK, I think we're still figuring out. Um, I think we've all probably got a stronger and clearer view given we are based here. Um but the market,

Lightning Round: UX Sins To Shopify Myths

SPEAKER_01 42:00

the markets are sort of, I think they're complementary. Um and I think that's a bit of a happy accident. Um it's it's we've we've opened studios based on the people that we found, more so than specifically saying we need to go and open in in Montreal as an example. That that wasn't how that went down. Um it was more more sort of people-centric. Um but yeah, that's maybe something of a summary of my my sort of experience of the of the three.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

And if we look into uh predictions, and you can give me your crystal ball analysis, if we're looking at by 2027, what what do you think? Um couple of things that you think will be mainstream by then that are that really are either not now or not even being talked about necessarily so much now.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

Um the first one, and I would be fairly confident and bet some money on, is that people will need to be doing a lot of work to optimize for search on AI. Um, I think particularly with open AI and Shopify integrating recently and those sorts of things. I just I do think the shopping journey is gonna change drastically. And I think if people aren't starting to get more clued up on how to optimize for like generative um and AI search, they're gonna get left behind. Um I think again, like high quality and really helpful agents uh within digital commerce is gonna be something that's just completely commonplace. Um I think the need for customer support is gonna be like heavily reduced. Um, and I think that'll be more of a sort of leadership and quality control task as opposed to one of grunt work. Um and what else would I say? I think I think I think Shopify is gonna proliferate more um than it already has. I think if they are able to, to my first point around the shopping journey changing, I think if they are able to proliferate across the AI sphere, the other sort of competitors, if we still call them competitors, which I'd probably be quite slow to. Um I I I just don't think there'll be anyone else. I think there will be the the obvious go-to, and most people will either have migrated or be in the process of thinking about doing it.

SPEAKER_02 44:34

And is there is there anything you think people should be ignoring that is currently being talked about? Perhaps it's being overhyped.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

I mean, I think some of the things that I've just said are currently overhyped. So I think there's a bit of a timing thing here. And I we um we have one client in particular who's a very long-standing client of mine, um, who is just so on the pulse of every new innovation, um, which is awesome and like to be celebrated. But I think it's important to look at what statistically is happening, and I think it's still Google have 92% share of search. So if you're put putting all of your um chips on the side of AEO now, I think that would be kind of nuts. Um, but yeah, I'd I'd probably lazily give the answer of AI is my hottest, hottest forecast, and also the thing that's most overhyped right now.

SPEAKER_02 45:37

All right, I'll let you have that one. Um okay, cool. Well, look, you've made it to the uh to the most exciting part of the podcast, which is the lightning round. So I need some short answers for you and a couple of questions, which might maybe you may find hard to answer, but we'll see if we can get them out of you.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

Um but the first one is well one UX sin that you will not personally tolerate people put really, really poor copy in buttons, which does my head in. And I think AI is making that so much worse. Oh, really? I think I think people just get over smart with it and just I think they sort of try to get two in their own heads and forget that people are actually just looking for a very obvious signpost as opposed to some compelling piece of brand copy or something else. Um, something I particularly see in kind of non-e-commerce businesses um where instead of book demo, they'll go for get an early preview of new product, whatever it is. I'm not gonna not gonna be able to come up with something uh on the spot that's that's gonna translate my point effectively. But yeah, poor signposting and bad copy.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

Keep it simple, stupid. Exactly. Yeah, and one metric that you check every morning.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

Um that's a good one. We started recording NPS, that's something I am checking every morning at the moment. We've been going to all of our clients over the last two and a half years and getting really comprehensive NPS scores. It's probably not every day that that's coming through, but um, that's been a recent one for us. Um, we've got quite a few clients that we've got some pretty competitive and punchy performance agreements in place for, where there's quite a lot of um skin in the game from our side, unless we hit um the numbers that we've sort of forecasted to hit. So I also yeah, check in with all of those um pretty regularly and see how we're tracking on on a run rope basis. So those will probably be the two internal and then on the on the client side. Okay. And one tool that you rely on personally? I thought about this one slightly. I think the odds, I mean, are obviously a suite of AI things, but I think the one that I do use a lot is Fixer, um, which I was a really early user of. Um actually went to school with one of the one of the founders, so um came across it really early in its journey. But it's an email, an email sort of AI tool. I think they say it saves you an hour and a half a week or something. I actually think it's more than that, but it's um it's also amazing for meeting notes. They've just built an incredible product, and it's one of the sort of most exciting AI companies on earth and was founded in in London as well. So fun to someone from Wellington. That it was actually from my previous school. Um so a guy called Archie and his brother founded it. Um, but yeah, I've been a user since an early an early point. They've developed it so much, really, really smart.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Nice. Well, I shall happily I should be looking at that one after the podcast. Um, a brand that you admire outside of your client base, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

Uh this will be an obvious one. I'm um very keen golfer. Um, and I've just been very eagerly watching from the sidelines. We've actually got a couple of clients recently onboarding that are um in the golf space, which I'm very excited about playing with. Um, but uh a brand I've just like been become a huge consumer of, and both in terms of their products and their content is Manners, um, which is a sort of street weary type golf brand. Um, again, UK uh UK-based company. They've been around five minutes and already done big collaborations with Reebok and and various other things. And I think the products are incredible. I think their marketing is even more incredible. Um, and they're just doing an awesome job. So they are worth checking out.

SPEAKER_02 49:46

Nice. I should do that too. And then this one might be hard to answer. You're gonna have to track carefully. One unpopular view about Shopify.

SPEAKER_01 49:57

Yeah. I suppose it's one that I also have, which is that it's sort of the de facto answer to every e-commerce problem. Um, we've had a we've had a pitch recently where one of my colleagues who is a big champion of Shopify and he's probably our most expert Shopify person in our company, uh, where I sort of just brought him a very exciting lead and said they need they want to go back to Shopify. And he said, I don't know if that's physically possible because they've just got, I think they've got something close to a million SKU combinations. Um, and just the sheer scale of the sort of back-end requirement there means that it's not necessarily the the right path. So yeah, I I I I would be falling um into the category of people that that are guilty of it, but I I don't think it is necessarily the answer to every problem.

unknown 50:52

Great.

SPEAKER_02 50:53

Agreed. Well, that is a good note to end on. Thank you very much. It's been some really good insight there. I think the audience will be really interested to hear some of the stuff that you've had to say. Where can they go to find out a bit more about you or Signifly if they want to?

SPEAKER_01 51:09

Um, well, I'm a keen LinkedInist, uh, much to my girlfriend's dismay. Um, so you can follow along and and connect there. Um, and then for Signify, our website is just www.signify.com. So you can go and check out um some more work there and uh some of the case material that we briefly went over here um is also there in more full form. So worth worth a check out.

SPEAKER_02 51:34

Amazing. We'll make we'll make sure we post uh a link to the website in the comments when we post the podcast.

Closing, Links & Where To Find Jamie

SPEAKER_02 51:40

But thank you for your time, it's been really, really insightful. I really enjoyed it. Thank you, Jamie. Thanks a lot, Sammy.