Outcomes Over Architecture: Why Simplicity Wins in Commerce with Serge El Hachem

“It’s not the licence cost that kills you; it’s the invisible overhead.”

That’s how Serge El Hachem, Director of Solutions Engineering at Lazer Technologies, describes what’s really slowing enterprise commerce down.

On this week’s episode of The FODcast, host James and Serge unpack how global retailers are simplifying their stacks, cutting total cost of ownership, and finding real speed on Shopify.

We also cover:

• The invisible overhead - multiple vendors, fragile integrations, endless QA and DevOps cycles.
• Where costs shrink fastest; hosting, scaling, PCI and security handled natively, no AWS bills or patching.
• Speed as the unlock - six-month builds become six-week sprints, compounding learning and growth.
• App strategy that scales - Serge’s rule: every app should automate, measure, or personalise, or it’s bloat.
• Enterprise maturity - extensible checkout, powerful promo logic, and fast-maturing B2B capabilities.

With two decades in engineering and eight years focused on Shopify, Serge’s insight is clear: simplify the architecture, and growth follows.

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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

Today’s Focus: Shopify For Growth

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to season seven of the Fodcast. 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. Hello and welcome back to the podcast, The Future of All Things Digital Commerce. Today we're honing down on Shopify and how it's helping brands unlock growth and efficiency at the same time. Joining me to unpack everything is Serge LHM, Director of Solution Engineering for Laser Technologies. Thanks for joining me, Serge.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Thanks for having me, uh James.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

That was a close one, that was.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Sure. So I'm Serge, or if you can say my name in French, it's Serge. Um, but I won't hold you to it.

Serge’s Background And Enterprise Lens

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Essentially, we might be here for a while.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, yeah. It's all good. Uh but I lead enterprise Shopify implementations, um, essentially helping global brands move faster, simplify operations, um, and scale really without the complexity tax. So over the last two decades, I would say I've worked with a long list of retailers, uh, guiding them through replatforming, systems integrations, architecture design, um, just building things that balance performance and maintainability for them. Um out of those two decades, uh, I would say maybe the last eight or so years right now have been essentially focused just on Shopify itself.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

How many say eight, eight years, sorry?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Eight years, yeah. The last eight years of like my 20 plus career in just working on the Shopify platform.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Nice. So that is a lot of conversations then that have been focused around Shopify.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

A lot, a lot, yes. A lot of lot of battles.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Good way to put it. And then just so we know the conversation today, we're we're gonna have a kind of global standpoint in terms of how you see things globally, or are we gonna be focusing this on kind of what you're seeing in the sort of the North American market?

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Uh pretty much globally. So I do have experience with international retailers. Um, I would say maybe the last year or so I've been a little bit more focused on North American ones, but things haven't really changed that much.

The Invisible Overhead Of Composable

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Okay. All right. Well, let's jump in. Um so yeah, I guess where are you seeing the uh biggest cost inefficiencies in legacy or maybe composable setups today, Saj?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Uh that's a good question. So what I often see with legacy or just composable architect architecture is that the total cost of ownership doesn't really come from licenses alone. Um, it comes from what I call like the invisible overhead. So you're paying multiple vendors, you're managing separate contracts, you're building glue code just to make everything talk together. Every release needs some kind of regression testing across several systems. Right. You want to test your checkout, your CMS, your PIM, OMS, personalization layer, analytics. All that means just more QA, more dev time, longer lead times. Um you essentially need larger teams as well just to maintain that stack. You're gonna need DevOps, you're gonna need backend engineers, QA platform specialists, just to roll out minor updates, really. Um and then you've got uh essentially the integration tags, which is these fragile connections that you're building between services that break when one vendor just pushes an update. Um and a lot of these legacy platforms as well have essentially a lot of work just to maintain them. Like a lot of the effort that you're you're putting into the development is maintaining that platform, updating it yourself, really. So whenever the platform has a new update or a new framework that you have to migrate to, that's a lot of work that that's essentially spent on that.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

So in um brands that make the move to composable architecture, and uh often I've been told that one of the benefits of doing this is to reduce the TCO, which seems to um uh to oh sorry seems to um oppose what you were just saying.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Yeah, so essentially where that usually comes from is that the cost of license is probably going to be lower because you're again, you're picking and choosing your composable stack. Uh you're picking things that might be a lower cost and might give you a little bit more benefit in terms of what you're looking for in terms of functionality. Um, but the cost of maintaining that is usually like the invisible tax, the invisible overhead. And that's where like if you're looking at TCO from all of that, um, usually you end up losing in terms of okay.

Where TCO Shrinks On Shopify

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Yeah, okay. There's the bits you don't see then basically. Exactly. Yeah, okay. All right. So let's say um obviously Sebrand uh then migrates to Shopify. So what are the the cost areas that shrink the quickest?

App Spend, ROI And Team Size

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Uh infrastructure and hosting is one of the big ones. So obviously Shopify is fully managed, it auto-scales. Um there's no DevOps team for on like on your on the agency side or even on the retailer side. Um so you don't have to manage uptime, you don't have to manage scaling events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Um you don't necessarily need to pay AWS bills or CDN bills separately. All of that is included uh or baked in with Shopify. Um anything related to security and compliance. So anything patch patches related, PCI, uh fraud monitoring if you're not using an external vendor. Um all of that is handled by Shopify. So you don't need to worry about security releases or compliance audits, for example, just draining your velocity. Um the other portion that's not necessarily measurable in that way, but is relevant is speed to market, right? So Shopify is opinionated where it actually matters. So instead of you spending, you and your team spending six to nine months building the basics like checkout, pot, your card logic, promo rules. Um you're essentially building on a proven foundation and just you're focusing your engineering on uh business specific problems. And then um even what I mentioned a little bit earlier, um continuous upgrades. So Shopify updates the core platform for you. Instead of you replatforming every few years, you changing frameworks every few years, um you're essentially evolving just by being on Shopify. So new AP out new APIs, uh new checkout features, new accessibility, they just come to you directly and you can just leverage them directly. So you don't have to essentially spend uh your budget on those development hours. So you're essentially shifting from um paying for upkeep to paying for outcome.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Got yeah, and I mean the Shopify model where you would then uh integrate the apps that are of use to your business, uh seems like it's it's working very well. And um I think for the majority you it does. Something that I've heard quite a lot recently, though, is how actually by the time when you've actually incorporated the number of apps to your business, the TCO is far higher than you than you maybe were expecting, and actually the total reduction in TCO is far smaller than the brand was expecting. Is that something that you've also seen? And what would you say about that, Serge?

SPEAKER_01 8:16

I I do see it in some cases, and and there's a lot of nuances to that. So I see it in cases where a retailer, for example, went from a custom PIM that they were hosting and managing the PIM themselves were for not really paying it. And now that they're moving to Shopify, they're essentially taking that opportunity to um select a third party, a vendor for a PIM. And now on paper, their cost of ownership has increased because now they're actually paying a monthly subscription fee, uh, which can be quite high. But again, if you're taking into account the development time you're spending to maintain that PIM, or if you were just maintaining it and not improving it, not adding functionality to it, that's still a loss of potential revenue. That's a loss of functionality that you're not getting access to. So, yes, in terms of like CapEx, you're spending more. Um, but there is a bigger return, a bigger ROI essentially, um, once you're utilizing vendors like that on Shopify.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Okay. Um ultimately the development time as well uh is gonna be down substantially, I imagine. And we're seeing that with smaller teams being required for migration projects and then obviously maintenance moving forward as well. Gone are the days, uh, teams of 10 back-end devs, right? It's very much a case of uh uh a smaller team, a couple of front-end devs, designer, maybe full stat dev, and you're there.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah, even less than that.

Shopify’s Enterprise Maturity

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Um obviously, over the last five years, we've seen Shopify have a real push into enterprise. Um, I think over the last 18 to 24 months, in my opinion, we're really starting to see it make some substantial headway. Why is that?

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Uh well, one is obviously a push from Shopify themselves. So obviously they're trying to go for that enterprise market, but the way that they're doing that is essentially they're they are maturing their offering. They are building the APIs that enterprise retailers need, they are building flexibility into their platform to allow uh enterprise retailers to move to Shopify. Um so again, um a couple of years ago, yes, you could modify the checkout, yes, you could use card scripts to essentially create a promo engine, but everything was a little bit hacky back then. But today they essentially introduced accessibility. You can extend a checkout, you can add functionality to shape it to what you need. You're no longer really limited by um Shopify's limitations, really. There's obviously some guardrails because it is still a platform, some of it is still a black box. Um, but you're now able to extend parts of Shopify that you were never able to in the past. So you can create a complex promo engine now that isn't hacky anymore, that can compete with other platforms in terms of uh functionality that's available.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah, because I find it really interesting to think we are, I mean, I know there's a big difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus, right? But I mean, essentially we have one platform that can accommodate a startup business, go live in a couple of hours, alongside a multiple hundreds of million turnover business with a presence in tens of different countries. And to think there's the the fundamentals of one platform that can do that as a one-size-fits-all is is crazy. And I think a lot of people still look at Shopify as a platform that is a get live quickly, um, or for your small to mid-sized brands. And it's only really recently been accepted as a uh as a platform that's a genuine container enterprise.

B2B Progress And Roadmap

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Agreed. Uh, I mean, it is something that's very difficult to maintain when you think about it, exactly as you said. A platform that can support SMBs and enterprise at the same time, and has added uh the ability to do B2B natively as well. So you can do D2C and B2B all on the same platform, all on the same website, without having to have separate, completely separate systems that you're managing. Um definitely an interesting feat.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Definitely add in the B2B piece, like you mentioned, and it's yeah, it is even more complex, but even more interesting. The B2B piece is a really interesting note, actually, because for a long time I've been told B2B isn't Shopify isn't a player in the B2B space. However, again, that's changed this year. The last six, seven months, I hear about Shopify being mentioned alongside some some bigger players in the B2B space a lot. Um, it I mean, is that something that you're also seeing? Is that is that a push from Shopify to target themselves in that area as well? I mean, uh, they're obviously taking over retail and and and uh B2C, B2 B2B next.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Yeah, it is definitely uh one of the next things that they're they're pushing for. As you said, like they've matured their B2B offering from what was something extremely simple that really was almost an afterthought to something that um a lot of B2B retailers can actually use and grow on Shopify with. Is it up there in terms of one of the best B2B offerings? Probably not. Is it gonna get there? I do believe so.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Okay, interesting, on honest and I guess modest assessment right now. Um uh with the amount of money that Shopify pump into RD, then uh yeah, I mean, I think anything's anything's possible. And if they want to make it happen, then they will, as we've seen, demonstrated within retail, right? I guess uh just throwing it out there. I mean, how how far away do you think the platform is from from being up there with the best on the B2B?

SPEAKER_01 13:54

I would probably give it another year or so. Okay, maybe two more editions. Um and then, but but even then, like so, even today, we can still build on Shopify's B2B, we can extend it to essentially fill those gaps. Um but in terms of like Shopify supporting those gaps natively, I I think that's gonna take another year or so.

Growth Unlocks: Speed And Ecosystem

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Okay, but still not that long in the grand scheme of things, though. Yeah, no, okay. All right, so looking back at Shopify and I guess its ability to enable brands to grow uh alongside reducing sort of the TCO. Um what is the real unlock for their growth? Is it the speed? Is it the integrations, the flexibility, something something different?

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Combination of all of them, probably, but yeah, pretty much a combination of all of them. Uh so it's I guess if I had to summarize Shopify's growth unlock in one word, I I would definitely choose speed, uh speed to launch, to test, to expand, to iterate. Um you can roll out new features weekly. So essentially what used to take three to six months in a traditional stack now takes weeks. Uh so that agility compounds growth. Um integrations is a definitely a massive one. Um the ecosystem itself is massive. You have ERP connectors, you have marketing apps, you have OMS middleware, um, all of that essentially with one click configuration. Obviously, some retailers with more complex ERP needs, the connectors out of the box are probably or most likely not gonna work. But for a lot of them, uh it will, and it just simplifies uh the integration, which again goes back to speed, right? So you're no longer building something from scratch, it's taking you a lot less time to integrate with your uh with your software.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Um yeah, go ahead.

Proving Scalability With Enterprise Logos

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Yeah, so as the more and more enterprise customers look to Shopify as a platform, uh, I I guess what would be interesting to know is how many of the conversations you have with businesses um or challenge its scalability for them versus how many are coming to you saying we we believe Shopify is the platform we we want to work with. So you've got that kind of uh those that are kind of skeptical and challenging you versus those that are already uh bought into Shopify.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

I would say less and less these days. So a year, if you would have asked me this question a year ago, I think most of my conversations, maybe 80 to 90 percent of my conversations, were around convincing retailers that Shopify is scalable, Shopify will do what they need, um, and they're not gonna be limited by it. Um today I would say that's maybe 40% of my conversations are around convincing them that Shopify is actually a good solution. Um and the rest of it is just essentially they already know that Shopify is the way forward, and they just want to make sure that it essentially ticks all of their boxes.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Okay. So what would you say then if a brand approached you um that uh was doubting its scalability? How would you summarize your response to that question?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Uh I mean the way that I would summarize it is one, I I would use value proof. So I would just show them like, look at these enterprise brands that are on Shopify, that are scaling with no issues, that are doing 250 million plus in in business and sales on Shopify. Um and the platform is not even breaking its way for them. It's essentially answering all of their needs. So look at Skims, look at Mattel, um, Staples, a Canadian brand that's on there. Um they're all running successfully on Shopify. Yeah, cold hard facts. I mean, if they're doing it, their business is running well, um they're reducing their TCO and they're just bringing value to their website, then yeah. If it works for them, why would it work for you?

Marketing Momentum And Ecosystem Energy

SPEAKER_00 18:05

That's very true. That's very true. On the side note, something I love about Shopify, and it's the web page you they put together every year on Black Friday that shows you the volume of transactions that the platform's uh managing at any one time. It's crazy. This the just seeing those numbers is is fascinating. I've been watching it now for about four years, and it's just the the growth is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Absolutely insanity, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

It's uh something that I really like about Shopify there, and it's how they market themselves. And I mean, all the other e-commerce platforms are probably doing similar uh in terms of uh volume to with within certain uh within reason, right? And um, but none of them none of them talk about it. It's the same as I was speaking to somebody the other day and they said Adobe uh won a nearly 200 net new customers globally last year. I couldn't tell you who one of those customers were, they don't talk about it. What I like about Shopify is it promotes and it talks about everything it's doing. Uh all of the agencies and partners in the ecosystem, whenever they sign a new customer, boom, it's all over socials, it it just creates that feeling that Shopify is dominating and it's winning. And I mean it is clearly, but it's talking about it so much more. And I think if some of their challenges came um uh just came alive and started promoting their wins as well, we'd probably hear them in more conversations too. But I don't I can't remember the last time I heard SAP in a conversation, can't remember Adobe, um Salesforce here and there, but not much. And it's it's it's just Shopify every conversation, every every newsfeed update is Shopify and they they do such a great job about it.

What A High‑Performing Shopify Stack Includes

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Agreed, agreed. And I don't think any of those platforms, even before Shopify really advertised any of that, really. So I don't think it's in like their marketing playbook. Shopify their e com is their business, they're they're Shopify as a platform is that's their business and their value is pushing that, right? So they want people to know that these brands, um, some of them straight D to C, some of them old school brands, are essentially moving to Shopify um and growing the platform. Um I don't see that changing very much. I don't think like even I don't know if you've ever attended in one of their editions event, there's you know there's just so much passion there. Everyone is passionate about the platform, everyone's excited about the upcoming features, everyone's excited about the brands that are on there and what they're doing on Shopify. Um, and like you said, Shopify, even at those events, will essentially talk about their brands, they'll advertise for them, they'll have stands where they're giving away merch from those brands as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

The um the sort of the Shopify ecosystem and the community is very strong. Something I talk about uh on a on a weekly basis with with people is um yeah, it's really cool to see in everyone knows everyone, right? And I think that it's it's obviously a direct reflection of its success. So yeah, they've done a done a very good job, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Um so that the platform has come a long way over the last five years. Um and a it will look very different now to maybe how it would have looked when you first got in the Shopify space eight years ago and even just two or three years ago. So, in your opinion, what does a high performing Shopify Text Act look like right now?

App Bloat Audits And Right‑Sizing

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Uh I guess it really depends on the merchant, uh, the brand itself, and like their operations. But uh today, at least in the enterprise space, um, essentially I see a PIM that's added to the tech stack. Um, and that's really it's optional, but it it really depends on how complex your SKU is, uh how small or big your catalog is, how many people are actually working on on your product. Um so adding a PIM like Clitics, Aquino, Salsify really makes sense in that case. Um search and merchandising is a big one. So yes, Shopify search and discovery has come a long way since its inception. Uh but if you're looking for richer experiences, um like AI driven ranking, visual search, more complex merchandising rules, then you would look at like an Algolia, a rebuy, anything another third party essentially. Uh personalization, um, super important. Um keep it lightweight, start with some kind of audience segmentation and dynamic content with Shopify's personalization APIs. But then you can add um uh heavier tools in there, like a dynamic yield um when you have that data maturity to support them. Um CMS is usually one of the ones that I don't necessarily recommend um to add to your tech stack just because it adds a little bit more complexity, more management, more integration, um, more development time as well. Uh but I do recommend it when you have um complex, I would say like marketing techniques, marketing content, uh landing pages that are always evolving. You have a lot of articles that you want to write about, you have pieces of content that need to go live at different times of the day in the week, um and essentially a release flow for your content. Um reviews, so reviews, loyalty, UGC, those are extremely important to have on your tech stack. So always always go with a proven SaaS partner uh in there. So like a Yahoo and a kendo, uh anything like that. And then I would say the last one would be analytics. Um so Shopify's native reports are solid for day-to-day. Uh but if you want enterprise level BI, like you obviously need to use a Google Analytics, a little data, little data, uh, or just a CDP, like a Bloomerage, for example.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Okay, quite quite a few areas then.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Yeah, well, I would say like always like my the advice that I usually give is like start with the essentials that give you leverage. Um and every app should either automate, measure, or personalize. And if it doesn't do one of those three, then it becomes bloat. So yes, add when you need it, but start start with an MVP and add from there as as your business grows.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Okay, is there like uh an average number of apps that uh a standard enterprise brand would have?

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Uh I would say in terms of critical apps, five, six apps, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Okay, so not many then. No, I wouldn't recommend.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

I mean, there's obviously a lot. Like uh I've seen I've been on stores where they've had 20 plus apps installed, but that seems most of the time it's just blood that's being added there.

Headless: When It’s Needed And When It’s Not

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yeah, okay. And actually that's what I've heard in some conversations, and it's uh the mainly been from the kind of the anti-Shopify crew, um, but talking about the um excessive use of apps that aren't necessary and brands that have like 12, 15, 16 different apps and they don't need it. Um I wonder though, is that maybe just a case of just a brand's lack of understanding as to kind of what they need, or do you feel as though they're just uh this is gonna be hard for us to answer because it's gonna be on a case-by-case basis, but maybe there's also brands that think that's a good idea, let's do that, let's get this, let's get this. And because it's generally pretty easy just to connect the app together, they go ahead with it. It's a not a huge amount of investment in terms of cost and time. Suddenly they've got 10 apps that they don't even need or use, or they use but only a small amount of it and not properly.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

I mean, uh it's exactly that. We we literally, I think just the other week completed an audit for a client of ours where um they had somewhere around 40 apps installed and they weren't using most of them. Okay. They'd just forgotten about them and they were paying for pretty much all of them.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

I was gonna say that then increases the TCO, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Yeah, and like for for no reason. And usually it's because maybe it's an e-commerce manager that's trying to do something without involving a developer, and because it's so easy to just install an app and get it to work on Shopify, they'll play around with that, and then they might forget about it that it stays on your platform.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

That's a lot. 40 apps out of interest. Did you did the audit? How many did you get them down to?

SPEAKER_01 26:39

I think we got them down to like something like five or six apps.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Oh wow. Well, okay, mega. That that is big. Um, okay. Talking about tech stack, one thing we haven't spoken about yet is like headless. Um and it's been a buzzword for a while now. Maybe not so much anymore, but there was a good two or three year period where it was all about headless and and brands looking to move headless. Um what's your thoughts on headless with Shopify? Is it necessary? Is hydrogen fine? Like tell me, tell me what your thoughts are, Sarge.

The Myth Of Speed And Headless

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Yeah, so I think like you said, it's been a buzzword for the last couple of years, and I think Shopify had to adapt just to make sure that essentially they're not left behind, which is why I don't know if it that's the reason, the main reason, but obviously they wanted to offer, they wanted to have a headless offering. So hydrogen, oxygen was the answer to that. Um, to me, I think, and and this is from multiple discussions with multiple brands. Like, I feel that headless is often misunderstood. They think of it as a badge of sophistication when it's actually not that. It's really a response to a real architectural need. So to me, you go headless when you need a highly custom front-end experience. Um, you have 3D configurators, you have complex logged in dashboards, you have complex customer accounts, um, you have multiple sites that you need to manage into one single front end. Um you want to decouple your content flow. So if you're using a headless CMS, for example, yes, you can integrate it with Shopify on a headed version of Shopify, but usually it's better to go headless when you do that. Um you have global marketing teams or an A V testing infrastructure that Shopify's teaming layer can't easily support. Like those are the reasons I would go headless. And if you don't have one of those drivers or any of those drivers, then honestly you're better off uh in terms of economics and just speed staying with Shopify's native stack. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Yeah, I mean it's not it's not a quick thing, right? It's uh and it's fairly complex. How many businesses do you feel as though uh want to go headless but don't need to go headless for the reasons that you just mentioned?

SPEAKER_01 28:57

I would say pretty much all of them. I I look at my my background is development. So as a developer, would I find it more exciting to work on a headless build versus a liquid build? Yes, for sure. It gives me more flexibility, it allows me to do more cool things on it and more control. Um but most of the times the the brands that I speak to they want to go headless because they heard of headless as a buzzword and they think it's gonna bring them more performance and it's gonna be better for them. And that's usually the only reason. So when you start questioning them, you start poking holes into their logic, at the end of the day, they actually don't have a real reason to go headless. I think I've had maybe one brand in the last two years or so have an actual valid reason to go headless.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Wow, okay. I was gonna come on to that in a minute and ask how many brands do you think have valid reasons to go headless? But I mean, if you've had maybe one in the last two years, that that gives us an indication for how low that number probably is. Um but you're right, I mean, I'm not technical, right? And uh uh a lot of the time when I speak to people's stuff goes over my head. But uh almost all the time, whenever someone talks about headless, they the one of the first things they mention is um performance in speed and loading times. Yet it seems like whenever I speak to someone that's educated in this space, they tell me it's rubbish. And I find I find it fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Well, it's a double-edged sword. So, yes, if you build it properly, yes, you will have more control on caching and performance and speed, and you can potentially squeeze out some performance uh by doing that. But if you don't and you build it poorly, then you will essentially have a way worse experience than you would on a headed or a Shop Fight theme, basically.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Got yeah, okay. And I guess also, I mean, when we're talking like milliseconds in difference, is it worth the extra tens of thousands of pounds or maybe more it might cost to do so, alongside the amount of time you're gonna be spending doing it for what is effectively uh not a an increase, a minimal increase.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Exactly. Like is the juice worth the squeeze, basically?

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Yeah, okay. One one brand in two years. I mean, that's uh that's a really low number. I mean, I I can imagine you talk to hundreds of brands a year, if not yeah, um 500 plus, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:30

So yeah, and and we've done like headless builds, we've migrated the brands to headless, and then we've done the opposite. We've taken brands from headless to liquid. Um, so there's always like that yo-yo essentially that keeps happening.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Yeah. How many have you have you have you done where you've they've moved headless and then they've said actually, so what this isn't what we're expecting, this isn't what it's made out to be, let's move us back. So I imagine that's probably quite high.

Guiding Tech‑Heavy Teams Toward Shopify

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Yeah, I I don't have an exact number. It's definitely like um in the low dozens, I would say. Um, but what happens usually is that they'll come from another agency or maybe they've built it themselves internally and then they'll come to us to looking to go back to headed, essentially.

unknown 32:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Again, because they they figured out that the the truth is actually not worth the squeeze for them, and they ended up paying a lot more in terms of maintenance and development time.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

So just quickly then, because uh a lot of our audience are likely to be C-suite, senior management within retail, small to mid-sized retailers, possibly uh sort of lower enterprise. Shopify has clearly taken over that uh that segmentation. If any of them are sat here thinking, okay, we're looking at moving headless, um, what would you be saying to them right now?

SPEAKER_01 32:50

I'd say don't. Uh but realistically, I I would I would ask them to really question the reasons why they want to do that if they have an actual valid need. And performance is usually never one one of them, especially not today. Shofi has invested quite a lot in um in their liquid um offering. So their liquid servers are much much more uh performant than they used to be a couple of years ago.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Cool, yeah. And I'm I'm I'm being naive here, but I guess for a brand that wants to go headless, that's effectively more work. That means that's more work for the agency, or in in your case, laser, more work is obviously a good thing and more revenue. So actually, what you're saying is you don't do it and you're gonna save yourself money, and you're obviously putting yourself out of business at the same time, but you're given the recommendation, which is the right recommendation of you don't need to do it, save yourself the money and focus on other areas.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

Yeah, yes, like you said, like it is more money for us as an agency, it is a longer build time to do it, um, a bigger invoice. But at the end of the day, like I don't want to do that and then have the retailer not happy with their implementation and put their business at risk. That doesn't benefit me at all. That retailer is not going to want to work with me ever again after that.

Pilots, Architecture Mapping And Roles

SPEAKER_00 34:05

No, exactly that, which is yeah, kind of what I wanted to highlight. This isn't a recommendation that's gonna be of interest to anyone other than the customer, right? So cool. Something else I want to talk to you about today, Serge, was the conversations you have with enterprise brands that have relatively large technology teams in place already. Um many could be working on enterprise legacy platforms like SAP Commerce, uh, Oracle Commerce, etc. Um, those brands are now starting to consider Shopify. Um, we've already touched upon how Shopify is far less complex from an architectural standpoint, and how team the teams need do just don't need to be the same size or the the same depth in overall. So I guess how do you manage those conversations with those businesses? Because they're the they're probably quite tricky when you're you have a business that's suggesting we should go one way, but that's got a direct negative impact on the the technology team who are also very much involved in that conversation.

WooCommerce Versus Shopify Trajectory

SPEAKER_01 35:13

That's definitely a very delicate conversation to have with them. Uh, and it does, I would say that conversation does happen more often than not. I think by the time they start speaking to us, they're already aware that that's gonna happen. Um, but what tends to happen more often than or not is that the tech team is resisting the replatform to Shopify, whether it's the CTO themselves, the CIO, or different stakeholders, different technical sta stakeholders, they do resist it. Um and it's not because they're wrong, it's just because they like their mental model has been shaped by the platforms that they're on, where they think that one control equals capability. So having being able to do all the whatever changes you want on your platform means it it is um a more capable platform, but so perceived by lack of control, really. Uh they do have flexibility concerns. Um but they what they really it's definitely a tough one to navigate. But essentially, like the conversation that that I end up having with them is listen, you moving on Shopify is gonna simplify your tech stack. Um, it will obviously bring you a lot of value, it will reduce your TCO, it will help grow your brand. But unfortunately, the that decision is definitely gonna impact your team. You're not you can't go from a team of 20, 30 developers to Shopify and still need 20 to 30 developers. So you're gonna have to reorganize yourselves and you're gonna have to reduce the size of your team. You might need at most two to four developers to be maintaining and building on Shopify. Uh you can move those developers around if you have um middlewares that you want to maintain, if you have any RP that you need to develop for, uh, those are things that you're still gonna need a development team for. But for the front end, for your e-com, um those cuts are just gonna have to happen, and it's it's the reality of the situation, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Yeah, so at absolute max, you reckon two to four devs.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Yeah, yeah. Even then, like depending on like the complexity of your website, that might be too many.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Yeah, I was gonna say that I I can't think of many businesses, custom end customers or brands that have got more than two. And I know quite quite a lot.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Um, which is crazy, like that they go between two and four again, but that's again usually because they have to maintain like a middleware or an ERP that they have to build for.

AI Today: Useful, But Not The Unlock Yet

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Got yeah, yeah. Long of the days of the teams of 10 back end devs, a tech lead, and four front end devs, and yeah. Um so so um I guess how how I'm just trying to think about the conversations that you would have here. I mean, because obviously I a lot a lot of enterprise customers where Shopify is targeting right now would have substantial technology teams that have been there for a long time. So um, how would how how do you introduce Shopify like into a business that is like technology first? Um introduce it in this sense of like getting them comfortable with Shopify, yeah, like getting yeah, so getting getting them to a point where they want to go forward with Shopify as to um an upgrade of their current offering as an example.

Quick Fire: Must‑Have Apps And Advice

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Yeah, so I would try there's like different approaches, but like one of which is maybe start with a pilot, like choose a contained use case. Maybe you're launching into a new region, uh, or maybe you have a smaller blur brand in your portfolio that you want to open up a website for. Um, that way that's gonna allow the team to just see how Shopify handles core requirements and what is essentially like a low-stake safe sandbox. Um try to map your architecture early as well just to understand where Shopify sits in your broader ecosystem. Like what is it replacing, what does it need to connect to, uh what needs what remains owned by internal systems. Um and then give your tech team clear lanes. So maybe there's API governance, maybe there's data modeling that they need to work on, uh, maybe there's integration pipelines, QA automation that needs to be built. Um so that gives them a little bit more agency rather than just making Shopify feel like it's a marketing led decision, which more often than not. It's usually a marketing/slash CRO led decision. Um, so yeah, engineers need to see that Shopify isn't really replacing them, but it's elevating what they're working on.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

Okay. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

Yeah. Not sure if that answers the questions.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Yeah, but I think it I think it kind of does. I mean, like going back to what I was saying earlier, I mean, uh, a lot of our target audience and our listeners are retail brands that will be considering Shopify as a platform. So it's interesting to explore these conversations because there could well be people sat here listening thinking um of of these very questions that they would like to that they would be interested to know the answers to, right? So um I probably don't articulate them in the best way. That's just my lack of uh uh uh technical backgrounds, but um yeah, the uh the the right intention is there anyway. Um it's um question for you. I'm just gonna there's a bit of a an out there one now. I mean, shop the shop Shopify has grown to I think the second highest market share for commerce platforms now behind WooCommerce. WooCommerce has got some crazy statistics. I can't remember what it is, but I think it's like 50% market share or something ridiculous. Do you see a world where Shopify becomes number one?

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Uh that is a good question. Uh I feel like the the difference between WordPress and WooCommerce is that essentially it's so easy to and so cheap to essentially just launch a WooCommerce website, especially if you're picking a theme that you're setting up everything in WordPress, and there's just so many PHP developers out there as well if you need one. Um that the question the the answer is I don't know. I I don't know if Shopify would ever take over WooCommerce. I think they would in the sense that you still need to maintain WordPress, you still need to maintain WooCommerce. It tends to get hacked quite a lot as well. So my background initially, when I started back end and like full stack development, was on WordPress back in the day, like PHP. Um and a lot of it was just biting off hackers as well. Like not patching WordPress, then you're open to something that's vulnerable, and someone can just take over your site. And the next thing you know, you have your website is ranking for like sex pills, basically.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

Um exactly.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

So all that all that effort that you put into your SEO and like your your ad spend is now like is in the bin. Um I would like I honestly like from a personal perspective, I would like to see that um that number shift. Mostly because again, if you're an SMB and you want to launch on Shopify, it's just a few clicks. It doesn't actually cost that much per month to have a Shopify store, uh, especially if you're just launching. Literally, you can pick a free theme, customize it, set up your product, set up everything, and I think you're paying under$100 a month. Uh so I yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

I mean it's cheap, right? I just went through that process myself in the last six months, and everyone told me it was really easy. And I must say, and this will show my level of tech my my technical level. I really struggled. Uh I think I'm the only person in the world that couldn't have a Shopify storefront, but there we go.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

Well, there's definitely a lot of things to configure, and that's probably why. Like, if you don't know what you need to configure, it can be a bit daunting. Uh, and maybe that's where WooCommerce can be a little bit more simple for now. Um, but yeah, uh to me, I don't see a reason why Shopify wouldn't overtake WooCommerce. I think it's just gonna take a couple of years, though.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

A couple, that's bold. I was thinking maybe 10, but there we go.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Uh I don't know where WooCommerce is gonna be in 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

Yeah, that's very true. I yeah, I guess the a big a big factor, I guess, that I'm thinking about now is Shopify is obviously targeting upstream, right? It's targeting enterprise. And I wonder if there becomes a point where NFN under a certain number, Shopify just say, Do you know what? Maybe we'll let someone else have them because actually what we want we want the top. And there is own is it genuinely possible to have a platform that can do everything for your true, true enterprise, talking your big supermarket chains that are in multiple countries, as well as your your pop-up store, get it live in half a day for hundred bucks. I don't know. I don't know if you ask that question. Maybe it is possible. I guess maybe we'll find out in a couple of years.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Yeah, I mean to me, obviously, I'm not in Toby's head, so I don't know what he's planning, but to me, they're kind of already doing it. Um, and I don't see them wanting to let go of SMBs, mostly because that's how they started. Um, a lot of the functionality that they're building and releasing caters to them. Uh, we haven't really touched on it at all, but anything related to AI, for example, that helps both enterprise and SMBs as well. So, for example, for yourself, when you were setting up your store, you could have easily started using Sidekick just to build out your theme um and play around with it um without ever needing to hire a developer, really.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Yeah, I've heard a lot about that recently. I don't I'm pretty certain I didn't miss it, but I didn't see it when I was building the store a while back, whereas when we were looking at GoDaddy and Wix as the comparisons, the AI assistant was very helpful. Um, so I'm not sure what happened with our AI assistant on Shopify. Yeah, who knows?

SPEAKER_01 45:59

I think it's maybe a little bit hard to find and they're working on it.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Okay, okay. Well, there we go. Um, yeah, who knows? What's your space? We might be on there soon. Um, but yeah, it actually I'm surprised with right at the end of the pod, and that is the first time AI has come up. It's actually been quite refreshing. I can't remember the last time I spoke to somebody and AI hadn't come up. Um, so we almost made it.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

A lot of clients are asking it about it about AI, and really we're I mean, Laser has like a a very deep AI business as well. Um and I don't think there's any way of escaping it, uh, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

No, there's not. I guess that this um as as as it's come into conversation, then in your opinion, where are the uh the real use cases with AI and Shopify right now?

SPEAKER_01 46:54

Uh I don't think the real use cases are there yet in my mind. So I don't know. All right, like it. I I yeah, I I think psychic is useful. I think it's gonna help merchants really, but I think the real unlock is being able to use AI to be able to forecast your inventory, to be able to be able to understand your sales and your numbers and um your performance. And I think that's gonna be the the real unlock once that's properly integrated, and when you can start asking it questions, or not even asking it questions, it would just predict for you hey, you need to uh stock up inventory on this product because we forecast it gonna it's gonna start uh selling like hotbread soon. Um I think that's gonna be very useful.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

And is that something that's close?

SPEAKER_01 47:39

I think it is. I I've seen some uh even iPasses do that. So pipe 17 is is one of them that has, I think they just released a week or two ago, an MCP server that you can essentially quiz across all of your integration stack.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Okay, all right. Well that's yeah, that certainly sounds like a something that will be of great interest to a lot of retailers. Um all right. Well, um yeah, please we touched upon that. Um quickly then, I've got a few questions just to wrap this up. Quick fire. So don't spend too long thinking these through quick answers, okay?

unknown 48:18

All right.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

What is the one Shopify app every D2C brand must have?

SPEAKER_01 48:24

I would say checkout blocks.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

Check out blocks. Blocks, okay. Um, what is the most underrated? Sorry? What is the most underrated native Shopify feature?

SPEAKER_01 48:38

Uh I would say Shopify customer segmentation. That's something that's not many people use it as much as they should be using it.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

Okay. Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_01 48:49

I feel that just they don't know it's there. Um they don't know how flexible it can be.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Okay. I mean, to me, the customer segmentation is is important, even like right now, every conversation is around um personalization and understanding your customer data. So, yeah, that segmentation I would imagine is uh very important. Yeah. Sorry, maybe that wasn't a quick answer, was it? It's a conversation.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

I tried to limit myself, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

That's my fault. Um, does the composable versus Shopify debate still matter at the end of 2025?

SPEAKER_01 49:25

I don't think it does, no.

SPEAKER_00 49:27

Okay. And then last one. No, that's fine. And last question is what's your your one piece of advice to a CTO that's on the fence about Shopify?

SPEAKER_01 49:39

Uh don't debate the architecture, just test the outcome.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Nice. So I feel like you've said that one before. Smooth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

I'm saying it to CTO. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

It's ingrained. There you go, just rolls off easily. Love it. Um, cool. Thanks for joining me, Serge. Really enjoyed this one.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Thank you for having me, James. I also enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

And I hope you've all enjoyed listening as well. I'll see you next time. Goodbye.