Offcuts

Ep 175: Can You Really Trust Your Data? With Henrik Hoffman Kraft, Co-Founder @ DEMA

In this episode, I sit down with Henrik to ask a fundamental question for consumer brands: can you actually trust your data? Drawing on his experience scaling Babyshop and building Dema, Henrik explains why most brands don’t have a data problem in isolation. They have a decision-making problem. Marketing, inventory, fulfilment, returns, and finance all live in different systems, and once you try to connect them to understand real profitability, trust breaks down. We explore why this pushes teams back to gut feel, how modern commerce quietly normalises spending money by default, and why it’s possible to grow faster while losing more cash. We then look at AI and agents, and why they raise the stakes. AI can unlock massive efficiency and insight, but only if the underlying data is clean. Otherwise, it just helps brands make bad decisions faster. If you’re running a consumer brand and feel stuck between gut feel and dashboards you don’t trust, this conversation will resonate. Checkout Factory here [https://www.factory-digital.com/]. Sign up to our newsletter here [https://yourbasketisempty.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=c99607802029f86a8f8d53938&id=a46026601a].

Ep 174: Shopify Winter Editions 2026, with Ben Homer Senior Solutions Engineer at Shopify

In this episode, I sit down with Ben to talk through Shopify's Winter Editions 2025, now that the dust has settled from the initial announcements. Ben walks me through how Shopify approaches AI, both internally and for merchants. Inside the company, everyone has access to an internal LLM proxy and cutting-edge tooling. That same thinking flows out to the platform: help brands show up where customers are, which now includes AI chat interfaces, and make operations faster through better tooling. We spend time on agentic commerce, what it means beyond the buzzword, and why it matters for how people will shop. Ben explains the ideas behind Sidekick's evolution and SimGym, which lets any brand test site changes against Shopify's anonymised consumer dataset before going live. The standout for me is how these features connect. SimGym paired with the new Rollouts feature, which handles scheduling and traffic management, creates something that previously required multiple third-party tools. Ben also flags the POS Hub, Shopify's hardware connectivity layer, as worth watching for anyone thinking about retail. Practical, detailed, and useful if you're building on Shopify or just trying to work out what's worth paying attention to in this release. Checkout Factory here [https://www.factory-digital.com/]. Sign up to our newsletter here [https://yourbasketisempty.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=c99607802029f86a8f8d53938&id=a46026601a].

Ep 173: Why can’t consumer brands turn AI hype into meaningful value? with Luke Hodgson, co founder of Commerce Thinking & High Cohesion

In this episode, I sit down with Luke to unpack why consumer brands are still struggling to turn AI hype into real value. We break down the big myths, including the widely shared idea that most AI projects fail and whether that was ever true for this industry. Luke shares insights from more than thirty brand interviews, revealing the same pattern everywhere. Leaders believe AI will reshape operations, but most don’t know where to start, feel overwhelmed by the pace of change, and lack a practical playbook. Public case studies are thin because real experiments are happening quietly inside teams with no time to share them. We dig into the blockers too: vendor over-promising, fragmented tech stacks, unclear budgets, and rising pressure from shareholders to show progress. A straight, honest conversation about where brands really are and what it will take to make AI actually deliver. This podcast is brought to you by Glara.ai [http://Glara.ai] - the Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) platform helping ecommerce brands grow through AI search visibility. 👉 Learn more at [https://www.glara.ai/] Glara.ai/offcuts [https://www.glara.ai/offcuts] Checkout Factory here [https://www.factory-digital.com/]. Sign up to our newsletter here [https://yourbasketisempty.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=c99607802029f86a8f8d53938&id=a46026601a].

Ep 172: Is AI actually going to change the world? with Chris Kilin CEO and co-founder at Brandback and Glara.ai

In this episode, I sit down with Chris Kilin, CEO and co-founder of Brandback and Glara.ai [http://Glara.ai], to explore the disruptive power of AI for consumer commerce. We'll dive into the journey that led him from big consulting to building a start-up, and why he believes AI is creating 'real revenues' in a way Web3 never did. We break down the new AI framework for consumer brands - covering both External AI, like agentic shopping, and Internal AI for efficiency - and discuss how to cut through the noise of the crowded AI search visibility landscape. We also tackle the challenge facing most brands: moving from fragmented experimentation to realising true AI efficiency, and we ask Chris how a brand should spend a £50,000 AI budget for maximum impact. Finally, we look ahead to the next 12 months for the optimistic and pessimistic views on AI’s future, and ask the ultimate question: Is AI actually going to change the world? This podcast is brought to you by Glara.ai [http://Glara.ai] - the Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) platform helping ecommerce brands grow through AI search visibility. 👉 Learn more at [https://www.glara.ai/] Glara.ai/offcuts [https://www.glara.ai/offcuts] Checkout Factory here [https://www.factory-digital.com/]. Sign up to our newsletter here [https://yourbasketisempty.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=c99607802029f86a8f8d53938&id=a46026601a].

Ep 171: What AI Really Means for the Future of Commerce with Mac King, CRO & Co founder of Domaine

On this episode, I’m joined by Mac King, co-founder of Domaine, to talk about how agencies are navigating the next wave of commerce and AI. We catch up on what’s changed since he was last on the podcast, including the merger that created Domaine, their move into the UK market, and how the agency is scaling internationally. Then we get into Domaine’s AI Commerce Suite and what it reveals about how brands are starting to use AI both on-site and behind the scenes. We talk about how agencies can separate real innovation from AI marketing spin, what makes an AI-native tech stack, and how services businesses can balance experimentation with credibility. Finally, we explore how this connects to Factory’s Internal and External AI framework, what each of us is seeing in the market, and where the biggest operational opportunities might appear next. If you’re thinking about where AI actually fits inside a modern commerce organisation, this one’s for you. This podcast is brought to you by Glara.ai [http://Glara.ai] - the Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) platform helping ecommerce brands grow through AI search visibility. 👉 Learn more at [https://www.glara.ai/] Glara.ai/offcuts [https://www.glara.ai/offcuts] Checkout Factory here [https://www.factory-digital.com/]. Sign up to our newsletter here [https://yourbasketisempty.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=c99607802029f86a8f8d53938&id=a46026601a].