Is your tech stack running you?
When 20 SaaS tools hold pieces of your customer, the clever stuff becomes impossible →
Well, hello, and welcome to this week's edition of the eCommercer.
Like many of us, I’ve experienced app creep over the years. One day, you've got a simple Shopify store. Then you add Klaviyo for email. Then a reviews app. Then loyalty. Then subscriptions. Then, then, then.
Before you know it, you've got twenty different tools, each holding a piece of your customer data, each charging monthly, and none of them talking to each other properly.
The thing is, the store keeps selling. So the problem feels invisible. Until you try to do something genuinely clever — like automatically refunding a customer who bought the day before you launched a sale — and realise your systems can't actually make it happen.
This week's episode made me look at my own tech stack with fresh eyes. Not in a dramatic tear-it-all-down way, but in a way that is really useful. I reckon it will do the same for you too.
Have a great week, wherever you are in the world.
Until next time,
This Week's Episode of the eCommerce Podcast →
Is Your E-Commerce Platform Wagging the Dog?
Mikel Lindsaar has spent years watching businesses bend themselves around platform limitations rather than the other way around. He calls it "the tail wagging the dog." Your ecommerce platform dictates how you access data, how you build automations, and how you contact customers. Instead of your business driving the technology, the technology starts driving the business.
The symptoms are everywhere. Every plugin potentially slows your pages. Your customer data sits fragmented across a dozen SaaS tools. And when you want to do something smart with AI or automation, you're fighting against the limitations of whichever platform happens to be in charge.
I loved Mike’s example about a museum client who realised they had no idea who was actually walking through their doors. Visitors would buy tickets online, but tour guides had no idea that the person in front of them might be the world's number one collector of exactly what was on display. Someone who could become a major donor. Someone who deserved the VIP treatment.
The solution was elegantly simple. When someone buys a ticket, an AI agent researches them and understands whether they're involved in what the museum displays. That information gets attached to their record. When someone scans their ticket at the door, it pops up on screen: this person's a VIP. Go get Frank for the personal tour.
"Really? Could you do that?" was the museum's response.
Yes. And that's just the beginning of what becomes possible when your data lives in one place rather than scattered across fifteen different subscriptions.
Guest Links:
Company: StoreConnect → https://www.storeconnect.com
Related Episode →
The Question Worth Asking Before You Add Another Tool
This connects to something Robert Giovannini shared back in 2022. His principle was simple: "The technology should fall to the background. It should be driving your business, not the other way around."
Yet owner-operators who've grown their ecommerce businesses often find themselves wrestling with tech decisions daily. They're the ones fielding the most calls about platform issues. They can't step back from the technology because it constantly demands attention.
Robert warned about what happens when complexity accumulates. You start with a straightforward setup, grow successfully, and then hit a ceiling. The workarounds you've built to make everything talk to each other become a "Frankenstein solution" that's expensive to maintain and requires a highly skilled team just to keep the lights on.
His advice before adding another plugin or switching platforms entirely: step back and ask whether the platform is actually the problem, or whether it's been implemented with the wrong tools for the job. Sometimes the answer isn't more technology. It's having the courage to delete the widgets and apps that no longer serve a strategic purpose.
Freebie of the Month →
I've put together a complete workbook that walks you through all seven areas of the Slingshot framework — with specific questions, metrics to track, and space to capture your lessons and goals.
It's designed to take about half a day. Block the time. Treat it like a board meeting with yourself.
Be A Guest →
Got an eCommerce business with stories worth sharing?
Come be my guest on the eCommerce Podcast, where I chat with founders about the wins, the disasters, and everything in between. Your story could be the one that helps another founder grow smarter (or avoid your mistakes).