Bringing Business to Retail

In this episode, Salena Knight explains why the products you regret buying can be some of the most valuable data in your retail or ecommerce business.
It is easy to focus on best sellers, products that sold out, and suppliers that performed well. But your clearance section, old stock, and products that have been sitting in the warehouse can tell you just as much - and sometimes more - about your buying decisions.
Salena walks through how to look beyond "it didn't sell" and identify what actually went wrong. Was the product itself the problem? Did you buy too much? Was the colour selection wrong? Was the price too high? Did demand only appear after a significant discount?
She also explains why clearing old stock isn't enough. If you don't understand the buying decision that created the excess inventory, you risk making the same decision again with a different product.
You'll learn how to:
Use old stock as buying data
Distinguish between a product problem and an overbuying problem
Look at sales performance alongside discounts and timing
Identify patterns across seasons and product ranges
Recognise assumptions that influence your buying decisions
Turn disappointing inventory into a lesson for future buying
Ask better questions before repeating a buying decision
The key takeaway: You've already paid for the stock. Make sure you get the lesson from it, too.

You found the perfect product. You know your customers will love it. So you buy it.
But what if that isn't enough to make it a good buying decision?
In this episode, Salena challenges the way retailers think about inventory and explains why buying isn't just about finding products that fit your brand or that you believe will sell. Every dollar you put into stock is a dollar that can't be used somewhere else in your business, which means every product needs to earn its place.
Salena walks through how to think about inventory as an investment, why your revenue and profit goals should influence your buying decisions, and why the speed at which a product turns back into cash matters just as much as whether it eventually sells.
You'll also hear how one retailer discovered that the brand they thought was performing well wasn't the whole story. Once they looked more closely at the individual products, they found that bright prints were selling much faster than the plains and neutrals. That kind of insight can completely change what you choose to buy next.
If you're heading into a major buying season and want to make decisions based on more than instinct, this episode will help you look at your inventory through a much more commercial lens.
Register for the free Q3 Masterclass Series here.

In this episode, we're talking about a problem a lot of retailers are feeling right now: getting customers to your website is costing more, so how do you make more money from the traffic you already have?
Krisztian Kiraly, International Partnership Manager at OptiMonk, joins us to unpack the idea of "conversion before acquisition" - improving the customer experience and conversion rate before simply spending more to acquire additional traffic.
We talk about why independent retailers and ecommerce businesses can't win by trying to outspend massive marketplaces like Amazon, Temu and SHEIN, and what they can do instead.
A big focus of the conversation is the changing role of the product page. As customers increasingly discover products through Google, Google Shopping and AI tools, they may arrive directly on a product page without ever visiting the retailer's homepage. That means your product page needs to do much more than list a product. It needs to sell it.
Krisztian shares five areas retailers should focus on to improve their product pages, including better imagery, benefit-led headlines and stronger trust signals.
We also get into AI-powered personalisation and how retailers can make the experience more relevant based on where customers came from, what they've viewed and what they're likely looking for.
In this episode, we discuss:
Why rising acquisition costs are putting pressure on ecommerce profitability
The "conversion before acquisition" mindset
Why your product page is becoming your new landing page and salesperson
The role of reviews, testimonials, customer photos and videos in building trust
How AI is changing the customer journey
What hyper-personalisation can look like in ecommerce
How to get more revenue from the traffic you're already paying for
Free audit and consultation: ConversionLift AI consultation

What does it take to build a retail business that is profitable, deeply connected to its community, and still growing years after opening?
In this episode, Salena chats with Jill Schuler, CEO of The Stitchery Studio, a fabric shop and studio that has grown from one person's dream into a thriving creative community.
Since opening in 2017, Jill has taken a considered approach to modern textiles, combining retail with education, creativity and connection. The result is a business that gives customers a reason to keep coming back, while continuing to evolve and grow.
And the numbers are worth paying attention to. Jill shares how The Stitchery Studio has grown sales by 30% and increased profit by 40%.
But this episode isn't simply about the numbers. Jill shares what sits behind that growth, including the importance of building the right team, creating experiences customers value, expanding into new areas such as leather work, and staying committed to a vision that is genuinely her own.
Jill also talks openly about why she started the business in the first place. For her, retail is about bringing together her passion for craft and community with a need she saw around her: creating connection and countering isolation and loneliness.
If you're a retailer looking to grow without losing sight of what makes your business different, this conversation is full of practical ideas to take away.
If you're building a retail business that you want to be both profitable and meaningful, this episode is worth a listen.
Register for the free Q3 Masterclass Series here.

Somewhere in your product catalogue, there's revenue you're missing, sitting in data you're not tracking.
In this episode of Bringing Business to Retail, Salena Knight sits down with Leon Bart-Williams, a former Amazon sales leader and founder of a retail technology platform, to talk about how the world's biggest retailers use product data to make decisions, and how independent retailers can use the same thinking.
Leon draws on his time at Amazon and NBCUniversal to explain why looking past top-line sales numbers reveals hidden profit, shows you why customers pick one variant over another, and changes how you buy and merchandise stock. He built Akikumo after watching brands at Amazon hit a ceiling they couldn't see past:
"At Amazon, I had the pleasure of watching brands get on the platform, grow fast, and change their lives. But I also saw brands not figure out how to scale past a certain size because they couldn't keep up with their own catalog growth. Akikumo is my attempt to fix that. I want product-based business owners to have the same intelligence that big retail teams have without needing a team of analysts to make it happen."
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why your product catalogue is hiding revenue you're not seeing
How Amazon uses product-level data to drive sales and profitability
The difference between sales data and product intelligence
Why tracking variants, attributes and customer behaviour leads to better buying decisions
How better product data improves merchandising, marketing and inventory planning
Practical ways to make more profit from the stock you already have
Resources mentioned:
Akikumo: www.akikumo.com
Shopify app: apps.shopify.com/akikumo