My main stage session at EcomExpo in Vilnius on 1 October 2026. Ten ideas, most of them things merchants already have sitting in the business and have never thought to use.
The Line the Whole Talk Hangs On
If your only relationship with a customer is the transaction, you are competing with Amazon.
You will lose that fight. Everything else in the session is about building a relationship that is not the transaction.
Showcase Feelings
Most product photography shows the product. The brands that do well show what owning it feels like. A shirt on a man fishing by a river sells differently from a shirt on a white background, and it is the same shirt.
Build a Personal Brand
Founders who put their own name and face behind the business get coverage that the business alone never would. Press, podcasts, awards, and the compounding effect of being a person rather than a logo.
Be Creative
One founder wrapped a Porsche in pink, parked it on Manchester’s busiest street, covered it in fake parking tickets and put a QR code on the windscreen. Thousands stopped to photograph it. Quiet brands do not go viral.
Build Community
There are Facebook groups with twenty five and thirty thousand members for things as specific as caravan awnings. Private, active, and full of people who have already decided they are in the market. Most merchants in those categories do not know the groups exist.
Be Social
A UK toolbox foam company posts short videos of ordinary warehouse moments. One clip of a colleague lifting a heavy bag awkwardly did 11.1 million views. A follow-up did 2.7 million. Nothing in either video is a product demonstration.
Be Helpful
After someone buys a flask, send them a recipe for it. Not a discount, not a survey. Something that makes the thing they already bought more useful.
Extra Protection
Package protection at checkout, a small opt-in at under two pounds. One merchant I spoke to was making just over twelve and a half thousand pounds a month from it, on top of their normal revenue. They asked me not to name them, which tells you how quietly this one works.
Unlock Opportunities
An AI buying assistant on the product page, and a protection upsell alongside it. Two things on the same page that did not exist two years ago, both earning.
Build Partnerships
Joint giveaways with a complementary brand. Selling other brands’ products without holding inventory. Your audience is worth something to somebody who is not your competitor.
Optimise Checkout
Across the stores where we have done this work, average conversion uplift is 23.21%. Not a redesign. Checkout.
Where to Find Me
I mentor founders at paulryazanov.com/mentor, and run Ecommerce Camp UK.
A recording of the session will be added here when it arrives.