Searching for your place on the digital shelf while the aisle stretches to infinity? We sit down with Rob Hahn, CEO of Pattern and former Amazon leader, to unpack what actually drives marketplace growth when loyalty is fading and choice is exploding. The answer isn’t louder ads—it’s the pairing of a genuinely great product with operational speed that turns clicks into carts.

We trace Rob’s journey from early, robot-free Amazon warehouses to launching robotics sites, then to scaling brands globally at Pattern. Along the way, we break down why algorithms reward conversion, low return rates, and strong reviews above brand narratives, and how Prime, one-day shipping, and inventory proximity now act as silent salespeople. Rob explains the one-to-ten leap: master both selling and moving stuff. That means in-stock discipline, listing health, and logistics strategy that shortens delivery windows and lifts rank.

We also dive into brand identity on platforms with very different discovery patterns. TikTok Shop, Amazon Search, and Walmart demand distinct creative and pricing choices without eroding equity. Rob makes the case for data over opinions, revealing how first-party insights across hundreds of thousands of SKUs guide spend, forecast demand, and spot profitability leaks. On AI, we cut through hype: it’s powerful for rapid testing and classification, but only as good as the inputs. High-integrity assets and human oversight keep details right where accuracy matters most.

Looking ahead, Rob leans on a durable truth: shoppers will always want better products, lower prices, and faster, often free, delivery. Social commerce may spike, AI may normalize, but those fundamentals won’t budge. If you align around quality, speed, and cost—and let data lead—you’ll keep winning shelf space the algorithms can’t ignore. Subscribe, share with a teammate who owns marketplace growth, and drop a review with your biggest bottleneck—we’ll tackle it on a future show.

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Record Q4 sales can hide a painful truth: without clean books, you may be celebrating revenue while bleeding profit. We sit down with ConnectBooks CEO Nachman Lieser to unpack a simple but powerful idea—your books are the story of your business, and the clearer the story, the smarter your decisions.

We start with the real shocks sellers faced this year, from tariffs to rising storage costs, and show how to see their impact on margins instead of guessing. Nachman explains why comparison reports matter on big promo days, and how to allocate returns and storage fees to the correct months so December’s P&L reflects reality. That single shift often exposes loss-making SKUs masked by flashy sales. We also dig into landed cost, overhead, and category splits so you can know your true break-even by product type and stop relying on gut feel.

Cash flow takes center stage as we explore inventory age and turnover. If monthly COGS is $300k, why is $2.5M tied up on the shelves? Learn simple thresholds to right-size inventory, reduce carrying costs, and improve liquidity. Nachman highlights how Costco wins with roughly 3,800 SKUs and high turns—and how that mindset can guide smarter purchasing, forecasting, and pricing in your own catalog. The payoff: fewer heroics, more control, and a bank balance that matches your effort.

If you want a clearer P&L, healthier cash flow, and a calm plan for Q4 and beyond, this conversation maps the path. Subscribe, share with a seller who needs a margin wake-up, and leave a review with the one metric you’ll track differently this week.

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What if your biggest growth unlock isn’t a new channel, but how you use the ones you already have? Two seasoned operators go head-to-head on the smart way to apply AI, the real winners for 2026 ad spend, and the first hire that sets your brand’s trajectory. The conversation gets specific fast: why letting AI write your SEO is a trap without data, how compliance hallucinations can quietly nuke revenue, and where “amplify, don’t replace” turns AI into a creative force multiplier for images and short-form video.

We weigh “Amazonia” against TikTok’s momentum and land on a pragmatic view: Amazon remains the backbone for scalable, exit-worthy revenue, while TikTok and Reddit create edge opportunities when matched to the right ICP and creative. The hire debate splits the room—growth manager to push demand and break bottlenecks vs COO to build processes first—but both paths win when you commit to testing and clear goals. On wasted spend, we call out untargeted brand campaigns and untested products, then offer a tighter loop: prototype, measure, iterate, scale.

Expect actionable channel strategy. Treat Instagram and Facebook as distinct ecosystems inside Meta. Explore Reddit for efficient, context-rich placements that meet buyers inside candid communities. Max out branded and high-intent search on Google and Amazon to catch ready demand. For the customer journey, we frame friction as price and choice: price must tell a value story, and choice overload demands sharper positioning, clean comparisons, and a single, obvious job-to-be-done. Retention flows from product truth and experience—memorable unboxing, useful follow-ups, and a product that simply works.

We close by showing where AI truly shines right now: accelerating creative. Generate lifestyle images and believable video seconds, then polish with human editing to ship more winning variants across PDPs and feeds. If you want to grow faster without burning cash, this showdown delivers the blueprint. If you learned something useful, follow the show, share with a teammate, and leave a quick review—what tactic are you betting on for 2026?

Learn more about Velocity Sellers!

Check us out on YouTube!

Book a FREE Amazon Audit!