The V Spot eCommerce Nearly News: Partner Messages

Do you suffer from Chronic Acronym Anxiety, or CAA.

Vinny O Brien — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:26:51 GMT

Chronic Acronym Anxiety, or CAA. Formally: the progressive inability of brand operators to make a decision without first consulting a spreadsheet full of three-letter abbreviations, none of which agree with each other, and at least two of which mean entirely different things depending on whether you’re talking to your agency or your CFO.

Symptoms include: blank staring during quarterly reviews, passive-aggressive Slack replies to anyone who mentions ROAS without a benchmark, and the distinct feeling that you’ve been sold a dashboard when what you actually needed was a plan.

“Are You Suffering From CAA?”

The retail/ecommerce industry has industrialised confusion. It wraps common sense in enough jargon that operators stop trusting their instincts and start chasing metrics they half-understand. CAC, LTV, AOV, ROAS, OMS, WMS, PDP, CRO, BOPIS, BNPL, D2C, B2B2C, the acronym stack is now so tall that the actual question (”is this working?”) gets lost underneath it.

Sumo Blue’s positioning: we speak human. We translate the noise back into decisions.

“If you’ve ever sat in a Monday morning review and genuinely couldn’t remember what your business actually sells... you may be suffering from CAA.”

CHRONIC ACRONYM ANXIETY (CAA) Affecting 1 in 3 brand operators. Possibly more. We stopped counting.

“Symptoms include: confusing your ROAS with your ROI. Knowing your CAC but not your customer. Optimising your PDP while your product sits in a warehouse in Düsseldorf.

In severe cases, building an entire omnichannel strategy before deciding what you’re actually trying to do.”

“CAA is not your fault. You were handed a dashboard when you needed a direction. You were sold a framework when you needed a plan. The industry gave you the acronyms. Nobody gave you the answer.”

“At Sumo Blue they treat CAA the old-fashioned way. They ask what’s working. They ask what isn’t. We tell you the truth in plain English, or whatever language you actually think in. No jargon. No deck with sixty slides and one vague recommendation. Just common sense, applied with intent.”

Sumo Blue. For operators who are done being confused by their own business.”

[SUPER SMALL DISCLAIMER TEXT, blink-and-miss-it, classic pharma style]: “Sumo Blue is not responsible for the sudden clarity that follows. Side effects include: better decisions, shorter meetings, and the vague feeling you should have done this sooner.”

The Inevitable Shift

Vinny O Brien — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 16:12:53 GMT

“We are morphing so fast that our ability to invent new things outpaces the rate we can civilize them.” ― Kevin Kelly, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future. This book, the inevitable illuminates how technology will help shape how we do business and in the hedonistic mantra, of better, faster, more we can thank the B2B industry for being the tortoise.

I was lucky enough to be asked to author this paper on where investment levels are in commerce in 2026. There is no right or wrong, there is just where it is. Sounds trite. But the march towards continued investment is a factor of what and when - no longer really a a why. The study was compiled by YouGov and commissioned by Commerce PayPal and Glass Atlas to understand where operators are and what they are thinking about.

In studying this , I leanred there are entire industry segments protecting well built moats, sectors that, by their design are being pushed faster thatn others - hositality as one, where immedaite response, conversational commerce and operational excellence are now table stakes. But this tech stack can be complicated, create friction and prevent progress.

But in most cases, where progress is building we are seeing confident, considering and solution led growth. I say this as an inverse reflection on the consumer side of the market but smart leaders in the B2B space are replacing legacy, providing change that was needed, not prescribed and the direct output is more capability. This base solution first and nice to haves second presents a more comfortable base to begin with.

I will talk at length about this paper and what it means for many sectors over the coming months. There are lessons for the consumer indsutry and cautionary tales too - investment and technology move at vastly different paces. I framed this using Kellys book - the Inevitable. There is no longer a question of why. It is happening. all around you, every day - your choices force you to look inward.

This paper represents months of hard work, strong faith in each other and developing a frame through which this should be understood.

With thanks to Nanci Kelley Mirza Jonny Taylor Stephen Kenealy Jacqueline Stoklas and the team for letting me build this story with them. It is only day one and there is lots in here to get through.

Download the full report here: https://lnkd.in/dMreT8VM

The Post-Purchase Land Grab: Why Every Platform Wants Your Deliveries

Vinny O Brien — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 20:47:09 GMT

I wrote about TikTok Shop last month in the V Spot. They tried to force all US sellers onto their own logistics platform overnight. Mandatory. No exceptions. The seller community reacted like a group chat that’s just been told the Christmas party venue has changed to a car park. TikTok rolled it back within days.

But here’s what that story is actually about, it’s not about TikTok overreaching. It’s about the fact that every major platform is now in a land-grab for the post-purchase experience. The major platforms more for the revneue grab, but for specialist 3PL, it is different. Amazon has FBA. TikTok wants it. Perplexity just launched in-chat shopping. The chat is the store now.

And yet most ecommerce brands are still handing that post-purchase moment to a 3PL that treats it like a footnote.

The unboxing. The delivery timing. The way it’s packed. The feeling when it arrives. That’s where loyalty lives or dies. Not the ad. Not the checkout. What happens after.

This is what impresses me about Parcel Planet. I knew Lonya before we got working together on this and her knowledge from first to last mile was insane. But previous roles meant she had to understand the role that had on brand impact.

I watched their videos this week and one stand out line that Parcel Planet live by “success is when no one’s talking about problems — because they never reach the customer.”

Their brand philosophy.

Here’s what they actually do, in plain English:

📦 Live dashboards, stock monitoring and preventative checks, catching problems before your customers become your QA team

📞 A real human who knows your account. Not a ticket. Not a bot. A person who picks up the phone.

🔗 Full integration across your store, couriers and channels, orders flow automatically, updates happen in real time

📬 End-to-end ownership from order placed to door delivered

They’re Irish-built, with fulfilment centres in Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands. They know what it means to ship competitively across the UK/EU divide. And they genuinely care about what happens after the label prints.

While every platform is fighting to own your customer’s post-purchase moment, make sure you already own it first.

Book a conversation with the Parcel Planet team:

https://parcelplanet.zohobookings.eu/#/parcelplanet

(Full V Spot breakdown of the TikTok logistics story and the wider post-purchase land-grab at vinnyandco.com)

Agentic Commerce, The Musical

Vinny O Brien — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 09:58:32 GMT

You know, a website with an agent is a little like the mule with a spinning wheel. No one knows how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it! Presenting today's V Spot PSA - supported by Sumoblue this will be the conversation on everyones lips at Shoptalk - Agentic commerce. If you're not up to speed on where it is at, let me help. Like all good long running shows, this one is via the medium of music. Helped in no small way by Abdul Wasy Butt - Presenting AI, the monorail version. Approved for consumption by Gordon Newman

PSA: The Agentic Mirage

Vinny O Brien — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 11:49:48 GMT

PSA: The Agentic Mirage Public Service Announcement for every agency currently hyperventilating into their Patagonia vests. Stay calm. Do not panic. From the team over at the V Spot nearly news. eCommerce is much tougher than you AI dudes and dudettes think. This week we had the perfect manifestation of this prophecy. Yeah, its a word, I looked it up. In a book.

Lets go back in time to tease this out via a historic timeline - spanning 5 days.

Monday March 2nd 2026: The thing to make you spit out your matcha tea. Shopify isn't slowing down. They’ve gone all-in on Generative Engine Optimization. AI agents are now scanning the first 6,000 characters of your product descriptions for "Inference Advantage". If your data is messy, you don’t exist in the AI Mode.

Fast Forward 3 days later - whoah, slow down.

Thursday March 5th OpenAI performed what I can only describe as a perfect dismount from a very high horse. They’ve officially dropped the plan for direct checkout inside ChatGPT. Turns out, sticking a "Buy" button inside an LLM without solving for real-time inventory and global tax was a leap too far even for Sam Altman. They realized that being a "Discovery Engine" is a much softer landing than trying to be the world’s cashier

This is the Maturity Gap in action. While "some” agencies are waiting for a new shiny tool to fix this, the folks over at Sumoblue rolling their sleeves up. Using their heads and hands to creative beautifully atrisanal, handcrafted ads - results are de facto. In 2026, Old School is the only School. Stop chasing buttons; start fixing your data.

This is The V Spot PSA edition sponsored by Sumo Blue.

The Sumo Blue Diagnosis: If your agency partner is panicking about the "loss" of the checkout button, they’re missing the forest for the trees. The real battle is in the Brilliant Basics.

If you want to talk to a human, with an agency, not an at agent talk to the awards winning, terribly sound Stephen Frazer

hashtag#TheVSpot hashtag#SumoBlue hashtag#GEO2026 hashtag#OpenAI hashtag#Shopify hashtag#SleevesUp hashtag#AgenticCommerce

The "Roll your Sleeves up" era is here.

Vinny O Brien — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 15:46:01 GMT

Shopify just changed their rules of engagement. With the never ending outpouring of Agentic Storefronts, the “search and click” era is officially dying. We are now in the “ask and buy” era. Accoring to some. Me, we are not there yet. But I digress.

But here is the brutal reality from the partner briefing:

Bye Bye Winter ... Olympics

Vinny O Brien — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 14:34:08 GMT

The Olympics are wrapping up.

Medals are handed out.
Interviews are done.
And somewhere, someone is thinking:

“If only we’d prepared differently.”

After BFCM, founders always say the same things:

“Email carried us.”
“Flows saved us.”
“We should’ve done this earlier.”

You know what no one ever says?

“Thank God we stayed put out of fear.”

Regret is just fear with hi…

Work with me

Vinny O Brien — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:45:03 GMT

Ski. Stop, Shoot. Repeat.

Vinny O Brien — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 10:56:07 GMT

There’s a Winter Olympic event that perfectly describes email marketing.

Biathlon. Ever heard of it? Neither had I until my research phase. Cross Country skiing I called it. My mistake. Expect memes this Winter Olympics.

You ski flat-out…
Then you stop.
Then you shoot, calmly, precisely, without panic.

Speed alone doesn’t win.
Control does.

Peak season is the …

Blades of Glory - Ilia Malinin History Maker

Vinny O Brien — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 09:43:57 GMT

Let’s talk about downhill skiing.

It’s beautiful.
It’s terrifying.
And it’s not the moment you try new equipment.

At 120km/h, gravity is not forgiving.
Neither is BFCM.

Every year, brands tell themselves:

“We…

Did you see the US bobsled team last night?

Vinny O Brien — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 14:22:14 GMT

Hey friends,

The Winter Olympics are on.

The flags are flying.
The jackets are shiny.
Everyone looks relaxed, because the hard work already happened months ago. Maybe even years.

Or, do they?

Here’s the bit nobody puts on TV unless they do the Netflix BTS special, which, they probably will, but let’s move on:

No athlete decides during the Olympics to change s…

Life moves pretty fast.

Vinny O Brien — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 12:57:23 GMT

2025 rewarded the decisive. Brands that picked their category, picked their channel mix, picked their efficiency floors, and then committed outgrew everyone else. The ones that hedged, tested endlessly, and waited for more data spent a year running on the spot while their CAC climbed and their MER slid.

The market in 2026 will be the same: be decisive, …

Why Reviews Matter More in Peak

Vinny O Brien — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 09:58:59 GMT

Reviews Are Now a Most Critical Signal in Ecommerce, Especially in Peak Season.Ecommerce trust has never been harder to earn or easier to lose. And during peak, customer confidence becomes the ultimate conversion multiplier.

Reviews aren’t peripheral anymore, they are the foundation of discovery, decision-making, and post-purchase reassurance.

This year …

Join me and Mandy from Accounts

Vinny O Brien — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 16:48:27 GMT

The B2B Renaissance and the age of enlightenment. Is not something I will be sharing in the Minister Building, London on Nov 25th. I’ll be joining the lineup at Bold B2B: eComm Summit on Tuesday, Nov 25th at The Minster Building, London an event that’s turning the spotlight on the most under-appreciated side of ecommerce: the one that quietly drives tri…

The truth about reviews (and why your ads aren’t fooling anyone)

Vinny O Brien — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 20:24:28 GMT

The Truth About Reviews

Every click, scroll, and abandoned cart boils down to one thing, trust.

And trust doesn’t come from your ad copy or that one influencer who ghosted you after the free sample. It comes from real people, saying real things, in real time.

That’s why REVIEWS.io exists, to make trust stupidly simple.

Why Reviews Matter

Social proof used to…

What Happens in Vegas

Vinny O Brien — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 13:17:01 GMT

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Age old rule and we are about to break it. The most honest Debate in eCommerce starts tomorrow. In partnerships with SCAYLE Commerce Engine we at RMW Commerce are taking our debates on the road. We have 5 industry leaders now turned protagonists taking on some of the most pressing (or depressing) questions of this …

There’s Always Money in the Banana Stand.

Vinny O Brien — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 10:43:50 GMT

There’s always money in the banana stand. If you’ve watched Arrested Development, you know the line. If you’ve run a business, you feel the line. The trick isn’t just that the money exists, it’s that most companies don’t know where it’s hiding.

At Refresh 2025, Squarespace has just unveiled a shiny package of new features, AI-driven tooling, and the prom…