Trends, takeaways and top tips from our recent deep dive event.

At DSN’s Future of Commerce Deep Dive—held November 19 in Lehi, Utah—we addressed commerce as a whole—the complete ecosystem of technology, payments, finance, taxes, logistics and products working together. Because for commerce to truly thrive, every one of these components must evolve in harmony.

​Interactive and tactical by design, the event featured live Q&As and open discussions—creating a true workshop environment where attendees engaged with speakers, asked questions and connected with peers navigating the same challenges.

​The future of commerce isn’t about one platform or one solution. It’s about bringing all these elements together to create lasting success. Here are some highlights from the presentations.

The event kicked off with a presentation from DSN’s Founder and CEO Stuart Johnson. He emphasized DSN’s ongoing commitment to elevating industry journalism, expanding education and promoting innovation across the channel.

Johnson then set the stage for a day focused on real-world insights into ecommerce transformation, acknowledging both the ambition within the channel and the hard truths surrounding current digital capabilities. He outlined the challenges companies face when implementing mainstream platforms like Shopify, citing complex requirements such as replicated sites, attribution models and compliance hurdles. He explained that the event featuring voices from technology partners, major direct selling brands and AI innovators, was designed to foster candid conversations about what’s working, what isn’t, and how companies can realistically navigate their next digital migration or modernization journey.

In his presentation, It Works! President and COO Peter Griscom offered a candid assessment of the ecommerce landscape in direct selling, emphasizing the widening gap between current industry capabilities and the demands of modern digital commerce. He outlined the persistent challenges posed by replicated sites, attribution and complex commission structures—features that mainstream platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce and WooCommerce weren’t designed to support. Still, Griscom noted that Shopify’s robust ecosystem, advanced AI tools and seamless checkout capabilities can meaningfully improve customer experience when companies understand the necessary trade-offs.

Griscom stressed that the next era of commerce will shift away from traditional websites and toward AI-driven shopping embedded directly within platforms consumers already use—TikTok, WhatsApp, ChatGPT, Gemini and more. He warned that brands not preparing their product data and content to be discoverable by large language models risk becoming “invisible” as transactions increasingly move into agent-led environments. Over the next 12–36 months, he expects explosive growth in conversational, personalized commerce where AI curates products and manages transactions. Companies that modernize now—optimizing for AI discovery, enabling off-site purchasing and structuring for predictive personalization—will gain a decisive advantage, while those who wait may struggle to stay competitive.

Sean Smith, Chief Executive Officer of InfoTrax, highlighted how rapidly evolving commerce and AI technologies are reshaping direct selling and emphasized the urgency for companies to modernize their ecommerce strategies. He revisited earlier predictions about the industry’s technological lag and illustrated how AI-driven product discovery, shifting consumer behaviors and next-generation platforms now demand faster adaptation than ever before. Smith outlined the challenges companies face—particularly around attribution, international payments, promotions and recurring orders—and underscored the need to adopt class-leading ecommerce systems like Shopify or BigCommerce to meet modern consumer expectations. He was joined by Angi Hawthorne, Chief Operating Officer of Activz, who shared practical insights from their recent BigCommerce implementation, demonstrating how updated shopping experiences, flexible enrollment paths and integrated promotions can drive distributor satisfaction and prepare organizations for an AI-enabled future.

Colt Passey, Founder and CEO of Gobi Insights, urged direct selling companies to rethink how they evaluate and implement modern commerce solutions, stressing that true “commerce” extends far beyond ecommerce to include payments, taxes, operations and logistics. He emphasized that while platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce offer advantages, they are not cure-alls—nor are they built with the complexities of direct selling in mind. Passey warned against following industry trends blindly or assuming these platforms will increase sales, noting that improper evaluation leads to costly surprises, delays and lost functionality. Instead, he encouraged companies to rigorously define what they are solving for, involve all departments in decision-making, assess real costs and operational impacts and ensure vendors can meet the company’s unique requirements. Ultimately, Passey advocated for a more disciplined, strategic and business-driven approach to selecting and deploying commerce technology.

Connor Hester, Chief Executive Officer of ShapeTech Solutions, outlined the accelerating complexity of ecommerce in direct selling and explained why many companies are turning to platforms like Shopify to meet rising customer expectations. Drawing on his experience implementing systems across dozens of organizations, Hester emphasized that Shopify’s strength lies in its massive app ecosystem, rapid innovation and ability to support multi-channel commerce—but he also underscored the platform’s limitations, particularly around promotions, subscriptions and payments. He walked through which direct selling requirements Shopify can handle easily; which require customization; and which represent major roadblocks, stressing that no platform is a silver bullet. ShapeTech partners with ShopIQ as a Shopify systems integrator, helping customize the process. Ultimately, Hester urged companies to evaluate ecommerce strategically by defining their goals, understanding the true long-term costs, and ensuring their chosen solution can evolve with emerging trends such as AI-driven discovery, cross-channel shopping, and increasingly sophisticated customer expectations.

Blake Mallen, President of Pro2col and Chief Strategy Officer of Herbalife, shared candid insights on how emerging technologies—especially AI, hyper-personalization and social commerce—are fundamentally reshaping consumer expectations and forcing direct selling companies to modernize at unprecedented speed. Mallen emphasized that today’s customers demand frictionless, one-click, intuitive buying experiences across every channel. And he argued that platforms like Amazon and Shopify have already conditioned consumers to expect this standard everywhere. While acknowledging the complexity of applying mainstream tech solutions to the nuanced world of direct selling, he underscored his belief that the channel’s true competitive advantage remains human connection and community—an asset that will only become more valuable as the world grows more automated and AI-driven. This balance between cutting-edge technology and relationship-centered experiences, he suggested, must guide the channel’s evolution.

Mallen then detailed the rapid digital transformation underway at Herbalife and Protocol, including their move to Shopify and the development of a highly personalized, distributor-driven funnel builder built on top of the platform with the help of ShopIQ and ShapeTech. In just a few months, the company onboarded 7,000 distributors into a new Shopify-powered experience; processed over $1 million in inaugural sales; and began rolling out tools that allow distributors to create individualized sites, customized product bundles and tailored marketing flows aligned directly with their conversations on social platforms. He showcased new capabilities such as personalized wellness assessments, automated offer pages, brandable landing sites and seamless Shopify checkout—all designed to match the evolving behaviors of both consumers and field leaders. Mallen framed this moment as an inflection point like past industry disruptions: early attempts fail; internal innovators adapt the technology; and eventually a scalable model emerges. Herbalife, he said, is now deep into that adaptation phase, already expanding its Shopify ecosystem across North America and preparing its next major rollout in Europe as part of a fast-moving global commerce transformation.

Michael McClellan, Enterprise Global Ecommerce at Worldpay, outlined the key trends rapidly reshaping the payments landscape and emphasized how AI, real-time processing and emerging “agentic commerce” are transforming both customer expectations and merchant requirements. He highlighted how false declines now cost businesses more than fraud, making authorization optimization—through AI-driven smart routing, enriched issuer data and real-time logic—critical to protecting revenue. McClellan also introduced new capabilities such as direct issuer integrations that cut suspected fraud in half, FedNow-powered instant bank payments, and next-generation checkout tools like Stupefi that enable one-click, card-on-file purchasing across brands. Looking ahead, he stressed that agent-led shopping via platforms like ChatGPT will soon become as essential as adopting the internet was two decades ago, making it vital for direct selling companies to ensure their product data is readable, discoverable and ready for AI-driven purchasing journeys.

Gaya Samarasingha, Chief Marketing Officer at Young Living and Chief Executive Officer of Wyld Notes, shared a candid and deeply informed look at her multi-year journey implementing Shopify across both a startup brand and a major global direct selling organization. She described how her initial move to Shopify in 2021—driven by the need for measurable digital marketing and the limitations of traditional MLM technology—ultimately saved her self-funded skincare company during the pandemic. That experience shaped her belief that modern ecommerce capabilities, such as seamless checkout, abandoned-cart flows and better customer tracking, are essential for today’s distributors who often sell through social media and rely on digital conversions. When Young Living later approached her to test Shopify and help launch a new natural fragrance line, she proposed building an affiliate-friendly sister brand, Wyld Notes, to experiment with omni-channel strategies and measure real-world impact. The result: a scalable Shopify-powered ecosystem that now brings in a steadily increasing flow of new customers—30 percent of whom are entirely new to both Wyld Notes and Young Living.

Samarasingha explained that success with Shopify comes not from the platform alone but from the strategy, tech stack and change management behind it. Wyld Notes became a rapid-learning laboratory, helping Young Living understand how a modern, consumer-grade digital experience can support both top-of-funnel customer acquisition and long-term distributor growth. Now leading marketing for Young Living as the company prepares to implement Shopify on a global scale, she emphasized the need for realistic expectations, careful partner and app selection, simplification of outdated business rules and strong communication to guide teams and legacy leaders through transition. Shopify, she stressed, is not a magic growth engine—but its agility, extensibility and ability to integrate best-in-class tools empowers companies to test faster, iterate more intelligently, and modernize the distributor and customer journey in ways legacy MLM platforms cannot.

Dreux Flaherty, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of LPT, outlined how payment orchestration will define the future of commerce by giving companies a single integration point for multiple processors, fraud tools, payment methods and global routing solutions. She emphasized the critical importance of redundancy—highlighting that LPT remained fully operational during recent AWS, Cloudflare and ASR outages—and explained how fragmented payment stacks routinely cost businesses 5–10 percent in lost revenue. Flaherty detailed how orchestration enables smart routing, embedded finance, cross-border optimization and AI-driven fraud protection, all of which improve authorization rates and reduce cost. She also pointed to major shifts already underway, including social commerce, conversational checkout, real-time payments and rising consumer demand for frictionless one-click transactions. Her central message: resilience, intelligence and embedded integration are now the three pillars companies must adopt to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving payments landscape.

Nick Martinez, President of Prüvit, reflected on his transition from building a massive social commerce brand—The Keto Dad—to helping lead Prüvit through its implementation of Shopify, a shift he believes would have dramatically accelerated his own customer acquisition journey had it existed earlier. Drawing from years of field experience, Martinez emphasized the importance of setting realistic expectations around Shopify, cautioning that while the platform provides a stronger foundation, faster checkout and significantly improved reliability, it does not replace the fundamental work of relationship-building and daily activity. He detailed Prüvit’s deliberate rollout strategy, beginning with small groups of top leaders to troubleshoot and optimize before expanding fieldwide and stressed the value of launching gradually to avoid overwhelming distributors accustomed to long-standing systems. Martinez also highlighted the need for a “hard cut” moment—anchored to a new product launch—to transition fully from the legacy site to Shopify without confusion.

In the second half of his presentation, Martinez underscored how critical expert partners have been in Prüvit’s successful migration, crediting teams such as ShopIQ and LPT for solving complexities; enabling global payments; and rapidly adapting the platform to Prüvit’s international footprint. He shared a real-world example of Shopify’s agility during a recent leadership event, where Prüvit was able to sell a not-yet-launched product exclusively to attendees, process commissions and provide seamless support—all within minutes, even with nontechnical staff. This, he noted, showcases the speed, flexibility and operational strength that Shopify brings to modern direct selling. With Shopify now functioning across more than 40 countries and supporting multiple currencies, Martinez sees this transition as just the beginning of Prüvit’s broader evolution toward a more scalable, frictionless digital commerce model.

Patrick Frith, Head of Cross-Border at Avalara, outlined the unprecedented volatility in global tariffs and explained why airtight compliance is now mission-critical for direct selling companies engaged in importing or exporting goods. He detailed how rapidly shifting US and international trade policies—reciprocal tariffs, the removal of de minimis thresholds and more than 600,000 tax and tariff changes this year—have disrupted supply chains, increased costs and caught many businesses off guard. Frith emphasized the four essentials companies must master to avoid penalties and price shocks: understanding each market’s de minimis rules; correctly identifying country of origin; applying accurate HS codes; and declaring proper values. He shared real-world examples of brands adapting through tariff engineering, reshoring and diversified sourcing. He also highlighted how calculating true landed cost at checkout can remove friction for global customers. Frith closed by noting that Avalara’s tools—including its duty and tax automation embedded in Shopify—help companies navigate compliance confidently amid a rapidly evolving trade landscape.

Neil Markey, Chief Information Officer at Juice Plus+, shared an in-depth look at the company’s aggressive seven-month digital transformation, which included replacing a 20-year legacy platform with Shopify as the ecommerce foundation alongside a new commissions engine, back office and business intelligence system. He explained that Juice Plus+ approached Shopify as a pure B2C platform—treating distributors, partners and customers the same at the front end—which required building extensive custom infrastructure behind the scenes, including a global back office, custom subscription engine, multi-store architecture across nine countries and integrations for diverse payment methods such as ACH and direct debit. Markey also highlighted the complexity of running a nonstandard four-month subscription cycle that no ecommerce platform supports natively; the need for a custom partner landing environment; and the initial challenges with attribution, multi-store product management, customer service actions and administrative controls. These early hurdles revealed how critical it is to architect the solution holistically rather than “drop Shopify in” and expect it to function like a direct selling platform.

In reflecting on strengths and weaknesses, Markey stressed that Shopify is an exceptional ecommerce platform—fast, modern, extensible and rich in promotional and app capabilities—but not built for direct sales, meaning companies must invest in engineering, customization and thoughtful program design. He identified the platform’s limitations around global currencies, SEPA and direct debit (still under development); restricted checkout customization; lack of built-in consultant tools like wallets or commission values; and increased integration complexity when operating multiple storefronts and warehouses. Markey’s key lessons: take more time than you think you need; avoid changing too many programs at once; select implementation partners who truly understand direct selling; build an integrated and intuitive consultant back office; and ensure ongoing investment after launch. He also emphasized that AI-driven commerce is quickly emerging, and while Shopify is a necessary foundation today, it is only one component of the broader digital ecosystem Juice Plus+ must prepare for in the coming years.

Gregg Corella, General Manager, Direct Selling at Ordergroove, drew on more than 30 years in direct selling to explain how “relationship commerce” is transforming traditional auto-ship into modern subscription experiences that drive higher retention, predictable revenue and stronger distributor performance. He emphasized that growth now depends less on constant customer acquisition and more on keeping subscribers engaged through flexible, self-serve tools—such as skip, pause, swap and personalized win-back flows—that dramatically reduce churn. Corella highlighted the power of incentives like subscriber-only perks and prepaid subscriptions, which can increase subscription revenue by up to 40 percent and boost retention by more than 60 percent. He described how a well-integrated subscription ecosystem becomes a flywheel: easy management leads to loyal customers, which leads to recurring commissions and stable distributor volume. Corella also warned against common pitfalls—rigid autoship models, siloed tech stacks, and poor visibility into churn—and stressed that the future of subscription commerce will be shaped by AI-driven personalization and automation that deliver “one-size-fits-me” experiences across every channel.

Invaluable Insights. Actionable Takeaways.

DSN’s Future of Ecommerce event proved to be an exceptionally productive and insight-rich gathering, bringing together leading technology partners, industry executives and forward-thinking practitioners for a comprehensive, candid examination of the evolving commerce landscape. Rather than focusing on ecommerce in isolation, the event explored the entire ecosystem—payments, logistics, subscriptions, data, compliance, AI and infrastructure—and how these components must work in harmony for modern direct selling companies to compete.

Across the day’s presentations, one message consistently emerged: the future of commerce requires both modernization and intentionality. Speakers shared hard-earned lessons about implementing platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce; preparing product data for AI-driven discovery; redesigning subscription models to boost retention; orchestrating payments for resilience and efficiency; navigating skyrocketing tariffs; and aligning technology with distributor and customer behavior. The result was a rare, 360-degree view of the opportunities and obstacles shaping the next era of digital commerce.

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