Henry
This is an interview with Miika Lund from Finland, representing the agency Villi. I’m very happy to start this series of interviews with agency owners and others interested in commerce. Miika, could you introduce yourself a bit?

Miika
Thank you for inviting me, Henry. I’m Miika, as you mentioned, and I come from Finland—a cold place where people love going to the sauna and taking it easy. I’ve been working in commerce for nearly 10 years now, and here in Finland I run an agency called villi.io, which means “wild” in Finnish.

Henry
I thought you once won an award in Finland for agencies, isn’t that right?

Miika
No, yeah. (laughs).

Henry
All right (laughs). But maybe one day I will! I have three questions on the table. The first one is: how do you see the development in e-commerce?

Miika
In the last few years, the e-commerce industry has become extremely competitive. To give you an example: back in 2016, if you were selling something like soup boards, there were maybe two, three, four, or five good retailers selling that product. Today, there might be 50 companies offering the same product—all competing on price. Everyone is using the same types of pictures and styling, and increasingly, people focus solely on price.

Henry
And with this change—a shift toward more competition and a focus on pricing—do you think artificial intelligence will play a significant role?

Miika
Absolutely. I think AI will give a competitive edge to those agencies that use it effectively. When you have 50 companies all looking similar, even a small innovative change can be quickly copied, and then everyone is competing for the same customer. AI can help analyze vast amounts of data—something no one has time to do manually—and pinpoint exactly where improvements are needed. In that sense, AI may be one of the best solutions to stand out in a crowded market.

Henry
From an agency’s perspective, do you see a shift coming due to developments in both commerce and AI?

Miika
Yes, I believe AI can be applied across many areas, especially in providing solid data for commerce management. Every entrepreneur faces the “shiny object illusion” problem—chasing after flashy new ideas rather than focusing on the core issues. Often, entrepreneurs spend a lot trying to fix problems by adding new products instead of refining their existing ones. In a typical e-commerce store, if you look at five products, four might be poorly executed. Unlike in a retail store, where you rarely see disorganized shelves, online shops can fall into this trap. If you take the same example and go to retail store you never see poorly order order shelves that you have a milk shelf but there is also rice never happens but in commerce that’s possible and that’s because people have this shiny object syndrome. They look everything shiny and easy but they forget the easy focus on your product pricing. If that’s correct, everything rest will follow.

AI is a great friend here because it lets you quickly sort through hundreds of rows of data to know exactly where to focus your daily efforts, fundamentally changing how commerce development is done.

Henry
So e-commerce is more competitive, what you see during the the last decade, and you see that AI is especially good for data connection, your advice is to focus on existing products, and especially as an agency you can help in that aspect. And how important is domain knowledge in all of this?

Miika
Domain knowledge is absolutely key. It allows you to avoid getting sidetracked by the allure of “shiny objects.” Entrepreneurs often get dozens of calls offering new solutions, but most of those aren’t truly valuable. We just think this is cool or I know this is good for you because this data tells me this and that’s why that thing works that way. It’s so easy. With strong domain expertise, you can ask the right questions and diagnose the real issues—much like a doctor who takes blood samples and performs tests before prescribing a treatment. Many agencies and commerce owners, unfortunately, get stuck chasing after new products or increasing budgets without addressing the core problems that data reveals.

Henry
Thanks a lot, Miika, for your wonderful insights on the intersection of e-commerce, AI, and agency work. I have no doubt we’ll be hearing more from you in the future.

Miika
Thank you, Henry. It was my pleasure.