This is a translation of the above interview

Henry
Look from e-commerce, AI impact and agencies, to experience for yourself what it’s like in this development. And I’m very happy to have Oscar Levi here, who I’ve known for a long time. How nice of you to be here, Oscar, to go through these three questions together. Can you introduce yourself briefly first, Oscar?

Oscar
Yes, I can. Thank you very much, Henry. My name is Oscar Levi. I am Head of Media Commerce at media agency Stroom and have been working there for 11 years. I am looking forward to the interview.

Henry
Very good. Thank you, Oscar. You already have a lot of experience in this field and have been through a lot. E-commerce is also changing. What developments do you see taking place in this market?

Oscar
Yes, the development we have all been talking about for a long time is personalisation. I think with the development of AI, we are going to get better and better at that, especially to bring offline personalisation to online. I have a nice example of that myself. I experienced this I think 15 years ago. I was walking down the Kalverstraat looking for new shoes. What I loved was that I entered Footlocker and the first thing that happened was that someone came up to me and said, ‘Oh, how good that you’re here! What kind of shoes are you looking for?’ Then you say, ‘Yes, the latest, hippest Nike’s.’ And then that person says, ‘Oh, come with me. You have these and these. This red one just came out and that blue one you should try on. What’s your size? I’ll go and get some.’ That experience has always stayed with me. How can you bring that online? You do some advertising, you get to a website, and then? You might see another carousel of offers, but that whole experience of ‘good you’re there’ and ‘this is what suits you’ is something you might now be able to pull off with AI.

Henry
Wow, yes. That’s a great image, that Footlocker example. I can totally picture you walking in that shop on Kalverstraat. You also hint at what AI could do in that. Do you see any other ways AI could impact e-commerce, specifically for personalisation, Oscar?

Oscar
Yes, absolutely. It’s about forming a website that can analyse a visitor’s behaviour. But I’ll just say something crazy: if I see you in the picture so well now, I could also see on Footlocker.co.uk a person who speaks to me and who might know me a little bit. Or who has access to my online data, such as my behaviour on social media. That person might then say, ‘Well, you’ll love these shoes.’

Henry
Wonderful, yes. A very nice vision. Do you think people will also take the step to share that data?

Oscar
Yes, that’s funny, isn’t it. People have no problem just giving that to an American platform. Maybe if you get a 5% discount on your shoes, that’s not a problem. Convenience is also important, of course. This does make it very easy. It’s always interesting to see how you can show media data in 10 or 25 years. If you could give that data to Footlocker and they say, ‘Well, you should just go and put these shoes on,’ then you feel unique. They are hip and trendy and suit you.

Henry
That’s right, yes. Nice. What role do you see for agencies in this changing impact of e-commerce and AI?

Oscar
I’m really talking about e-commerce now. How can I get more sales on my website and better conversion rates? From the media agency point of view, we are of course buying media. That’s a good question. If we look at collecting data and setting up reporting, there is quite a bit of repetitive work in that. A lot of automation and improvements can come with AI. Also in how we as a media agency collect data ourselves. How cool would it be if I have a chatbot from an operator, for example Funda, that can help me link IDs to my account, to my Facebook account, of people looking for certain flats in a certain price range? And that I get that back, that it is linked to my Facebook account, and that I immediately set up my campaign on that and move on. That way I can collect data very quickly without having to make a call. I can just get it in, link it to the system and go on like that. I think making data available, of course according to all the privacy rules, and getting data from different operators faster, allows us to find creative solutions. I see that as the role of a media agency. But the operators also need to open up to that. On the other hand, Google and Facebook also work a bit like that.

Henry
Nicely said, yes. Your work then also becomes much more fun, I think. Much more creative and strategic.

Oscar
Yes, and especially much faster. There are more opportunities to work with data faster. In the end, data is still something vague for everyone: what should I do with it? I believe that as a kind of operator, or with chatbots, you can ask questions like: ‘Give me this and that data,’ but not in code language, but just in the language I also use in conversations. How about if I, you know? What do you have for me? Can I link this data to my Facebook account? This is my login and I can do it for me, so to speak. And that that just happens and I can move on.

Henry
Wait a minute, yes, thank you. Nice development you outline. That personalisation is becoming very important, even on the front end of e-commerce sites, and that’s going to be possible. With data, there’s a lot more power in making the right segmentations and offers. The two, I think, will also come together.

Oscar
Yes, I think there’s a development there that could maybe take place with AI. But Henry, I really like to be surprised by all your insights on what else can be done.

Henry
Very good. Thank you Oscar, for this great interview.

Oscar
It was very nice talking to you.

This is a translation of the above interview

Henry
Here we are again at another series of interviews on e-commerce, the impact of AI and agencies. Very nice that Willem Ruiter from bluedesk is here to share his views. Willem, could you perhaps introduce yourself briefly first?

Willem
Certainly, Henry. Thanks for the invitation. My name is Willem Ruiter and I work as marketing manager at bluedesk. bluedesk is an e-commerce agency based in Alkmaar with over 30 years’ experience. We mainly focus on three pillars: e-commerce integrations, product information management implementations and online marketing. We enjoy doing that for our clients every day.

This piece ties in nicely with that Henry, thank you.

Henry
What e-commerce developments do you see happening in the market at the moment?

Willem
What we have seen in recent years in particular is the increasing demand for the most personalised customer experience possible. This applies not only to webshops, but certainly also in the more B2B corporate corner. It’s about taking the customer through the entire customer journey as personally as possible from A to Z. In the early days, you already saw a bit of this, for instance by using your first name in e-mails for personalisation. Nowadays, this is definitely also going with the help of AI, which is a hot topic. It is going further and further. Sometimes it seems a bit far off, but it is moving faster than all of us can often keep up with. This also has implications for how organisations should set themselves up.

Henry
You mention AI and e-commerce personalisation. Do you see any other impact of AI in your market?

Willem
Definitely. We already use AI and offer it to our customers, especially to support certain tasks involved in our work. Think of speeding up or improving development with AI. You can take personalised marketing as an example, but also within product information management. Imagine that as a company you have more than 10,000 to 20,000 products in your range and want to write unique product texts for each product. This would normally take weeks to months and often required multiple employees. Using AI, you can now achieve this much faster, changing the role of the employee. This is an important development associated with AI. It is not so much a threat to certain functions within a company, but we see it more as a kind of tool or extension for certain functions.

Henry
Yes, nice. You indicate that this personalisation and the impact of AI on e-commerce will also affect you as an agency. What else do you see as changes for agency bluedesk in these two frameworks?

Willem
In relation to AI, you mean?

Henry
Yes, and the e-commerce changes you see. You’ve already mentioned something about development and work, for example, for PIM-related issues. Are there other things you see changing in this market?

Willem
Yes, especially the roles within our company. Take my own team as an example. Where we used to spend a lot of time setting up a Google Ads campaign, we now set the framework of such a campaign quite quickly and efficiently using AI. The time that goes more into the process now, and always will be, is thinking strategically with the client. Campaign creativity or strategy development are human traits that AI can support, but cannot completely replace. I try to coach the team to use AI where it helps them achieve better results for the client. Don’t see it as a threat to your function. On the contrary, put those very pillars in place now to keep up in the future and even stay ahead. That is important for everyone in our e-commerce agency.

Henry
Yes, that’s an important point you make. I also see with others that sometimes there is a bit of a shudder among employees to deploy AI, because they are afraid for their own jobs. I hear that you guide that very well there and make it clear to the team.

Willem
Yes, definitely. It has many advantages, of course, but on the other hand you also have to make them aware of the risks. We are currently in the process of ISO certification, and for that we have to document very well how we deal with AI. For example, what information is allowed to be processed in a tool like ChatGPT? If you just throw that in blindly, it can also get out somewhere. With certain information, you obviously want to prevent that or at least make it manageable. Especially with customer data, that can sometimes be sensitive.

Henry
Thank you, Willem, for your insight into e-commerce and personalisation, and the impact of AI, including on PIM. It’s also great what you point out about the changes within your agency and that you need to be alert to them. Thanks for your insights.

Willem
Thank you for the invitation, Henry. We’ll speak again soon.

Henry
Thank you very much, Willem.

Willem
Have a nice day!

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.