Functional and Fabulous

StudioForty9

The omnichannel podcast in which we unbox tales of online retail and digital transformation

  1. S3 E6: Meghan Frazier - Attention for Retention

    11/28/2025

    S3 E6: Meghan Frazier - Attention for Retention

    Are you ready for a crash course in customer retention? You’re about to get one. Meghan Frazier, retention lead at Heights, joins Ger and Gordon to deliver one of the most densely packed episodes we’ve ever produced. It’s wall-to-wall insight and practical advice from the get go. If you want to keep the customers you’ve got, this episode is a playbook that will help you do just that. From meeting customers where they are in their journey with you, rather than meeting them where you think they should be, to reducing cancellations, to honouring customer milestones, to using discounts correctly (which is to say, ‘sparingly’), it’s all here. And more. Is WhatsApp the customer retention app you should be using? Yes. Should you be sending customers personalised video messages from your company founder? Obviously. Can you run a business that doesn’t allow customers to only buy once? You can. How? Listen to find out. Have you ever considered how your customer acquisition affects your customer retention? No? Meghan has. Let’s not even get started about why you should ghost some of your customers forever. Get ready for a masterclass in retention.

    48 min
  2. S3 E5: Dave Morrissey - Mega Mindset

    11/14/2025

    S3 E5: Dave Morrissey - Mega Mindset

    Join Gordon and Ger as they step into a tornado of conversation with Dave Morrissey, growth and culture consultant, ex-Meta, ex-TikTok, current author and pre-Scéal. Tie yourself down, because the insights come thick and fast about mindset, generative AI, leadership and why Ger should never be allowed to write another hard-rock song prompt again. Dave tells you why most companies fail to scale, and talks about the massive head start Irish companies and brands have over their international competitors, but rarely use to their advantage. He also discusses how companies and executives talk a lot about using generative AI, but don't actually do so or even encourage its use. Is fear of AI holding everyone back? He advocates immediate top-down AIction. And all that is just the delicate breeze before the hurricane...

    48 min
  3. S3 S4: Lauren Nicole Muir - Collaborative Creative Commerce

    10/31/2025

    S3 S4: Lauren Nicole Muir - Collaborative Creative Commerce

    Get ready to be guided through massive e-commerce growth with Lauren Nicole Muir, a digital commerce and product expert, who until recently was Head of Ecommerce at fashion brand Oh Polly. Find out how she helped the brand grow during the pandemic. It's a story of bold engagement while embracing the zeitgeist, often on the spur of the moment. The bold approach doesn't end there. Oh Polly recently stopped traffic on LinkedIn following its hugely creative use of video on the PLP, of all places. Who does that? But Lauren doesn't only talk about the fabulous customer-facing front-end experience. She goes deep into the benefits of harnessing your product data correctly and how to use AI properly to make your back-end operations more effective and move the brand forward. Practical AI, instead of hyped AI.  At the heart of it all is a single message: ecommerce is only functional and fabulous when businesses adopt a truly collaborative and creative approach.

    49 min
  4. S3 E3: Amy Kemp - Beyond Wizmo

    05/30/2025

    S3 E3: Amy Kemp - Beyond Wizmo

    Join Amy Kemp of Glossier as she takes Ger and Gordon out on the CX waves, where service agents help navigate customers through anything from gentle breezes to force 10 gales. You'll find out whether AI is more than just a wizmo gizmo and hear how Glossier is using it to genuinely enhance the customer experience. But fear not, the tech isn't driving the boat. A rich and meaningful customer service experience still requires a human hand on the tiller, if you're looking to use CX to drive customer satisfaction and loyalty. Beware, though. There are hidden rocks beneath the CX. If you don't want your service agents to founder, or be mauled by the salty sea dogs in the shipping department, they'll need a deep understanding of how your business works. Amy explains how experience of the entire business helps CX agents provide customer solutions without generating internal problems. Learn about CX as a differentiator, CX as a post-purchase experience, a pre-delivery experience and post-delivery experience. Find out what to do when CX is out of your control, as well as how Amy sent away sheets to be dyed another colour and received a dress back. And look out! There are pirates ahead! Twice!

    56 min
  5. S3 E2: Bobby Healy - Dropdown Menu

    04/18/2025

    S3 E2: Bobby Healy - Dropdown Menu

    Join Gordon and Ger and they take flight with Bobby Healy of Manna Air Delivery, the Irish drone delivery company that's posing a serious threat to Amazon's dominance of the ecommerce space. Has the saviour of independent retailers literally been heaven sent?   Drones promise much. Delivery within minutes from local retailers that bypasses clogged roads and is kinder on the environment. But will it catch on in the West? Will people complain? (Yes, they will.) Will regulators want a say? (Of course, they will. But that turns out to be a good thing.)   And the biggest question of all: can a small Irish start-up beat the likes of Amazon and Google at the drone delivery game? Be shocked. Be amazed. Because you may not have heard of Manna Air Delivery, but with 200,000 delivery flights already flown, they aren't the underdogs in this fight. Amazon is.   Find out how skydelivery could revolutionise your retail business in this special episode, recorded live at StudioForty9's Excellence in Ecommerce conference earlier this month.   Warning: this episode contains pirates.

    58 min
  6. S3 E1: Travis Hess - Big Fish, New Pond

    03/21/2025

    S3 E1: Travis Hess - Big Fish, New Pond

    Can this be right? A vendor as a guest? Yes, it is true. And a Big one too. Ger and Gordon are joined by Travis Hess, CEO of BigCommerce, to review the e-commerce platform landscape and discuss what the future holds. Frankly, is there life beyond Shopify? (Spoiler: Of course there is.) Developments are coming thick and fast in e-commerce and commerce platforms are going to have to move quickly and nimbly to keep their business models relevant. Ger even uses the word 'disintermediation'. Travis gives his no-holds-barred views on the state of play and how he sees the way forward. As a former agency head, Travis also contrasts his previous life with that of the CEO of a software company. And he offers some plain truths about the pickle many agencies find themselves in today. It's fast, it's lively, it's open, it's honest. Welcome to Season 3 of Functional and Fabulous.

    53 min
  7. S2 E10: Ger Keohane & Gordon Newman - The Black Box Is Not a Silver Bullet

    11/29/2024

    S2 E10: Ger Keohane & Gordon Newman - The Black Box Is Not a Silver Bullet

    In this season finale, Ger and Gordon look back on Season 2 and discuss the highlights and key learnings. Together they explore the wealth of knowledge that was so generously given by our guests over the past nine episodes. No stone is left unturned. Proposition, branding, storytelling, product launch, entering new markets, marketing, customer experience, customer trust, customer loyalty, the democratisation of e-commerce tech... it's all here.  In short, this episode is a formidable exploration of successful e-commerce, drawing on the thinking of some of the keenest practitioners today — and Ger and Gordon. If you only ever listen to one episode of Functional & Fabulous, make sure it's this one.

    1h 15m
  8. S2 E9: Rick Watson, CEO & Founder, RMW Commerce Consulting - Smooth Operations

    10/25/2024

    S2 E9: Rick Watson, CEO & Founder, RMW Commerce Consulting - Smooth Operations

    Our guest this time round is the 'notorious' Rick Watson. If e-commerce platforms were restaurants, Rick would be the food critic who would make them tremble most. Rick, Ger and Gordon talk about the big things that get in the way of online retail success. Overindulgence in bespoke technology solutions. Not even knowing what customer problem the business solves in the first place. Rick has seen it all. And the boys spend time discussing why Temu will open its jacket wide and invite you to go on a treasure hunt, while Amazon most definitely will not. In short, this episode is about earning customer trust, creating a customer experience and managing customer data. But the most important question of all goes unanswered. Where is sound engineer Elaine?

    57 min
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About

The omnichannel podcast in which we unbox tales of online retail and digital transformation

Information

  • Creator
    StudioForty9
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2025
  • Episodes
    26
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2023 StudioForty9. All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Functional and Fabulous