2297 - How AI and Mobile Apps Are Redefining the Future of Shopify and E-Commerce with Domaine's Mac King

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0:58With us right now, it is Mac King. Mac, You are the co-founder and chief revenue officer for Domain. Your website is meetdomain.com. We're going to be talking e-com. We're going to be talking Shopify. And we're going to talk about B2B in Shopify as well. All kinds of fun things. Before we get into that, Mac, first off, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Yeah, excited to be here. And before we kind of get into your superpowers and the work that Domain does, I always love hearing what high-level leaders in business do for fun. And so when you're not at work and you're kind of doing your own thing, what have you been geeking out on lately?

1:39Sure. Yeah, I'm a member of a local movie theater here in Toronto, which actually you'll see the posters if you're watching online. In the background, I have four different custom-made posters from different local movies that I've seen. It's actually the oldest cinema in Toronto, opened since 1913. So the first 30 or 40 years, the movie theater was open. and it's just so silent movies. And I'm a member, it means I get to go to all the movies for free and free popcorn, free drinks. I go probably twice a week solo or with my wife when she'll come. No kidding. Now, are you seeing both classic and new releases?

2:13It's basically all classic. Sometimes they'll have a new release run, but for example, you see The Godfather, 40th year anniversary or 50th year anniversary. So Children of Men I saw two weeks ago, that's Austin Powers, right? So they show the anniversary movies usually. you know i i absolutely love the experience of going to the movies i i would say my wife and i probably see about three to three to five a month now we're seeing new releases but we like going to seeing independent stuff basically you know if it's a 80 or better on roddy t's we're going you know and and you kind of pick a lane too right like i've yeah i'm actually behind on new releases because i go to this movie theater it's called the review so often so i'm like seeing all these classics and you know and getting schooled in you know old japanese classics from 1980s but uh i've i haven't seen f1 movie which i'm dying to see you know it's great yeah it's a good yeah okay oh it is it's true it's terrific you know there they've actually been some really great summer movies um that that's absolutely one of the ones um how to train your dragon was surprisingly i thought was great for kind of a family movie uh i loved superman uh and i I think I normally would have given it an eight, but I think given the message and the timing, I'm giving it a bonus point and calling it a solid nine, which that's getting into very rare air for me.

3:39Most movies are a seven. I've heard that you're now the second person that's giving me that same piece of feedback. So I'm going to see it. I've decided. Yep. It's it for me, it was the Superman that I, you know, the kind of more of the Christopher Reeves kind of Superman, you know, he's just, just inspires kindness and goodness. Right. And, and, and I just thought it was just well, well done. I hear there's really great buzz for the second season of Peacemaker too. So we'll, we'll see, we'll see what James Gunn continues to do so far. I'm cautiously optimistic. I think things are going okay there.

4:14So, and boy, I would love to geek out one with you on classic movies. Maybe, I don't know if you have like a blog post or social media where you kind of share some of your discoveries. But, but I love hearing from people that, you know, they find a classic movie, you know, it's kind of always been on their list. Like I finally, like just me getting around to finally seeing Seven Samurai and what a journey that was. I mean, it's just, and by the end, you know, cause it's, I don't know, I can't describe it right now. I don't, we need to move on, but we'll, we'll talk, we'll do cinema talk another time.

4:47All right. So Max, we need to talk about domain. Tell me what domain is. Sure. Yeah, we're a Shopify-specific agency or IT services business, meaning we help brands that are either moving to Shopify or already on Shopify sell more. You know, it's that simple. We design, build, integrate, launch their online brands on both D2C and B2B experiences using the platform. All right. So I would love to hear what is going on. Obviously, you spend most of your waking business hours thinking about working within the Shopify ecosystem and advising around that. So what is going on in the Shopify world? lots of things lately i mean the most obvious one is the same thing that's going on in every business world i mean i i'm i assume every business world i'm only in this small corner of the internet which is the shopify ecosystem but ai is the hot topic shopify is a company i mean they released their earnings a couple weeks ago and absolutely crushed on the back of a lot lot of AI announcements.

5:57You know, the company is really committed to going all in on AI tooling and looking for efficiencies within, within the org. So, you know, we've, we've followed suite. Like it's become really important to us as a Shopify partners, the largest Shopify partner to be able to use AI tools. You know, one thing that's really top of mind for all brands right now, which is, I think really firing me up. It's very exciting is discoverability. People are using chat GPT now to do their shopping for them. I got invited to an event next week in Hamptons and they told me my dress code was, Hey, they're like dressed high-end Hamptons casual.

6:30Uh, and I thought, what the bleep does that mean? So I go to chat GPT type in what does high-end Hamptons casual mean from a dress code perspective. And then all of a sudden I'm shopping, you know, you're using chat GPT as your own shopping interface, looking for, for, for brands, looking for products. So basically what that means is that we help brands use and show up on ChatGPT as a result. Because this is where shoppers are going. This is what the future looks like. It's still a small percentage of overall shoppers right now, but it's going to get big. So that's kind of what we're all obsessed with in the Shopify world right now is how is AI really going to impact this ecosystem and how can brands kind of be in the right place at the right time?

7:10Yeah, well, and obviously, you know, I was just talking with someone about the value of, you know, search or AI search as opposed to, you know, SEO search. So someone who's like searching on Google and they click on something and, you know, the value of that user versus the value of someone who's been having a conversation with AI, kind of talking very personally about like what they're looking for. And then AI gives a product recommendation. I know I do this a lot in perplexity, but yeah, it really is interesting to see what the future of shopping is. you know, I think sometimes, you know, we go and we want to be enticed.

7:58We, we, we want to window shop and say, oh, what's calling to me. And a lot of times I think, you know, shoppers kind of have an idea of what they want and they don't want to mess around. Right. And just, they want to feel like they're getting the direct answer. So, so Shopify kind of what builds a, and I'm not familiar, but so are you saying that Shopify kind of has a built-in chat interface now to kind of help you with what you want or is that the stores can can implement that for their storefront yeah there's things that store owners can do that helps them show up on chat gvt's interface or perplexity's interface right that's the interface that they should be concerned about that's where people like you josh and me and you know other folks who are using perplexity more and more or clode or you know google ai mode that's where they're interfacing with with you know how do i find an outfit for a wedding next weekend.

8:49So what we do is we help brands who are using Shopify, make sure that they show up in those places, right? It's that simple. And there's like this, this bag of tricks that these online stores can do in order to make sure that they're showing up. And that's just one of the ways I think the other way to consider AI when it comes to online shopping is how do you replicate an in-store experience online? That's what the best online stores do. So, you know, you walk into your favorite shop, maybe you like high-end menswear and someone knows your name and goes, oh, hi, Mr. Elledge, like, how you doing?

9:20What would you like? I know your size. Come over here, grab a cup of coffee, wait in the waiting room. Well, how do we replicate some of those like clienteling experiences through the online interface? And a lot of that comes like to building, using AI native tools on the front end of the online store, which may be a little bit technical, but ultimately what that means is like, how do brands stay at the forefront and stay technically engaged with what AI tools are working to replicate an in-store experience, but do it on a website. Yeah, really exciting. So I would imagine that's probably some of that.

9:55Well, when you are working with a client, I would imagine that, you know, if it's something that they largely put together in years past, what are they generally, Mac, are most people coming in because they just need a general kind of facelift for their storefront when they work with domain? Or are you doing much more behind the scenes in terms of features and technology? Depends. I mean, you know, it really depends if they have an existing digital, you know, if they have a need for a digital transformation. So a lot of these companies that are selling online, you know, we are, we are our client Fenty Beauty, which is owned by Kendo, right?

10:38Fenty Beauty was originally created by Rihanna. It's a, it's a skincare and beauty line. Uh, and you know, this is the big business. And so they've got a lot of backend systems, you know, they've, and they need to figure out shipping and inventory management and, you know, uh, enterprise resource management, ERP and other, their, their order management. So a lot of different systems kind of speaking behind the scenes will help be able to connect these systems to each other. And then also on the front end, on the actual client customer facing side of things, um, yeah, we'll give it a facelift, as you mentioned, you know, design and build a beautiful on-brand experience for that website.

11:10Make sure that when the, when a customer goes to a website, they want to feel something. They want to feel like, oh, I got this brand resonates with me. You know, I like the imagery. I like the look and feel. I like the way, you know, that have you ever been lost on a website? All of a sudden, five minutes later, you're like halfway down on the about us page. You're like, why did I end up here? Well, that's the way a website feels, And that's how it's built. I love it. On your website, you'd mentioned that, I guess I'd not really thought about this, but using Shopify in B2B. How are some B2B business owners leveraging Shopify?

11:47It's surprising, right? People think Shopify, they think direct-to-consumer online stores, right? I'm using Shopify to sell a Stanley mug online. Um, but, uh, there's this burgeoning, you know, like total addressable market that's, that's coming in using Shopify for B2B sales, you know, the unsexy stuff, not, not the consumer facing brands. You meaning the Shopify has a, has an, has a number of tools, actually they're terming, you know, aptly B2B that helps brands that are selling to businesses only, uh, unlock different pricing structures, you know, based off of login details, you know, all the things you would expect as a wholesaler logging into a wholesale portal, well, you can actually do that on Shopify, which I think a lot of people don't think that way, but it's all true.

12:31It's all there. uh so looking forward uh you know what what trends i mean you mentioned something about and by the way i'd encourage um anyone who's listening go to meet domain.com so you can see your website uh your website is gorgeous and and definitely like it definitely communicates a vibe yeah it's um i guess uh you know in terms of like you know trends moving forward i think we're going to continue to see, you know, AI, we're going to continue to see more immersive experiences from a shopping perspective. What is kind of on the roadmap that you've seen? What is kind of coming down the pike that is maybe not here right now, but if someone is trying to be forward thinking, you know, we're having this conversation here at the end of August, September 2025, 25, where are we headed?

13:26Well, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you a surprising answer, which is a mobile app. You know, I think a lot of people think that mobile apps are on their way out. You know, the same way anyone who has an iPhone or an Android phone has a mobile app on their device. What if every brand had their own mobile app on, on your customers' devices? Yeah. That's a big unlock for, for online stores, for direct to consumer brands is, you know, chatting with their customers in something as personal as their own phone uh be able to send push notifications instead of sending emails you know yeah as a consumer i think anyone who's ever shopped online or ever been online gets emails every black friday weekend of like hey you know our underwear is 40 off shop now you know those promotional emails you get from all the online stores you've ever even visited well every one of those emails cost that brand money to send you You know, that's 15 cents every single time you see an email.

14:23If you click the email, that costs another 25 cents. So what's happening is that these online brands right now are trying to do more with their current customers and not kind of like dumping money into paid spend channels like email, SMS, paid media. So if you build your own loyalty, build your own network of people who are using a mobile app to log into your online store, then you don't have to pay for those customers and you don't have to pay to market to them. And I think that's kind of a clever unlock for brands. and something that's trending up more and more. Yeah. Hey, Mac, so for a friend that's been listening to our conversation and they're ready to explore a little bit more, can you share both resources for folks that just want to explore more and learn more about domains expertise?

15:04And I don't know if you have anything that they can kind of dive into a little bit. And then, of course, you know, for someone who's like, well, Locke, I just need a conversation here, kind of what their path might be. Sure. Yeah, thanks for teeing that up. I mean, you know, as you mentioned, we have a nice website. Check out our website. We design and build websites for a living. So we felt that like it's important for us to build our own site that is easily accessed by potential clients. You know, people who are looking to sell something online and who are looking to use Shopify. That's the first step.

15:34If someone's looking to sell something online and also will be using Shopify to do it, then you might want to talk to us or someone like us. You know, maybe we're not the right fit, but like come to our website, fill out our contact form, get in touch and check out our work. I think that's the important key piece is like, do you see a brand that we've worked with, that we've designed, that we've launched, that resonates with you in the way that you want your brand to be presented online? So go to our work page. And if something resonates with you, then reach out and let's chat about it. I love it.

16:03All right. So again, the website, meetdomain.com, and that's D-O-M-A-I-N-E. And we have that all linked up in the show notes. and again, Matt King, you're the co-founder and chief revenue officer. It's been great to have you. Thank you so much for sharing your insights. Thank you for having me, Josh. I've really enjoyed chatting with you.

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