🚀 Ready to invest smarter in eCommerce technology? Get expert financial guidance: https://highrock.co/contact/
Are you drowning in tech vendor pitches promising 10X conversions? Most eCommerce businesses waste thousands on shiny tools that never deliver ROI. In this episode, High Rock Accounting CFO advisors break down 7 emerging technologies and score them on actual business value, not marketing hype.
💡 What We Cover:
We analyze AI personalization tools, chatbots, augmented reality, gamification, drone delivery, social commerce, and one-click payment systems. You’ll learn which technologies deserve your budget right now and which ones to avoid until you hit specific revenue thresholds.
🎯 Key Insights:
AI personalization (like Rebuy or Wiser) only works if you have sufficient traffic and data volume. For smaller stores, the ROI simply isn’t there yet. Chatbots can be powerful for promotions and product discovery, but be cautious using them for customer support without proper training.
📊 The Reality Check:
VR and AR sound exciting, but they’re only worth the investment for specific niches like eyewear, jewelry, and furniture. Drone delivery? Cool headline, zero practical application for most sellers right now. Social commerce and one-click payments? Absolute table stakes that you should implement today.
📺 Watch more CFO Strategy insights: • On the Rocks
Our CFO Recommendation: Start with AI-driven product recommendations if you have the volume, add chatbot automations for promotions, and absolutely prioritize social commerce integrations and multiple payment options. These investments reduce friction and directly impact your bottom line.
The big takeaway: Technology can 10X your brand if used correctly, or distract you into bankruptcy if you chase every trend. Your job is to pick the right tools at the right time, and we’re here to help you make those strategic decisions.
What’s up Chris? What’s going on Jay? I feel like it’s been a quite a minute since we recorded Yeah, rocks the e-commerce hour, but here we are again today Today Jay as you’re well aware The e-commerce world is obsessed with tech just like we are AI chat bots VR drones We talked about all that stuff on the on this show over the past year, so But most blog posts don’t tell you what’s actually worth your time And so today what we’re going to do is break down seven emerging technologies and given the score based on how useful they actually are in the real world for Shopify and Amazon sellers But Jay before we do that I feel like there’s some news today Is that right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Rest in peace The Minimists exception today. We are recording today August 29th and the new Rules are in effect as of today and as as Should be the case many countries postal systems don’t know how to handle it So they’re not accepting packages. So yeah, interesting It only took our mail system what? Six months six months to get that. Yeah So and honestly we don’t know if they truly have it or not, but we shall find out But you know those Those of you that were getting your packages from sheen and teamo and then such you know expect for those prices to go up And it’s going to happen. So yeah, so And so just a reminder so that everybody recalls the diminimist threshold was $800 That was an $800 package. It could come in duty free. So you didn’t have to worry about tariffs or International things like that But with the waiver of that the minimum is threshold now those packages those those she moo packages Now they will catch those tariffs and so unfortunately that’s that like Jay mentioned That’s almost certainly something that will be passed along to the purchaser But if you’re if you are in that space, right? If that’s the market place that you play in Know that that that’s what everyone’s going to be doing. So be aware And then like Jay mentioned that it is very possible That the IRS or whatever governing body it is that That handles handles tariffs. Who is it the IRS? I assume it is but I guess I don’t know it’s customs customs and border patrol Where okay, and you asked customs and border patrol But okay, that makes it yeah Yeah, so so again know that the know that you’re gonna maybe get a bill from somebody weren’t expecting Or that those packages are gonna be held up at the border wall wall that gets resolved Yeah, so the twins that water the bathing suits and the cute outfits for you know like 15 outfits for $16 will probably be spending you know more like a hundred and fifteen dollars For those 15 outfits now So they are the ones are gonna be majorly impacted as well as Those of us that shop on team Right and there I’m sure there are some competitors out there who may be able to take advantage of this right? So if your competitor was in that space, but your US base or something like that where you Somehow managed to be able to get those margins enough on products of that nature Now maybe your opportunity to capitalize so keep that in mind as well Is an important thing to know that that I mean this diminimished threshold we like Jay mentioned it was seven months ago or something that it was Brought down from high that this was gonna be an executive order that was gonna go into effect and today it actually has now Well keep in mind it was the waiver was waived way back when but the US Postal Service couldn’t figure out how to handle it So they backed off and put it back into play and then they named August 29th as that final day so yeah It’s just like everything else when we’re dealing with tariffs. It’s yeah, yeah, yeah F a F.O I guess I guess that’s exactly the exactly the way to think about it right now There’s they wouldn’t surprise me to have a you know a Labor Day celebration on the second where these tariffs are paused again That would be that would probably not come as a shock that especially if it’s especially been as being a cluster I have a border or somewhere else where these packages have been arriving So don’t don’t be don’t be too surprised if this is in change, but at least for now It’s actually effective and it has gone into effect and and we’ll see you Well, we’ll have to see as as we say on the show a lot we’ll see what the ultimate impacts of this are But in the short term the expectation is like Your $1 dress is now a $10 dress. So yeah, so good luck out there But like like you pointed out you know Labor Day and tariffs, you know So I am using Labor Day weekend to work on my landing cost calculator again rebuilding it using some vibe coding and Going to relaunch that as an actual app so yeah, that should be coming out here next week Exciting will be right here to share it once it does Yes, right in the meantime, let’s get to the show Jay. Let’s do it. Hey, I just gonna change everything What what is this a thing you’re talking about right? Yeah, you Jay did you know you need a chatbot or your brand is toast dead. Yeah, pretty O a or Automated or augmented reality Jay. It’s the next thing. It’s gonna 10X your conversions 10X Does all that sound familiar? There’s a blog out there shift shift for shop blog that said that these must that these are must have technologies But exactly what we’re gonna talk about today is are they are they really or are they just another shiny object? It dreams both your time and more importantly your cash so we’ve worked with lots of newcomers brands We’re gonna talk about some of these different things Jay before I get started. What do you got it? What do you have? Yeah, so you know a lot of these things that you’re mentioning are coming out of the marketers mouths Not coming out of the teams that are actually implementing these things or actually the teams that are using these tools So we’re gonna dive in a little deeper look at some of the realities and You know remove some of that shine The marketers are putting on top of this in some of this Yeah, and some of this we’ve already talked about before and so it may it may It may sound like didn’t you guys already talk about that? Well, it’s because it’s so important right and because you continue to hear about it And because some and some interpretations around these things are like really true, right and really important So so let’s start like artificial intelligence for personalization This article the What was it called? I’m already forgot it whoops shift for shop Shiffer shop said AI for personalization boosts conversions Enables smarter product recommendations enables voice shopping and helps to improve internal efficiencies So shop-a-bye apps like re-buy or line spot You can use for AI for cross cells and up cells and you get a great ROI if you if you’re if you have enough traffic Right if you have enough scuse but for stores that are pretty small You may not have the data or the amount of volume to be able to train and tune an AI to be able to do that same thing that we’re talking about here All that effectively So if we’re gonna look at these it we’ve talked on the show hundreds of times probably About how personalization is the future and I think that that’s gonna remain the case Um, but this one is this one is definitely just legit so on the bs meter or maybe a two Because it’s only legit if you’re ready right if you’re big enough if you’ve got the systems in place to get good data to support that activity Like you really you can this can be extremely valuable for you But you need the AI to be able to do it properly right Jay? Oh for sure and and part of this and believe you mentioned voice shopping so you know voice shopping is great when you can use the tool like Alexa or sorry but That’s Only part of it Think about who that’s truly gonna benefit if you’re selling on Amazon Yeah, you probably will be able to take advantage of your Alexa device But you know for those standalone Shopify stores probably not so much and in order to Really incorporate these tools you’re gonna have to be a dead heavy shop in order to get this accomplished So it might not be the right position for you So like we said this is some of the bs that’s in there, but overall the AI part is dead on and yeah, it’s so necessary Pretty legit two out of five that’s uh, that’s not bad. That’s uh That’s where we’re talking like Really really low stakes on that one that’s a yeah And again, we mentioned this as our trend for 2025 But maybe the very first show of 25 personalization is the future And as the AI tools do get better at this more broadly It is very possible that your smaller shops are going to be able to benefit from some of those same values But AI still learning right and that means that it needs some data and it needs a pretty good amount to be able to give you that right product Recommendation or to uh or to be able to tell you what you can do internally to get better So very very very useful certainly a thing of the future Um, but only only if you’re ready right now And there are tools coming out. I mean if anybody has heard of mcp or model context protocol It like helps bypass the apis By connecting the mcp to your platform instead of directly building to an api So if that could be worked out in this situation that will help add to the adoption of these tools Right absolutely The second thing that we’re going to talk about today are chatbots Jay uh, we’ve had a bunch of uh, we’ve had a bunch of conversations around our our friends in the chat box group article the article claims right 24-7 support helps with discovery includes facts Right, so you can use mini chat on instagram or messenger and which can crush it for product launches or lead generation especially with those The DM DM funnel’s right those so you’re narrowing funnels But generic website chat chat bot in Chapats often frustrate users if they’re not well trained and we’ve talked about this one specifically Because I’ve had that experience After I had that flight with Southwest their AI chatbot was So bad at the time because it wasn’t very well trained But it could not get me to the answer that I needed and so this particular particular thing The psmeter on chatbots we’ll call it a what do you think Jay? A three out of five? Yeah, probably They’re solid They’re solid if you use them in sales or campaigns and they’re just absolutely garbage sometimes if you’re just using In generic bot it needs to be tailored Similar to the one above right it needs to have Some personalization to it right it needs data underlying it and needs to be well designed You’re just using a generic one it may just make people more frustrated and and And less likely to to close their sales Yeah, and you know many chat is great for building your funnel Right, I use it all the time. It’s great on on ag IG and Facebook But you know there are other tools out there and in order for these other tools to really really work You have to have it connected to a rag database And I would love to tell you what rag stands for it’s slipping my mind at the moment but basically It stores your information about your product about your company about your processes about The customers it you could put dot load documents in there and within seconds It will find the information and be able to respond back with it So you have to build this out. It’s like like you said Chris If you haven’t trained that chat bot. Well, this is how you train it You’re putting that information in your rag database and all it is the vector database It makes it really easy to find lots of information very quickly Yeah Right, and so again, that’s a really important factor here The next topic that we’ll touch on and we haven’t really talked much about this on the show And so this I’m interested in your thoughts on this one Jay I know that this is happening in lots of things that I see and that’s gamification The article claims that you can have an up to 700% conversion you boost If you’re using quizzes or spin to spin to win or things of that nature right There are certain things like oh my oh maze I guess I’m not actually familiar with this But oh may style sweepstakes or type firm style quizzes that can collect leads like crazy And they can be really really powerful and beauty or in a peril or in health Because you can like chart tailor down the types of things that your customers are looking for But oftentimes things like spin to win wheels You know with the 10% discount or something like this right maybe they’re just not all that appealing users are fatigued of those things They’re they’re getting tired of them have you ever clicked on a team who add and got this spin to win I did I did and I got like four free items Yes, but you had to spend so much it’s like yeah, it’s okay. I’m good. Yeah And so conversion can be low if it’s overused right or if it or and more importantly probably if If there’s not like a real incentive like this is the important thing about draws like that So the bs meter on this particular thing probably also a three right Like it’s not completely you know wrong right. It’s fun. Sometimes spinning the wheels to get free stuff is fun But it only it’s only fun if it fits your brand like if you’re a High luxury brand with a wheel like that doesn’t really make sense right? Yeah If that’s not if it’s not something that your users are going to be drawn to like that’s not the thing that you need And then again, it’s also really important that whatever you’re in center this area the gamification that you’re doing That there’s a real incentive like if you’re just offering nothing or if you’re offering the same thing like Oh, now you can give us your email and get 10% off which on your first order which you like basically can get anywhere Um, like that’s just not appealing and just annoying Look look gamification is cool. I mean if you’re you’re trying to Yo on board a customer you gamify it you you give them points, you know, it’s like you’re going through a course You give them points and at the end of that course they level up It doesn’t matter what you get when you level up, but you’ve leveled up and people do that people buy into that You know, so you know the spin to win you know whatever, but you know if you’re really truly gamifying it and and Keeping people interested It doesn’t matter if it truly works. They’re because they’re sitting there looking at your logo and the next time you pop up a sale They’re going to click on it. So, you know, that’s where the gamification really works. It’s keeping the interest in your brand Right and there and the truth is there at least right now there are other ways you can do that But gamification is one that can be effective and like Jay said if you do it the right way and especially if it aligns with your brand strategy More broadly like perfect go for it um The next one we talked about a couple weeks ago. I feel like Jay Virtual reality and augmented reality for immersive shopping Obviously the claims are this helps customers visualize products in their space right along their wall, right? There there are examples like IKEA place Which is which is a talk to your version of this apparently? I’m not used IKEA place But I can imagine what it does like uh probably my my IKEA couch that’s back here that you can’t see a little off screen Probably could have seen what that looked like in the space using IKEA place And Shopify are also lets you do this for free with some 3D product imaging But it’s still like very very neat And so if you sell well wearables and home goods and furniture like this is pretty powerful And that’s exactly what we mentioned to you two weeks ago or whenever it was But if you’re not selling that like if it’s not something put people put on their face to see Right or if they’re if it’s not something that people put on their body so that it’s not something that you’re Wearing or that you’re seeing or that it’s valuable to see in a space I guess it’s just not worth it. It’s time to skip it And so the BS meunter for this one that helps customers visualize products right to that it’s perfect for immersive shopping It’s probably like pretty high BS unless you’re Unless you’re very very specifically in some of these spots right so it’s really cool to be able to do that But it’s definitely overkill for most smaller stores And it’s really really not impactful unless you’re in that like certain set of Products that can really benefit from from this ability to try on I think we talked about Warby Parker back before right like if you’ve got glasses on your face You want to know what that looks like And that can be extremely valuable in that situation Um But you know, I think look at your company if you let’s say you’re a fashion company and you’re getting crushed by returns You know the AR might help you by having buyers visualize What they’re getting before they purchase? You know you could lower that return rate by 25% and that That’s a lot of sales you’re protecting right there and you’re you’re protecting your profits So you know, it might be worth the time and effort to go and put in the AR for that which I believe Amazon does have and you know, hey, what do you look like in that outfit? Yeah, but oh and I saw that I mean, hey, Amazon has the new thing too I don’t know Jay how much you why close on Amazon But everyone’s in a while I do and they’ve got a they’ve got certain models that you can like pick the model that looks like you Yeah, that’s like your shape and then see what they look like in the different clothes So that’s that uh that is a fun fun thing right like it is an an iteration of AR right? It’s not right on me It’s on the sky that looks a lot like me and so again and in certain situations super super valuable But uh in in some maybe not so much Yep, I hear you now the next one Jay is maybe the most controversial of all that’s not that’s not true This one’s not controversial at all. I was gonna sit Commercy social commerce we’ve talked about this like probably every week on the show 114 million Americans will shop directly from social platforms by By the end of the year. That’s a third of Americans they use TikTok shop They use Instagram checkout and those things are becoming massive and there’s absolutely no bullshit to this There’s no BS the BS meter. It says one here, but I think it’s zero like social commerce very very real very very powerful You can we’ve seen brands like increased by 20 to 30% of total sales directly if they can get TikTok shop working properly In pair that with uh user generated content and a review heavy strategy Like there’s just absolutely no question that this can be a winning winning thing for you And it’s really not all that hard to implement as long as you’re doing it properly Yeah, yeah, and so we’ve talked about this many times by using social commerce You’re meeting your buyers where they are Right you’re you’re at the intersection of Snapchat and tiktok and you know, they’re in those platforms all day long And it’s like why not as they’re scrolling put put those ads in I can tell you I placed in it And what are this week on something from scrolling through tiktok so I mean it’s it’s where we’re at and that’s what we’re gonna do There is no question So if you’re if you are not exploring a social commerce strategy It is time So get in there get get get to doing it because the the opportunity is uh it’s substantial So yeah, absolutely no uh no BS on that one No BS there um One one thing that we’ve talked about a couple times on the show because it’s been it’s been in the news especially here in in the in the North Texas area has drone delivery as you may recall The folks over at amazon we’re starting to do drone delivery down in The call station area that was one of their test markets And also in in the Phoenix area, which is where which is where hi-rock is uh Hi-rock is home-based I really would have loved to have seen some drone deliveries Oh really this week With the storms the months zones followed by the dust storms. Oh my gosh I mean probably not the we closed the drones down for that time but but with that being said the article claims that like the Drone delivery market has the potential to uh to be projected to hit 31 or more billion by uh by 2028 that’s not a small number That is a that’s a substantial number um What the The biggest problem with this particular thing right is that like it’s a really really cool thing right But it’s a future tech like it’s like it’s just this one is unfortunately not a thing that you’re going to be able to roll out on your own So if you’re trying to do drone delivery That’s probably not a good choice don’t do that five out of five on uh on the on the BS for you as an individual shopper right but Know that unless you’re like You mean your customers maybe getting products through amazon drone delivery If you’re selling through amazon right and uh and using fba and so that’s that’s very very real So it’s the amazon primary right obviously it’s still in beta It’s in a few places like we talked about college station phoenix uh walmart I think we mentioned was doing some testing of drone delivery as well. It’s the future And it will come eventually But it is definitely like not for the average shopper by seller and self-fuler Not for you uh in that right now Jay any extra thoughts on drone delivery? Can’t wait for it. Yeah, I would love to love to get a drone delivery Yeah, yeah Maybe the next time in phoenix we’ll have to figure out if we yeah and whip whip one up. Yeah for sure Um All right, the next thing that we’ve uh that we’re that we’re exploring today um is peer-to-peer social payments Um, so offering vinmo paypal zeal apple pay increases conversions That is there are what this article claims uh and that is not That’s not questionable like that’s absolutely 100% true. Yeah, absolutely no no no about no bs on this one either And just like social commerce offering additional payment options and especially social payment options can be super and substantial And in fact if you go listen to our show from last time Like we talked about exactly that thing about how having apple pay is so valuable for you Right, so uh, so using Shopify paybots using apple pay using paypal arvindmo And you can see lower card abandonment rates uh it gives people who it’s especially mobile shoppers like and a really frictionless option which is the thing that we really talk about here on their show Um and makes it like a super easy win one click checkout becomes the table stakes now Right, there’s no question. This is not uh this is not a thing that we’re that we’re arguing about no uh No bogusness to that definitely and thing that you need to be exploring if you haven’t already Yeah, the story the story says that you know if you use these at lowers card abandonment rates and it is 100% correct You know you spent 25 minutes Shopping on this site and now it’s like into your card number. What do you mean to have to enter my card number? Why can I just use apple pay? Right, I’m out Because I yeah, I don’t necessarily carry my cards. I mean it’s all in my phone Everything is in my phone make it easy for me It would it should it it should have taken less than 10 seconds you pull it up. Oh apple pay click the button You double click Done Honestly, that’s all it takes Instead of going out and okay, let’s get the credit card and honestly I use a password software I have credit cards loaded in there. It’s not that difficult But it’s the extra button clicks it’s sometimes it goes through sometimes it doesn’t The right apple pay goes through every time PayPal easy to use use login say yes, I accept Reverb back to the to the payment and it just flows It removes all that friction and it’s like it’s just easier on your brain So be easier on your brain if you’re an operator get those sales and make sure you offer the one-click payment systems It’s the right answer. It’s the answer super easy answer. Yeah, and you know The notes say this is like BS one of five. This is BS zero. I mean honestly. Yeah, just like social commerce Yes These these types of payments social commerce social payments Gotta do them. Pable stakes. Yeah, gotta have them They just they just make all the difference like and again as as time progresses like the longer and longer that you wait to adopt these things That farther and farther that you’re gonna get behind most stuff These payment options they also open up different markets to you potentially right because you’re able to collect payment easier from other Other areas of the world potentially They they can be just they can just be huge drivers of of your business just just buy a lot of different payment choices Um, so this can be substantial for sure And so Jay I uh didn’t realize it, but that was the last one we’re talking about today So so there’s there’s seven different uh seven different things that are that are top of mind always and on a high note crass Yeah, well, that’s why I put it there We’re gonna end on a new segment Jay where we uh where we take this information and consolidate it down We’re gonna call it the CFO POV segment so the point of view from CFO advisors like Jay and myself So let’s talk ROI It’s like it’s great, but only if it pays for itself I think that’s really important important right AI and personalization tools they can they can lift your average order value Um, but you need repeat customers and volume And it also takes a lot of time to set up and tune right so these things if you don’t have that underlying set of data Right if you don’t have that information Maybe not for you Chat bots can be really really easy and cheap to test And so you can see what happens when uh when you ask them questions that are relatively basic Um, you can use them for promos or for a product was as maybe be careful on those tests for using them for support because that can Cause problems. I’m gonna example of this I mean if you are using it for support Use the ones that are that are designed for customer support out of the box You know like those that offer you know ticketing systems like zandasks their Their chat bots have been around a long time and they are trained well, but yeah Utilized like the mini chas of the world use it on the front end fill your funnels Make your people happy give them discounts and and even I’m gonna jump into the next section with that even gamify it a little bit with your chat bots Yeah, I mean that can be uh that can be fun right product quizzes that uh That allow you to like do those types of things can be really powerful. Yeah But with with respect to gamification don’t invest unless you already have the traffic like it doesn’t make sense to offer a game If nobody’s gonna play it And it so it doesn’t work in a vacuum like you need to be a you need to have Uh some some activity there and again like we mentioned before you need to Off our real incentive like gamifying just the gamify is Um, maybe it gets your brand out there a little bit more like Jay was talking about earlier in the show But at the same time like it can get uh it can get old quick and uh people can get burned out quick As speaking of getting burned out quick VR and AR who don’t do that unless you’re selling specific things where it can be really valuable eyeglasses jewelry furniture home goods like things that you can literally see in spaces like then maybe yeah Maybe it’s worth it and again you need to have some good volume to make that investment worth it Um, but it but it can be and especially in those target niche niches Um drone delivery super cool headline don’t uh don’t try to make your own drones don’t do that That not not not a good strategy right now um, but it’ll be cool one day And then finally we talked about social commerce we talked about having off up Options for payment. Oh my word Obviously those things are really really important low friction high reward if you’re not doing it already Do it today and so with that said what do we recommend Jay we recommend start with uh AI driven product recommendations chat automations uh related to promos and product product finding products and then of course absolutely must have social commerce integrations you just absolutely must be investing in this because you need To be able to To click to claim that marketer. Yeah, and if you’re selling on Shopify They make it so easy to integrate with with meta tick tock It all runs through your through Shopify site and it’s just so easy You gotta do it yep Yep, absolutely same with the payments apple pay super easy to add in most situations and especially on things like Shopify Um click of a button click the button and then it makes it a click of a button. So yeah super easy It uh kills the friction right and it’s it will lead to less abandonment. It will lead to more conversion Um without without like any effort at all. Yeah, which is fantastic Jay What other things did you want to talk about on the show today or what other thoughts do you have about these seven ideas here? Well, I From my perspective that this being a long weekend You know, I said I’m going out of my comfort zone. I’m working on it at this weekend You know, why not take one of these options and implement it this weekend And you know, it’s a sell weekend and see how it works jump on in there test it try it promote it And yeah report back to us exactly what happened. Yeah, we want to know I’d love to hear about it. Love to hear what’s working for you Whether you’ve experimented with any of these things already and had success or Or maybe you have some pushback for us. Maybe your comments didn’t work the way you wanted it to Um, I’d love to I’d love to get your feedback on those types of things The big takeaway today is that tech can 10 times your brand if you use it correctly Or if you don’t you can distract you right into bankruptcy So keep that in mind you using tech in the right way Super super valuable using tech in the wrong way super super expensive Yeah, your jobs to pick the right tools at the right time Not just chase every single trend and that and the folks here at Hyrock Folks like Jay and myself we’re here to help you to uh Figure out that strategy and make sure that you are making those investments in the right spots The ones that can can help you at the right time. Yeah, we trace chase down that technology so you don’t have to Fantastic tagline. I love it. I love it. We chase down the technology so you don’t have to Love it. Love it. Well, thank you everyone for spending some time with us today Uh, we like like Jay mentions. Please comments Let us let us know what you what you want to hear about next or what you uh what your experiences are so far We want to hear him want to see him Uh, we will be back again Soon to talk about who knows what else in the e-commerce space But you know we’ll be here to talk about it in the e-commerce space Um, in fact, I know Jay and I would be together in person and just another couple weeks as we head off to campaign to ex again To me with other e-commerce leaders in the in the in the market altogether So it’s uh, it’s a fun and exciting week coming up So it’ll be nice to connect to Jay Who knows what we’ll do all we’re there Um, thanks again for spending time with us this afternoon. We’ll see you again in the next one Have a great weekend enjoy your Labor Day. Everybody Test something out do it this weekend
