In this episode of The Orita Podcast, Aaron Schwartz sits down with John Surdakowski, Founder & CEO of Avex, to talk about what happens after a brand “wins” acquisition, then realizes the site, stack, and customer journey aren’t built to sustain the next stage.

John built Avex into one of the most trusted Shopify agencies for mid-market and enterprise brands, and he has a rare ability to cut through ecommerce noise.

Together, they discuss:

• Why most fast-growing brands hit $50–100M on duct tape (and what breaks next)

• Stabilization before optimization: fixing the tech stack so teams can move again

• Testing culture as a growth engine: roadmaps, hypotheses, and why losing tests still win

• Omnichannel reality: when Shopify becomes the hub for DTC + B2B + retail

• AI in ecommerce: where it’s already making teams faster (and where it’s still just noise)

• Agentic commerce + AI discovery: what to watch, and what not to obsess over yet

• The headless lesson: why 99% of brands shouldn’t over-engineer their way into pain

If you’re scaling a Shopify brand and feeling the gap between “we’re growing” and “we’re set up to keep growing,” this one is for you.

👥 Meet the guest

John Surdakowski, Founder & CEO, Avex

🎙 Hosted by Aaron Schwartz, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Orita.ai

🎧 Chapters

[00:00] Who Avex Is Built For (and Why “Mid-Market” Isn’t a Revenue Number) [04:02] What Great Agencies Do Not Do (and How Partnerships Should Work) [06:50] Redesigns Don’t Fail Because of Design, They Fail Without Exec Buy-In [09:30] Unified Commerce Isn’t a Buzzword, It’s the Only Way Retail Scales [12:14] Shopify Drops 50 New Things a Year: Here’s How to Tell What Matters [15:04] AI Didn’t Change the Goal, It Changed the Speed (and the Bar) [17:44] The Brands That Win Don’t Guess, They Test (Relentlessly) [20:46] CRO Tool Stack: What’s Worth Using to Test, Personalize, and Learn [23:25] All-in-One vs Best-in-Class: The Real Reason Brands Consolidate [26:07] $100M Brand Problem: When Your Site Is Held Together With Duct Tape [29:00] Retention Isn’t Email, It’s the Whole Post-Purchase Relationship [31:27] Agentic Commerce: Are We Building for Humans… or Bots? [34:08] Don’t Turn Your Brand Into a Tech Company (Learn From Headless)

🌐 Check out Orita.ai for more episodes of The Orita Podcast, where we sit down with the most interesting operators, marketers, and founders in e-commerce to talk about what’s working right now. Hosted by the Orita team. Orita uses machine learning to help brands send smarter, more profitable marketing, by figuring out who actually wants to hear from you and when.

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