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If you are seeking new ways to increase your ROI on marketing with your commerce platform, or you may be an entrepreneur who wants to grow your team and be more efficient with your online business.
Talk Commerce with Brent W. Peterson draws stories from merchants, marketers, and entrepreneurs who share their experiences in the trenches to help you learn what works and what may not in your business.
Keep up with the current news on commerce platforms, marketing trends, and what is new in the entrepreneurial world. Episodes drop every Tuesday with the occasional bonus episodes.
You can check out our daily blog post and signup for our newsletter here https://talk-commerce.com
Brent Peterson (00:00.883)
Welcome to this special Wix episode of Talk Commerce. Today I have Jill Sherman with Wix. Jill, go ahead, do an introduction for yourself. Tell us your day-to-day role and one of your passions in life.
Jill Sherman (00:13.535)
Okay, hi. Well, so yeah, my name is Jill Sherman and I run a division inside Wix called the Suppliers Hub and we are inside Wix Commerce. actually my team came to Wix as an acquisition. So I founded a company called Modalyst, which is one of the initial and largest drop shipping platforms out there. We...
We were the first in Shopify, the first in Big Commerce, the first in Wix. And Wix acquired us about four years ago. And we've worked with over a million stores globally. So it's quite a big platform, huge opportunity to work with us. And we're integrated really deeply into Wix with more more functionality and tools coming soon too.
Brent Peterson (00:53.045)
Great. And how about passions outside of Wix? Work in Wix?
Jill Sherman (00:58.005)
And I love to travel I've been to around 80 countries a lot of it is backpacking now I backpack with my kids on my side of three kids and I treat them like little accessories and go wherever I can with them in tow so that and like I know skiing water sports all kinds of outdoorsy type stuff
Brent Peterson (01:16.873)
That's awesome backpacking with your kids. I'm assuming you don't have to carry them around. They're old enough. you do? Okay. Right, right. Yeah, great. Yeah, we have a Jack Russell and we just got a Jack Russell backpack. So, for more for biking, because they do have a lot of energy anyways. yeah, we won't talk anymore. But Jill, before we get into talking about drop shipping and the exciting things you're doing at Wix.
Jill Sherman (01:21.341)
I do. I do, yeah. They're not my backpack. Yeah.
Jill Sherman (01:34.738)
Hahaha.
Brent Peterson (01:43.701)
I need to tell you a joke and you just give me a rating 8 through 13. So here we go. I needed a password that was 8 characters long, so I chose Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Jill Sherman (01:48.863)
Okay.
Jill Sherman (01:58.549)
I don't know. 11? Ouch!
Brent Peterson (02:05.557)
All right, thank you. Yeah. No, that's good. Yeah, I mean, that's higher than I normally get even lower than that. That's perfect. Thank you. At least I didn't list out all the characters, right? Yeah. All right. So tell us a little bit about how you started your previous company and then kind of that transition into Wix. Tell us your, your, a little bit of a, of a background on that.
Jill Sherman (02:13.182)
Hahaha
Jill Sherman (02:17.498)
that, yeah.
Jill Sherman (02:30.823)
Okay, so let's see, before I founded Wix, I worked for about 13 years in retail on various forms of it. always in some sort of form of merchandising or styling. So I worked at Vogue for about five years and worked on the fashion shoots. And then,
And following suit, I said before, went backpacking around Asia for a year and decided to move to Shanghai. And there I met two other people and we started a company that scaled across Asia with 26 stores. And I was the first employee and helped with the start of that brand.
And then I moved on to Harvey Nichols to help them manage the buying team. And while I was at Harvey Nichols, I was going from country to country and place to place and show them to show them managing all these spreadsheets, all which had different formats and different ways of taking pictures. And it was just a complete mess. And so Modalyst was originally founded to digitize the sourcing process for a wholesale and for smaller boutiques.
And I'll jump a little bit forward. I eventually moved to Prada. I helped them open their first stores across Asia Pacific. And they moved me back to the US. And I went, this motion of like, this industry is broken. I need to fix something. It stayed with me. And so I went to MIT to get my MBA and founded Modalyst in the Halls of MIT with my co-founder. And so we launched that back in 2013, again, for wholesale. But what we saw was all these.
online stores were hacking our system to create these dropshipping relationships. And so we followed the data to see what they were doing and saw that there's really no one else tackling that space. And so we launched the platform that the dropshippers need in 2014.
Jill Sherman (04:17.604)
And in the end, it was just following the data. So we scaled that. And we grew it to around 600,000 stores. And then it's only grown to them before Wix acquired us. And it's been an awesome ride. But I would say the one thing, the takeaway from that is you're not always building the business that you think is right. Start with your assumption and follow the data. And that's exactly what allowed us to grow and scale the business.
Brent Peterson (04:42.483)
That's such great advice for any entrepreneurs, follow the data. You gotta kind of follow your heart too, but I think following the data is probably a better business decision. So now let's talk about how this fits into Wix and how it fits in. Cause a lot of people, I mean, I've talked to Oren quite a few times, but a lot of people are unaware that Wix really has a very strong e-commerce portion to it, right? So tell us a little bit about how it fits into Wix.
Jill Sherman (05:06.631)
Yeah.
Well, look, we were thrilled to join Wix because not only does it have stores, but it has all the other businesses. And so we look at inventory in general across let's call it drop shipping, wholesale, and demand, which is a division of drop shipping. And think about like, how can we enable businesses to grow with inventory in mind? Right. So it's not just e-commerce, but like all the stores out all the businesses out there that that that need inventory even to run their operations. Right. So you could be a fitness gym and
You need to buy the equipment to run as well as sell branded goods and have a store. So so Wix Commerce is huge. It's growing. It's an amazing business. We have all kinds of incredible functionality to help you grow and scale your business with agents plugged in all over the place. I'm happy to go through that as well.
And we have dropshipping built directly into it. So you can source products directly on Wix itself. So you can build a business from scratch to scale in an instant. We have incredible AI onboarding funnels. So if you're not really sure where to start, can even just choose a category, call it women's fashion, and we'll plug in products directly into that funnel and help you optimize the product assortment by searching for products directly on Wix or on Modalyst or elsewhere. So yeah, does that answer your question?
Brent Peterson (06:28.115)
Yeah, no, that's awesome. Yeah. I mean, think one thing we talked about in the green room was the AI for drop shipping. to give us, mean, first, I mean, I think most people understand what drop shipping, but give us the 30 second elevator pitch and what drop shipping is in case there's somebody that doesn't quite understand the concept. And then say, tell us a little bit how you're employing AI to make drop shipping more efficient.
Jill Sherman (06:28.503)
you
Jill Sherman (06:50.709)
Sure. OK, so drop shipping is essentially a business model that means that the merchants do not need to hold inventory themselves. Instead, they can source products from a supplier, it to their store, into the business, and only need to pay the supplier for the inventory once the product is sold.
And then the supplier sends it directly to the end consumer. So it means that merchants can go from scratch to scale with very, very little upfront capital. And the suppliers are sort of their engines in the background that will power the logistics. So the key here is like, how do you choose reliable suppliers? How do you find winning products and make sure that your customers are getting the products on time and with the quality they expect. And the role of the merchant is to uncover
that those golden products, those winning products, and ensure that their customers have an awesome experience. But truly, in the end, really what a good dropshipper is, is a good storyteller. And the products are there to help build upon that story with awesome, unique products.
Brent Peterson (07:57.661)
Yeah, you kind of led with tell the right story and follow the data. And the data really is the driver as a dropshipper because you can't, you're really just selling somebody else's product and you can start from zero, right? But you could be very successful if you can find the right product, tell the right story and then start selling it. Do you have some examples of?
where you've had clients that have had success in drop shipping that just out of the ballpark success.
Jill Sherman (08:29.397)
Yeah, well, I mean, first, I think there's like more to it. this, you can have Out of the ball Park success, I think even more now than before. I think there's more competition, right? Because it's a low friction process. But if you really truly think about the quality of the store and the quality of products and the imagery, all these things that we can optimize now faster than ever before, that's truly what I think we'll have like the Out of the ball Park.
the ballpark exceptional success. And that's not what happened historically, right? Historically, people thought it was like a get rich, quick opportunity. And they would create these stores and not very good looking. And they were that sort of the everything store. And now it's really about like, how can you find a niche? How do you uncover the one that's right for you and for your customers? And then how do you find the right products, beautify those products? And then how do you market it? Because really the dropshipper again is the storyteller and that has to flow through the marketing as well. So there's, there's, there's all kind
of ways to optimize for this. In the end though, like the, there's really human at the steering wheel, right? And the AI is there to just to guide that person through the experience of creating a beautiful story and a beautiful outcome. But really there's a person driving that even if it's an AI agent that's helping you there. It's now we have AI that can help that happen faster and more, more, more effectively and more, I would say even more beautifully than ever before.
Brent Peterson (09:53.845)
Yeah, what do you say to a merchant or somebody that's wanting to start up and they want to just do 100 % dropship? Do you have a formula where they kind of pick the product that they want and they probably should know the product, but is there a way that people can get started doing this?
Jill Sherman (10:11.561)
Well, let's go back to the data, right? I think the biggest risk in dropshipping is selling what you want instead of what the market wants. So start with research. And there's all kinds of ways that you can research products and trends. So I would say that's the first starting point. Now, so don't research so much that you're afraid to start. Definitely just get going and learn from the data that you learn along the way. But I would start with research. And look at the...
things like Google Trends and Glimpse to use that. Wix actually has all kinds of tools as well. We have a visibility agent so you can look to see once you are live, how does it track across your competitors, chat GPTs and its competitors. There's all kinds of things there. But start with the research on a niche and make sure the niche is one that could be unique to you and then build the business around that. And you can always adjust over time.
Brent Peterson (11:07.433)
Yeah, you'd mentioned ChatGPT and now a lot of the purchasing is going to go offsite inside these models, right? And that only increases the opportunity for you as a dropshipper to sell, even as a merchant, any merchant, to sell more, but you're also then competing against the other person selling.
Jill Sherman (11:15.871)
correct.
Brent Peterson (11:29.065)
Potentially the exact same product in a different way does it come down to your the way you're telling your story about that product That makes you stand out
Jill Sherman (11:36.777)
Yeah, I would like, I would say personalize that as much as you can. So again, the storyboard is your store and then the products are what, what you're selling inside your store. but, but those products have been hyper personalized. So choose something that's like that you're interested in too. Like, I mean, given the data should guide you, but even within the niche, like make sure that you're somewhat passionate about that niche and then start to tell a story within it. So those products are, they're a framework, but you can adjust the framework as much as you want. So.
Change the product titles change the descriptions adjust the imagery, know make it your own so that no nobody else can find that product if they do any in image search you sort of make it your Your spirit and your own and that will build the trust and I think that's the most important element here is like how do you create trust in your store and your business so that people will come back not just they don't just have a one-time purchase, but they have a BT repeat purchases and so if you find a quality of imagery and it's consistent throughout
the site and it speaks your voice, then you will start to build trust. And then once they receive the product and it's an awesome experience, you can build upon that trust as well.
Brent Peterson (12:46.421)
Yeah, and there's this, I think there's also this factor right now that maybe some people trust the shipping from Amazon over private stores, so making sure that trust is established right away. You're not taking four weeks to deliver something or like that. You're building that trust right off the bat, especially in that first transaction, right?
Jill Sherman (13:06.973)
Yeah, I mean I highly recommend having a product sent to you first.
So that you get to experience the whole thing. And by the way, you can always resell that product. So it's not like it's capital loss. It's an investment into it. You can even use that product to take imagery and then you can use AI imagery to adjust it. And in fact, Wix has tools inside Wix. So you can take the product imagery, you can put it in Wix, we can adjust the background, the form, all of it, know, and make it again, that consistent spirit that you want inside your store and then resell it. But ordering it to yourself is
really first important step so you get to experience the time it takes to receive it, the quality of the product, the unpackaging experience, all of it. So that's where I would start.
Brent Peterson (13:53.558)
You talked a little bit about AI and the agents that are in Wix. And I know that I've seen some of the demos where you can build a whole store now almost, right? I mean, you could literally build your whole store and with some, you know, making sure it's what you want, but it does, it makes it much easier and you don't need a developer to get you from A to B, right? You could start and sell. So give us some of the...
Jill Sherman (14:04.18)
Yes.
Jill Sherman (14:13.897)
Definitely.
Brent Peterson (14:21.339)
nuggets about, excuse me, some of those items that you can do through agents.
Jill Sherman (14:27.069)
Okay, well first and foremost, Wix just recently launched Wix Harmony, which is an incredible AI building website builder experience. In minutes you have a very, very beautiful, incredible storefront that you can add products onto. So I highly recommend going through that. is groundbreaking, super easy to use, the storefronts are, the businesses are incredible.
And then once you're in Wix, we actually have integration with Printful. So if you want to take branding into your own hands, which I think is an incredible experience, you can source products directly on Wix and design them on Wix using Printful. Printful, in case you don't know, is print on demand. Print on demand means that you could take a t-shirt, add any sort of graphics, or customize it as you wish. You could build Brent's t-shirt. I don't know if you have visuals on this, but that could be an incredible print on demand shirt. Put your graphics all over it, and then you sell it to your customer.
And once it's sold, that's only then is it produced and sent directly to your customer. And that customer will be global as well. So they'll find the closest printing fulfillment center to the customer. So if you're in the US and it's someone in France who bought the...
France beautiful shirt, then it will be produced closer to that customer in France rather than shipping internationally. So it's a really awesome, fully branded experience. That's an example of how you can go from starting from scratch and scaling with your own branded products. And by branded, I don't just mean splashing your logo. I mean you can fully design your whole product assortment
Brent Peterson (15:59.69)
Yeah, and that does bring the whole marketplace idea where you have a store, it's sort of you're tied into a bunch of different network, right? Of sellers that are distributors, as you say, that allow you to to sell in different countries. Kind of going on on that theme, if you wanted to build a ship drop, drop ship store, try to say that five times fast, and you want to do the US and the UK or something like that so that there's a network of people where there's a three PL available in the country and you're
selling that same product, you could sell it across different countries and different time zones and different languages.
Jill Sherman (16:37.599)
Correct, yes. So I mean, use print and demand as an example. That one does have fulfillment centers internationally. Even on Modalyst, we specify where the products are located and or what the shipping costs are across borders. So that's a really important element to look for. If you want faster shipping, lower cost shipping, then look for products that are closer to your home. And you can filter to find those products across any of the drop shipping platforms. But I do think that's an important notion, right? As you said, competing with Amazon is fast fulfillment.
the closer to home is located, the faster it is, plus the more economical it is for you as a merchant as well. Because in the end, it's a margin game, right? So you want to make sure that your margins are making you money in addition to the cost of shipping as well as the marketing spend that you have to get the products in front of your customer.
Brent Peterson (17:28.425)
Yeah, so what are you excited about this first quarter, this first half of the year in 2026? What is it that you see that's exciting in the, especially in the e-commerce space?
Jill Sherman (17:39.669)
That's a good question.
And I think I mentioned before, what made me so excited about Wix is that it's more than just e-commerce. It's all the businesses that are on top of it. I think it's over 300 million websites are on Wix. So it's just an incredible opportunity for us to help businesses grow. And my goal is to help them understand that there are ways for them to build upon their revenue streams with inventory and products that suit the
to their customers. So we're building more and more internal tools to enable merchants or business owners to find what they need to operate their business or to sell to their customers in a really easy, intuitive way.
Wix has so many ways to help you grow your business. I'm not meaning this to be like a plug for Wix. I just, I'm always like amazed, like the more I dive into the business, not just my division, but all of them, like you mentioned there are all these AI agents, right? There's just incredible. It's just incredibly easy platform to use in terms of these agents that help you grow, not just in sourcing products, but like across all elements of your business SEO optimization. But you mentioned it before, like chat GPT and all the other large language models are there eventually going to be.
that are shoppers, right? You plug in what you want and they have to be able to read.
Jill Sherman (19:02.985)
what products are in your store in order for them to be surface for people to shop. And so it's more important than ever that all of the like what's happening behind the scenes of your products that the SEO is LLM friendly and Wix does it automatically, can consistently and reminds you when something's wrong and helps you fix it. And it does that across everything, does it across marketing, it does it across site building. So that to me is like the most exciting. I think the launch of Wix Harmony is like just the starting point of what is
to come with building stores and growing your business.
Brent Peterson (19:39.574)
I made this argument today because of the, you know, how everything, the trend now or what they say it's gonna happen is that we're gonna, all the e-commerce is just gonna go and we're gonna into chat GPT or to perplexity and really then maybe just your storefront is gonna be the entry point but you're gonna purchase somewhere else. don't But does that mean that CMS, the CMS portion is even more important?
on your website going forward. It's like your front facing. If you want to keep a brand, it's going to be in a CMS.
Jill Sherman (20:15.879)
I mean, I don't know. am. think we are, like, we're, I don't know.
I'm sad to think if it all goes to LLMs. I think the storefront is always important. I think the story is important. I think we want these experiences. That's why we travel the world to see things. We want to be shocked and awed by something unique. And if it's all just encapsulated in an LLM, I think that's the death of us. We read books, we watch movies. It's because the storytelling is so important. And I think that we are all still hungry for those experiences. I do believe that the website will always be important. And I do believe that we also
seek to find some meaning in what we buy. Sure, there's things that you buy that are just generic things that we need, but beyond that, we buy things of meaning and value. And that is found in the storytelling of a business and of a website. And so I believe that will always have a place.
Brent Peterson (21:10.173)
Yep, good. All right, so Jill we have a few minutes left and as I close out the podcast, I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug about anything they'd like. What would you like to plug today?
Jill Sherman (21:22.773)
I'm like really amazed by base 44 these days. Have you tried it out? It's so cool. It's like you can build your own app in an instant and actually even like power a whole business behind the scenes. It's I mean.
Brent Peterson (21:27.253)
Uh-uh.
Jill Sherman (21:36.625)
As we see AI is taking on the world, this like, think really gives the opportunity for anyone to build a business and an app, even even personal apps. think personal apps are the future. Like we will build things that help us individually rather than just building apps for a business to scale. And this is the beginning of that. think it's super fascinating.
Brent Peterson (21:50.925)
Yeah. Okay. I'm a big cloud. I'm I'm I'm a max 200 user on cloud. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm with you there. Um, I do feel like that there's going to be, there's going to be the rise of the independent app and then the fall of the independent app when they realize they need, should be using GitHub and they're not. Um, so you said base 44. That's in the, is that, that's another new one that I haven't heard of because I've heard of, yeah. All right. Yeah. I'll check it out.
Jill Sherman (22:15.719)
Yeah.
Please do, it's super cool.
Brent Peterson (22:20.403)
All right, Jill Sherman with Wix. It's been such a great conversation today. Thank you so much for being here.
Jill Sherman (22:26.399)
Thank you so much. It's an honor. Thank you.