Digital Clubhouse: The Real Levers Behind eCommerce Growth

Mitchell Tamcken’s journey into eCommerce started by chance, but he’s since built a career on anything but randomness. Now leading the eCommerce charge at AutoID, a niche vehicle styling retailer, Mitchell’s story is one of experimentation, structured growth and an unshakable focus on the customer.

AutoID serves a very specific tribe: grown-up car enthusiasts who once pored over Max Power magazines and now invest in carbon fibre styling parts for their BMWs and AMGs. It’s a high-consideration, high-AOV space where trust, clarity and usability are critical.

Mitchell’s career path from wetsuits to triathlons to vehicle styling reflects a deliberate effort to build eCommerce knowledge across verticals. That breadth matters. “You can’t lead in ecommerce if you’ve only worked in one industry,” he says. He’s brought that mindset to AutoID, transforming what was a lean Shopify operation with no marketing calendar into a structured, data-led machine.

User experience is a central theme. Whether it’s facilitating car-part fitment via comparison tools and fitting guides, or rolling out abandoned cart flows that ask why a user didn’t buy, Mitchell is always testing and listening. He’s taken a hands-on approach to UX, even inviting customers into showrooms to observe how they navigate the site. That led to implementing predictive search tools long before they were fashionable.

AI is another frontier. With younger customers increasingly turning to ask engines and copilots for product advice, AutoID is shifting from traditional SEO to “answer optimisation” — making sure their site gives direct, authoritative answers to real questions. It’s already improving their visibility across AI platforms.

What’s next? Personalisation. Mitchell is building toward a “saved garage” feature where visitors see only parts that fit their exact make and model, similar to Halfords’ reg lookup. Until then, segmented Klaviyo flows are doing the heavy lifting.

Actionable insight: Structure wins. Even creative eCommerce teams need repeatable workflows and forward planning. Mitchell’s introduction of a marketing calendar, campaign ownership and proactive agency collaboration has re-aligned AutoID’s strategy with execution and driven growth.

Adrian Lomas’ story is the kind you don’t forget. It starts with the highs of creating the British Cycling logo from a bedroom in Cheshire, winning accounts with Laura Ashley and Red Bull, and scaling his agency into one of the UK’s most respected eCommerce partners. But what made Adrian’s talk unforgettable wasn’t the client roster, it was his honesty about what happened when it all started to fall apart.

In 2013, Adrian hit what he called his “year of shit.” A personal storm of grief, divorce, overtrading and cash flow issues brought him and his business to the brink. Faced with bankruptcy and unable to pay his team, he slept under his desk for three months just to keep going. The turnaround? A book someone gave him: Traction by Gino Wickman. That sparked his journey into EOS – The Entrepreneurial Operating System – which he credits with saving and ultimately selling his business in 2019.

EOS gave Adrian the tools to get out of his own way. As a self-described “visionary” founder, he realised he needed a dependable operator (his co-founder Rob) to keep the plates spinning while he focused on big ideas. He leaned into structure, simplified decision-making and committed to one system—an approach that let the agency scale, specialise in Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and eventually attract a successful acquisition.

Adrian also spoke passionately about culture, reminding us that if your team doesn’t live your values, culture becomes a liability, not an asset. And after exiting, he brought that same belief in people and process to his next chapter, becoming one of the UK’s only Certified EOS Implementers, now working with 17+ businesses to help their leadership teams run better.

Actionable insight:
Set up a cash flow doc today and check it weekly. Adrian’s biggest regret was not doing this earlier. Beyond that, if you’re a founder feeling stuck or stretched, take a hard look at whether you’re the one blocking progress. Adrian’s EOS experience shows that a strong system, clear roles, and values-driven hiring can completely transform a business.

Dylan Fernandez isn’t your typical FinTech spokesperson. Ex-bartender turned payment evangelist, he’s obsessed with making the often overlooked world of transactions actually matter to growth teams. His mission? To make payments sexy.

Kicking off with a story of how he pivoted from bar management to Magento builds and then into tech, Dylan’s journey was as relatable as it was insightful. Working now at Ecommpay, he champions smarter, simpler, more connected payment infrastructure for eCommerce brands. The core problem? Brands don’t think of payments as part of their growth strategy. But they should.

He urged marketers to view payment not as a plug-in — but as a lever. Whether it’s frictionless checkout, open banking orchestration, or using data to power smarter routing, Dylan laid it out clearly: the way your customers pay can either boost conversions or quietly bleed revenue.

He shared practical advice for improving performance during peak trading periods: whitelist VIPs to reduce decline rates, streamline providers to reduce overheads, and make sure your APM (Alternative Payment Method) strategy reflects where you’re trying to grow. You can’t crack China if you don’t offer UnionPay. That’s not a platform issue — that’s a planning issue.

What made Dylan’s session click was the blend of tech with humanity. He stressed the importance of internal alignment, honest partnerships, and staying true to what actually works for your business. Sometimes that means resisting kickbacks. Sometimes it just means asking the obvious questions no one else wants to.

One of the best lines of the day? “Don’t go selling worldwide delivery if you don’t support worldwide payments.” Brutally simple. But spot on.

Actionable Insight:
Run a Q1 payment audit. Ask yourself: Are we offering the right payment methods in our key markets? Are we using too many providers? Can we remove friction at checkout? Talk to your current provider — and others — about how your payment setup is helping (or hindering) growth. Don’t leave conversions on the table.

If there was one theme that ran through every insight at the Digital Clubhouse panel, it was this — retention is underrated. While the industry obsesses over clicks, campaigns and conversions, the real growth lever is loyalty. And most agencies are sleeping on it.

Hosted by Mat O’Connor of Actuate Digital, the panel brought together four operators who know how to build and keep momentum: Adrian Lomas, Mitchell Tamcken, Dylan Fernandez and Adrian Doorbar. The session was refreshingly unscripted, full of honest reflection and sharp takes on where agencies and ecommerce brands are missing a trick.

Mitchell Tamcken made it clear — your most valuable customers already exist. His team at AutoID has been investing heavily in post-purchase flows, loyalty programs and on-site UX tools that serve returning customers just as much as new ones. His rule of thumb? Make it easier for your best customers to shop again, not just cheaper.

Adrian Lomas took it deeper. He warned that many agency owners obsess over lead gen but forget about client health. Loyalty, he argued, starts inside your team. High retention is only possible when people stay long enough to build meaningful client relationships. His call to arms was simple: “Fix your culture before you fix your pipeline.”

Dylan Fernandez shifted the lens to payments, arguing that the final steps in the purchase journey often erode loyalty. Slow checkout? Confusing delivery info? Missing local payment options? These are silent killers. His advice: start treating checkout as a customer experience function, not just a conversion funnel.

Adrian Doorbar pulled no punches, calling out the shallow performance reports many agencies still send. “Retention doesn’t come from hiding behind metrics,” he said. “It comes from alignment, transparency and actually helping clients win.”

The conversation circled around a hard truth — loyalty isn’t sexy. It doesn’t look good in a pitch deck or get engagement on LinkedIn. But it’s what sustains growth, builds reputation and reduces churn.

Actionable insight:
Review your current retention strategy. Not for customers — for clients. What are you doing to actively nurture your best relationships? Set up a quarterly value session with top accounts. Go beyond reporting. Talk strategy, performance and what success looks like next.

Retention is your real growth engine
New customer acquisition is noisy and expensive. Retention is cheaper, faster and often overlooked. Start building loyalty loops — in your brand, your comms and your checkout flow.

Payments aren’t plumbing — they’re strategy
Localised, frictionless, smartly routed payment systems reduce drop-off and increase repeat purchase rates. Don’t wait for IT to fix it. Marketers need to own this.

EOS isn’t just for big ops teams
Adrian Lomas proved that even small, creative-led agencies benefit from operating frameworks. Vision alone isn’t enough — structure enables scale and stops burnout.

Your best customers already exist
Mitchell Tamcken reminded us that retention starts with post-purchase experience. Use loyalty tools, on-site UX and smart segmentation to make sure first-time buyers come back.

Client loyalty starts with internal culture
If your agency is bleeding staff, it will eventually bleed clients. People stay where they feel empowered. Build from the inside out if you want long-term partnerships.