For years EcomFuel has surveyed its community of ecommerce merchants about their growth, margins, tactics, and more. The company released this year&#x27;s findings last week. In this episode, founder Andrew Youderian recaps the report, addressing the state of ecommerce among 300 participating businesses — mostly seven, eight, and nine-figure brands. For an edited and condensed transcript with embedded audio, see: https://www.practicalecommerce.com/ecomfuel-founder-on-2026-industry-trends For all condensed transcripts with audio, see: https://www.practicalecommerce.com/tag/podcasts ****** Practical Ecommerce helps online merchants improve with expert articles, podcasts, and webinars. Founded in 2005, we&#x27;re an independent publisher, unaffiliated with any ecommerce platform or provider. https://www.practicalecommerce.com

EcomFuel Founder on 2026 Industry Trends

Ecommerce Conversations

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Ecommerce Conversations

## Participants

- **Eric Bandholz** (None)
- **Andrew Younderian** (EcomFuel)

## Transcript

Want to know why your store performance changed? Lebeg analyzes your ads, products, pricing, competitors, and market data together to explain what changed, why it changed, and where the next growth opportunities are. Get started for free at lebeg.io. That's L-E-B-E-S-G-U-E dot I-O.

Welcome to Ecommerce Conversations, a weekly podcast from Practical Ecommerce hosted by entrepreneur Eric Bandholz. What is going on, internet? Eric Bandholz back again with another Ecommerce Conversations. I hope all is well on the other side of the internet. On the other side of the internet for me, Udarian. What's up, man?

Eric, you have the absolute best intro to a podcast of anyone I've ever heard. I love it, man. I'm doing great. I'm stoked to be here. Excited to be talking with you. Doing well. Thanks for having me. Everybody always compliments the intro, but nobody ever compliments the actual show. Come on, Andrew. That was covered later, man. I can only fit so many compliments in a small window without appearing disingenuous. So you got to let me space them out here. Give me time.

Well, what is this? Your third time back on the show? Fourth time? I swear you've been on the show quite a bit. Yeah, I think, yeah, three or four. I think that's about right. But it's been a while. It's been a while. Well, for the listeners who don't know Andrew, and I don't know how you don't know Andrew, why don't you give them a quick rundown of who the heck you are and what the heck you do?

Yeah. My name's Andrew. I run a company called, in a community called EcomFuel. Background is in starting and running e-commerce businesses, kind of learn the industry, connect with all these great, fascinating people. And over time, built a community, bringing them together. We have an online message board, online form, events, reviews, research, things like that.

And that has, over the years, become my full-time jam. So I love bringing store owners together, going deep on research, like we'll talk about today, about what's working, what's not, how owners can do a better job. And yeah, that's kind of my story in a nutshell. You know what I was thinking before we hopped on the call is you should take credit for driving hundreds of millions of dollars of additional value to brand owners around the world.

Just from all the things you've done, between your podcast, between the community, the relationships you've helped fostered. I can't imagine the conferences that you put on and the lessons that people have learned. I'm sure you have those, those actions have probably driven incremental millions of dollars of value to the people in the community. Now, are you just saying this because I complimented your intro right out of the gate?

No, no, I started thinking about it because you think about some of the people who are in your community, ab...

EcomFuel Founder on 2026 Industry Trends

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.

EcomFuel Founder on 2026 Industry Trends

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.