“Blend Commerce deliver real value from day one. The practical, actionable information they share in their emails is remarkable.
- Subscription sign-ups increased by 61%.
- Overall store conversion rate improved by 14%.
The most impressive part is that we achieved all of this purely by using the data and tools Blend make freely available.”
On my dog walk this morning, I had Diary of a CEO on.
Chris Koerner was the guest.
The “king of side hustles”.
What stuck with me was not the 80+ businesses he’s started.
It was how boring his advice really is.
In a good way.
He said that when he has an idea for a business, and he finds someone already doing it…
He doesn’t get disheartened and give up.
He sees it as proof of concept and that a market exists.
Then he uses that to get insights.
He goes to the Wayback Machine to look at how their website has evolved
He then cross-references this using SimilarWeb to see how traffic changed when the changes were made.
His hypothesis…
If the business is still alive and growing, he assumes the current version is the stress-tested one.
Then he said something like:
“I do not need to be different. I just need to do what already works, then tweak it over time.”
If your competitor has already paid money and spent time finding out what does and what does not work.
They have paid for the mistakes.
And learnt their lessons.
But here is the crucial bit in all of this.
This is still just a hypothesis.
It’s not a fact.
It’s not guaranteed to work for you.
It’s based on their site, their offers, their flows…
They’re all the output of years of their testing, failures and context you don’t see.
Use competitors’ changes as shortcuts for things that could work.
You need to turn those ideas into your own clear hypotheses.
Then you need to test them in a structured way.
That’s how you build a roadmap that isn’t “let’s just copy what they’re doing”.
Chat soon,
Peter
P.S. If you missed it yesterday, here’s a link to The 2026 Shopify Optimisation Planner.
About the author
Peter Gardner Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer
Peter Gardner is the Australia-based co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Blend Commerce, the specialist Shopify CRO agency named Global CRO Agency of the Year 2026. He helps established Shopify brands improve conversion rate, average order value and repeat purchase by combining quantitative data, qualitative customer insight and structured experimentation.
Peter writes the Shopify CRO Newsletter and is known for the Buy Trifecta®, a framework focused on helping customers Buy Now, Buy More and Buy Again, while using prioritisation models such as PECTI to help brands focus on the highest-impact CRO opportunities.
Peter also co-founded the eCom Collab Club®, a dynamic eCommerce community that connects and empowers eCommerce professionals through events, networking opportunities, and educational resources.
“Blend Commerce deliver real value from day one. The practical, actionable information they share in their emails is remarkable.
- Subscription sign-ups increased by 61%.
- Overall store conversion rate improved by 14%.
The most impressive part is that we achieved all of this purely by using the data and tools Blend make freely available.”
