Happy Thursday!

In 5 minutes, you'll be learning about the following:

1. ​You Can Now Buy Products Directly in ChatGPT​
2. ​How to Win SEO Rankings in the Age of AI​ [TOOL]
3. Neat Build in Public Update: ​​I Loved Our Homepage. Customers Didn’t
4. The Difference Between a $1M and $10M Businesses : Live Event
5. ​Lessons from ShopTalk: Trust, AI, and Customer Experience

Jim Huffman, GrowthHit & Neat Apparel CEO
​(Want a friend? Let's connect on Twitter or LinkedIn)

​You Can Now Buy Products Directly in ChatGPT​

Shoppers in the U.S. can now discover and buy products inside ChatGPT, starting with Etsy and expanding soon to Shopify brands.

Remember when Amazon made one-click checkout a thing? Now imagine skipping the “add to cart” dance entirely and just buying straight from a conversation. That’s what OpenAI just rolled out: Instant Checkout inside ChatGPT.

Here’s the gist: you can ask, “best running shoes under $100,” and instead of 12 tabs and a credit card hunt, ChatGPT just shows you options and you hit “buy” without leaving the chat. Done. No cart, no friction, no endless log-ins.

Right now it works with Etsy sellers. Soon? Over 1 million Shopify merchants will be part of it - brands like Glossier, SKIMS, and Spanx are on deck. And OpenAI isn’t keeping this thing closed off. They built it with Stripe and then open-sourced the backbone (something called the Agentic Commerce Protocol) so any retailer could plug in. Translation: this isn’t just an OpenAI play - it’s the beginning of AI becoming your personal shopper across the internet.

Why it matters: This is bigger than checkout. This is the start of “agentic commerce” - where AI doesn’t just tell you what to buy, it actually buys it for you. Think of it like having a digital intern who never forgets your size, your budget, or that your kid’s birthday is next week.

My take: This isn’t just another checkout button - it’s a shift in how we shop. For the past 20 years, e-commerce has been about stores fighting for your clicks. Now the fight moves upstream: it’s about who your AI assistant trusts enough to recommend and buy from. The companies that win won’t just be the ones with the prettiest websites - they’ll be the ones whose products are wired into the conversation.

​How to Win SEO Rankings in the Age of AI​

A platform designed to help brands show up not just on Google, but inside AI search engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

We’re currently kicking the tires on a tool called Passionfruit. At first glance, it looks like another SEO service.

But here’s the hook - it’s built for the next wave of search. Not just Google, but AI-driven search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and whatever else pops up next year.

Think of it like this: in the old world, you fought for rankings on Google’s front page. In the new world, you’re fighting to be the answer your AI assistant actually recommends.

That’s a different game, and Passionfruit says they’ve built a system to help brands show up there. They mix traditional SEO with something they call Generative Engine Optimization (basically, making sure your brand is in the conversation when AI is spitting out answers).

We haven’t fully adopted it yet - it’s still in the “let’s test it and see” phase - but the promise is interesting. If they deliver, it could mean we’re not just tracking keywords, but training AI itself to pull our brands into the spotlight.

For any business, that’s the bigger lesson: the battleground is shifting. SEO isn’t dead - it’s evolving. And the brands that figure out how to show up in both Google and ChatGPT are the ones that will win the next wave of discovery.

​I Loved Our Homepage. Customers Didn’t​

When we acquired Neat™ at the end of 2023, we had no idea how much we’d learn. In just 12 months, we’ve grown it from $9K/month to $114K/month - all while building in public and sharing the highs, lows, and lessons with you in real time. This week ....

I thought our homepage hero video was doing the heavy lifting.

It looked great. It told our story. It felt “premium.”

But when we looked at the heatmap, the truth stung a little:

• 0.9% of clicks went to the video
• 1.7% to the hero CTA
• 5.5% to product tiles

Basically, the thing I cared most about… no one else did.

So we ran a test: cut the video. Simplify the hero. Pull products up.

The new page feels less like “brand theater” and more like a storefront.

The results: the new page increases sales by 49.4%.

Sometimes the founder’s taste is the problem. (Guilty.)

Big thanks to our partners at Shoplift for giving us free access to their premium plan so we could run this A/B test on Shopify.

​Lessons from ShopTalk: Trust, AI, and Customer Experience​

Retail leaders agreed: the future belongs to brands that turn every interaction into something effortless and human.

Last week, our head of biz dev, Emma, flew out to Chicago for ShopTalk.

If you haven’t heard of it, ShopTalk is basically retail’s big think tank - thousands of founders, execs, and operators swapping ideas on what’s next in commerce.

Emma came back with a notebook full of insights, and after catching up with her, here’s the big picture: the brands that win aren’t just bolting AI onto their stack. They’re doubling down on the basics - trust, simplicity, and human connection and using AI as a tool to support those things, not replace them.

Here’s what stood out:

Trust still starts in person. Even digital-first brands are creating physical touchpoints to build credibility. Pop-ups, live events, and hybrid experiences remind customers there are real humans behind the brand. In a world that feels increasingly digital, that offline validation carries a ton of weight.

👉 Friction is the enemy. Whether it’s a line in-store or a clunky online checkout, every barrier drains conversion. The retailers getting ahead are ruthless about finding and fixing micro-frictions - those tiny points of frustration that kill sales before they happen.

👉 Joy drives loyalty. Efficiency matters, but customers also want to feel something. The best retailers train their teams to deliver small moments of surprise and delight, and they design systems that make those experiences consistent. Joy isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s a loyalty engine.

👉 AI works best when it’s helpful, not flashy. The most compelling use cases weren’t gimmicks. They were practical solutions: making search more intuitive, surfacing products in context, or removing friction from checkout. The litmus test: does this make the experience simpler, clearer, or more human? If not, it’s noise.

👉 From data collection to active learning. Leaders are shifting from hoarding data to running experiments. They’re using AI not just to report on customer behavior, but to actively test, adapt, and personalize in real time. It’s less about dashboards, more about action.

​The Difference Between a $1M and $10M Businesses : Live Event​

The playbook for breaking through the “valley of death” and scaling to $10M - join us to learn how.

Most founders hit the same wall around $1-4M.

They’ve hustled their way to product–market fit, but now growth feels like pushing a boulder uphill. Sales slow down, the team is maxed out, and every decision feels like a gamble.

Here’s the hard truth: what gets you to $1M is not what gets you to $10M.

At $1M, companies rely on founder hustle, quick wins, and duct-taped systems. At $10M, companies scale because they’ve built leverage - clear strategy, repeatable processes, and a team that executes without the founder doing it all.

In this session, we’ll unpack:

• The real differences between a $1M company and a $10M company (mindset, systems, execution).
• The traps that keep most founders stuck in the “valley of death.”
• The playbook we’ve used to help brands break through the plateau and scale with clarity and confidence.

If you’re tired of chasing tactics, burning out, and wondering why others leapfrog ahead - this is the roadmap you’ve been missing.

October 17, 10:00AM Pacific Time / 1:00PM Eastern Time

👉 Sign up for free here​

​Say Hello to Megan Jannetty​

Turning messy funnels into predictable growth machines.

Here’s the thing about great growth leaders: they don’t just know the playbook -they know how to run it when the game gets messy. That’s Megan Jannetty.

Megan is the kind of strategist brands call when they’re stuck in the weeds -bloated ad spend, leaky funnels, campaigns that look great on a deck but fall flat in real life.

Instead of tossing around buzzwords, she brings order to the chaos. She’s scaled SaaS and subscription businesses by doing what most people skip over: aligning strategy with real business goals and turning data into action.

What I like about her approach is that it’s not about chasing vanity metrics. It’s about consistent wins: lowering costs, driving sales, and building month-over-month growth that actually lasts. Add to that her reputation for collaborative leadership, and you see why people trust her to lead when the stakes are high.

In an industry full of noise, Megan's the one quietly stacking results.

👉 Connect with Megan on LinkedIn​

​Let’s Fix What’s Blocking Your Growth​

• My Agency - GrowthHit​
• AI Growth Strategies to Sell More On Shopify - GrowthSchool​
• The Sold-Out Shopify Playbook - Get the product​
• Podcast - The Shopify Growth Show​
• Proven AI Prompts for Your Shopify Success - Get the library​
• My Book: The Growth Marketer's Playbook​

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