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In today’s newsletter,
The best voice models, now across all channels
Stop guessing which affiliates will sell
The shipping fee you negotiated isn't the one draining your margin
Win AI Search Without a Big Team
AI Launch Codes
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Affiliate Marketing
Stop guessing which affiliates will sell
A marketer recently walked through the TikTok Shop dashboard of a weight-management patch brand that did $2.3M in 90 days. They had about 2,700 affiliates promoting the product.
Here's the part that matters: five of those affiliates' videos accounted for nearly $400,000 of that total. The other 2,690 creators split what was left, and most of them landed around $400 each.
Check these three numbers before you approve anyone
Every creator's profile shows this data before you ship them a free unit. Look at three things.
1.GMV (gross merchandise value) of last 30 days: How much has this person actually sold recently, across any brand. Not lifetime numbers. Recent ones.
2.Brand collaboration count: How many different brands they've posted for lately. One creator in that dashboard had 90 collaborations in 30 days — a new brand every three days.
It's a sign they're spraying content across every product that ships them something free, which means none of it is getting real attention from their audience.
3.GPM (earnings per thousand views): This ties views to actual purchases. A creator can have huge view counts and a low GPM, which means people watch but don't buy.
Turn those numbers into a prediction
Multiply the creator's GPM by their average views on a shoppable video, divided by 1,000. That gives you expected revenue. Then divide that revenue by your product's price to get expected units sold.
In the example above, one creator had a GPM of $15 and averaged 3,000 views per shoppable video. $15 × (3,000 ÷ 1,000) = $45 in expected revenue.
Divide that by a $15 price point, and you get 3 expected sales. Ship that creator a free unit, and you're trading one unit of product for three sales. Worth it.
Action Summary:
Pull the creator's GMV, brand collab count, and GPM before approving a sample request
Multiply GPM by average shoppable-video views, divide by 1,000, to estimate expected sales
Pass on creators with a high collab count, since it signals thin, unfocused posting
Only approve creators whose estimated sales clear the cost of the free product you're shipping
Credit: Chase Chappell
Fulfillment
The shipping fee you negotiated isn't the one draining your margin
You negotiated your shipping rate.
You're still overpaying, and it's not on the line item you're watching.
When brands audit shipping costs, they zero in on the base rate they negotiated. The surcharges get less attention, which is exactly why they've quietly become the expensive part.
The Delivery Area Surcharge is a flat per-package fee UPS and FedEx add when a customer's ZIP code lands in a zone they've classified as costly to serve.
Three things make it easy to miss:
No opt-out: It's applied automatically at label creation.
No alert: When a ZIP code moves into a surcharge zone, it just starts appearing on the invoice.
No ceiling: Both carriers expanded DAS coverage through 2025 and into 2026, often with little notice.
Surcharges account for up to 35% of total parcel spend for mid-size e-commerce brands. For heavy or high-value goods, where per-package fees stack fastest, the bite is worse.
You can't negotiate a surcharge away the way you negotiate a rate. Audit your invoices by ZIP zone, then place inventory closer to where the surcharged orders actually land.
Nick Bartlett | Co-Founder @ Wayfindr | The tech-enabled 4PL logistics partner helping global brands scale effortlessly
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Your Shopify Store Can Write the Purchase Order Before You Stock Out
Turn live Shopify inventory, supplier rules, and your PO template into a reorder draft before a fast-selling variant runs dry.
A Shopify operator says Claude now produces their purchase orders in about three minutes.
Their setup is simple:
one blank purchase-order template
one folder per supplier
price sheets, contact details, and product descriptions inside each folder
a Claude Skill and memory file that explain the required PO format
Then they ask Claude to create a PO for a supplier, item, and quantity.
The next step they described is more useful: connect that workflow to inventory and trigger a draft when stock reaches a threshold.
That is the workflow worth stealing.
Not autonomous purchasing.
A Stock-to-PO Check that answers:
“Which Shopify variants will hit their safety-stock threshold before the next supplier delivery could arrive, and what should the draft purchase order contain?”
The expensive timing problem
A low-stock alert tells you inventory is low.
It does not tell you whether you are already late.
If a variant has 12 days of stock left and its supplier needs 21 days, the stockout risk exists before Shopify reaches zero.
The useful calculation combines:
variant-level sales velocity
available inventory
confirmed incoming units and arrival dates
supplier lead time
safety-stock target
minimum order quantity
case-pack rules
unit cost and cash limit
Then AI places each variant into one of four queues:
ORDER NOW: projected stockout arrives before replenishment can
PREPARE THIS WEEK: stock is inside the lead-time-plus-safety-stock window
MONITOR: enough cover remains
HOLD: DATA NEEDED: a safe recommendation is not possible
What the output looks like
The variant sold 240 units in 30 days, had 95 units available, and had no confirmed inbound inventory.
At eight units per day, that is 11.9 days of stock against a 21-day supplier lead time.
The raw need was 185 units.
The supplier ships cases of 12, which raised that to 192. Its 300-unit minimum order then raised the proposed PO to 300 units, worth $1,440 before freight and tax.
The model drafted the document.
It did not send it.
Who this is for
Use this if you:
run a Shopify store with physical inventory
still check stock and build POs manually
manage supplier lead times, MOQs, or case packs
have a lean team without demand-planning software
Skip it if you already run replenishment through a dedicated inventory-planning system with clean supplier, inbound, and forecast data.
Below is the exact setup, calculation, master prompt, and approval checklist.
Build the Stock-to-PO Check
Shopify supplies live product, variant, sales, and available-inventory data.
Your supplier documents supply the constraints Shopify cannot know.
Claude joins them and produces a recommendation plus a draft PO.
There is no Shopify export step.
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