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Retail doesn’t break at the register. It breaks upstream.
In this episode of Beyond the Register, I sit down with Rohan Shah, Co-Founder & CEO of Conduit Commerce, and former Co-Founder of the unicorn startup Extend, to unpack the biggest blind spot in modern retail: your supply chain.
Rohan has built companies at the intersection of retail and infrastructure. His new venture, Conduit, is fixing what most retailers don’t realize is broken: how you access, manage, and fulfill inventory without blowing your margins.
We talk about:
- Why most drop shipping today is low-quality junk (and how that’s about to change)
- What Amazon actually gets right (it’s not just Prime)
- The real reason retailers struggle with demand forecasting
- How “ghost inventory” lets small retailers sell more without stocking more
- What to look for in a reliable distributor or supplier
- And why founders need to stop chasing big ideas and start with the ones they’re uniquely suited to build
Whether you’re a boutique owner trying to expand assortment, or a mid-size retailer tired of slow fulfillment and surprise stockouts, this episode is packed with clear takeaways you can apply immediately.
⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 – Intro and Rohan’s mission to “consolidate the world’s inventory”
01:30 – Why drop shipping is broken and how to fix it
04:45 – The hidden potential of U.S.-based distributors
07:50 – Why legacy systems are the bottleneck in modern supply chains
10:15 – What Conduit is building (and why it’s working)
13:50 – What makes a reliable supplier or distributor
17:10 – Why demand forecasting is getting harder every year
20:30 – “Customers are loyal to the product, not the retailer”
23:00 – What ghost inventory is and how it helps
28:00 – How small retailers can compete with Amazon on service
34:20 – Speed, trust, and the future of delivery
42:30 – Rohan’s founder advice: why you matter more than the idea
46:30 – Building from lived experience vs outsider insight
48:45 – Final takeaways for retailers
🎧 Listen to the full episode of Beyond the Register wherever you get your podcasts.
