Running two funnels for two different buyer maturities | James Wall

Native Commerce makes it possible for anyone to turn an idea into an online business, then launch and grow it from one place, combining an AI-built storefront with deep e-commerce fulfillment and logistics expertise.

In a recent episode of Marketers of Technology, we sat down with James Wall, VP of Brand and Marketing at Native Commerce, to learn why the company is deliberately running two completely different buyer journeys at once.

Topics Discussed:

• How a career that started in DJing and event promotion shaped James's self-taught approach to brand and marketing

• How Native Commerce evolved from a 20-minute grocery delivery company called Jiffy into an AI-powered e-commerce platform

• Why Native Commerce split its go-to-market into a multi-step enterprise funnel and an immediate self-serve funnel

• Why the company is migrating some existing enterprise clients onto its newer self-serve AI product, not the other way around

• Why James refocused Native Commerce's marketing budget on search after testing PMax, display, LinkedIn, and events

• Why Native Commerce leads sales conversations with the customer's destination, not the mechanics of how it gets them there

• Why Native Commerce ties its own commercial terms to how much a client's brand actually grows

• How building a same-day grocery delivery operation became the company's deepest operational advantage

GTM & Technology Adoption Lessons:

• Run two distinct funnels for two different buyer maturities, don't force one message: James said Native Commerce deliberately splits its go-to-market into an enterprise buyer journey, with as many as ten or eleven vetting steps for complex clients like a business with a hundred and twenty physical locations and no e-commerce, and a simple, immediate self-serve journey for someone just starting a project, rather than trying to serve both audiences with the same funnel.

• Reverse the usual migration path to prove a new product can handle enterprise scale: Native Commerce is migrating some of its existing enterprise clients onto its newer AI-driven self-serve product, the opposite of the typical self-serve-to-enterprise upgrade path, specifically to elevate the new product from what could look like a novelty into something proven at real operational complexity.

• Refocus budget on the channel that's actually converting, not the ones you're used to running: After trying PMax, display, LinkedIn, and events, James said the team made a deliberate decision in the last six months to focus primarily on search, because it is what is actually producing qualified, converting leads, and they are preparing to add Product Hunt specifically for the AI product's launch.

• Sell the destination, not the mechanism: James cited a philosophy that people buy the outcome, not the process behind it, comparing it to travelers who care about the resort, not the airplane's fuel efficiency. In sales conversations, Native Commerce leads with what a client's business will look like once fulfillment and logistics complexity are handled, rather than the technical details of how.

• Align commercial incentives with customer growth, not just retention: James said most e-commerce providers charge on a GMV basis, so Native Commerce's own revenue depends on their clients' brands actually growing, which led the company to launch a growth acceleration program aimed at expanding client revenue, not merely hosting their storefront.

• Let deep operational expertise, not just software, be the retention moat: James said e-commerce providers are notoriously hard to switch away from, and Native Commerce's real differentiator is operational knowledge, like warehouse placement and picking efficiency.

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