The biggest shift in your ecommerce reality to date

Hi, Alex here!

Today’s newsletter is either going to scare you or inspire you - I hope it’s the latter. Change is not just coming, it is here.

Today’s issue:

• The freight train that is Vibe Marketing

• The latest from the Shopify changelog

• Why I cringe when talking about company head count

• From our community - collaboration in action

• AI in action - Notebook LM
  

😱 ALMOND LABS

The freight train that is Vibe Marketing.

In the last few months, a storm has been gathering. And from its eye, something new has taken shape. Not unlike the return of a dark spirit whispered in shadows, or a ring once thought lost, its presence is being felt everywhere: Vibe Marketing.

Now, I personally can’t stand the name, or its brother “Vibe Coding”. 

They feel like they were dreamed up by millennial gym bros - slapping each other on the butt after smashing personal bests on a Friday night, just before hitting the town.

But, here we are, and the term is going to be everywhere very quickly but not because it’s a “brand new thing”, but because of what is happening when you combine it with AI.

As Forbes puts it - this is a paradigm shift. And I believe it is the single biggest threat to your business if you don’t embrace it.

How AI Is Shaping the Future of Vibe Marketing

The Aesthetic

Vibe marketing is, first and foremost, aesthetic-led. With AI tools like Midjourney and now Chat GPT image generation, building distinctive brand worlds is no longer reserved for large-scale productions.

Cinematic product imagery, surreal campaigns, expressive content - all now possible in minutes, and at a fraction of traditional costs.

What once required a full creative team and $10,000 photo shoot can now be prompted on instinct:

“soft surrealist lifestyle image of a candle in a dreamy desert”
Delivered in ten minutes, ready for the feed.

Suddenly, your team becomes the art director.

Vibes on Demand

AI makes it easy to explore - to try on different tones, aesthetics and storylines without the usual time or cost constraints.

Wondering if your audience is more drawn to ‘cozy-core’ or ‘edgy futurist’? Generate both. Test quietly. Listen for what lands.

You’re no longer married to one aesthetic - you’re free to experiment until you find the one that resonates.

Deeply Personal, Beautifully Branded

AI invites brands to go beyond personalisation - to build immersive, made-to-measure experiences.

Imagine:

• A candle brand with mood playlists, AI-generated poetry and visuals for each scent.

• A skincare label with a digital ‘skin spirit’ offering advice in the brand’s tone and rhythm.

It’s not just about customisation.

It’s about creating a sense of intimacy - of being known.

Memes, But Make Them Meaningful

Memes aren’t just for laughs. They’re a modern emotional shorthand — and a powerful tool in the vibe marketer’s kit.

With AI, creating them becomes effortless — and more importantly, sustainable.

You go from “we’ve nothing to post” to “here are thirty light-touch, high-affect posts that sound and feel like us”.

Your Brand, With a Voice of Its Own

Your AI doesn’t need to speak like ChatGPT.

It can speak like your brand.

It can:

• Recommend products in your brands tone

• Drop emojis, phrases or cultural cues your audience instinctively connects with

• Offer help that doesn’t feel like support — but like a familiar voice

In short, AI agents become not just assistants, but quiet brand custodians. Always speaking in tune.

Here’s what this looks like in practice:

1. From overwhelmed to overpowered

Ecommerce marketers today are stretched thin - juggling:

• TikToks, Reels, Shorts

• Weekly EDMs

• Content for paid ads

• Blog posts & SEO

• Case studies & white papers

• Influencer campaigns

With the right AI stack, you can script, design, schedule, and ship all of the above—for less than the cost of one junior hire.

Think ChatGPT + Midjourney + Descript + Airtable + Zapier. That’s your new “team”.

2. Forget A/B testing. Run 200 variations at once.

Traditionally, testing was slow. A couple of variations at best.

Now?

Vibe Marketing lets you deploy hundreds of creative and copy angles simultaneously, powered by AI agents that optimise based on live feedback.

We are going to be showing brands in our community how to experiment with this right now—testing product positioning, content, and offers across channels with zero manual effort.

3. Your CRM, but fully autonomous

Imagine Klaviyo campaigns building themselves.

Win-back flows improving without you touching them.

UGC being turned into ad creatives—automatically.

You can now:

• Trigger email journeys based on customer behaviour

• Summarise reviews and Reddit threads into content briefs

• Generate videos, blog posts, and EDMs without opening a doc

This is the new edge.

You don’t need a bigger team—you need better systems.

That’s where I come in.

We’re launching an AI Classroom inside our community to show you how to build these systems - from scratch, using tools that cost less than $500/month.

You’ll learn:

• How to automate your top 3 content channels

• What stack to use based on your budget and goals

• How to stop being the executor - and become the orchestrator

This is an ongoing educational space where we will show how to increase your conversion, profit, and market presence—without additional ad spend.

Each video I create is estimated to save you 2-3+ hours a week when it comes to content creation and optimising processes - so translate that into savings.

Want early access?

Reply to this email with the words “Yes Please”.

🛒 SHOPIFY UPDATES

The latest from the Shopify Changelog

Another batch of greatness from Shopify:

• Checkouts with multiple units of a single product can now be split across locations (read more).

• Shopify Scripts deprecation deadline extended to June 30, 2026 (read more).

• New Add-to-cart Limit to protect inventory (read more).

• Improved product search in POS (read more).

• Draft Orders automatically removed after 1 year of inactivity (read more).

• Blogs moved to the content section in admin (read more).

• Customise robots.txt rules by domain (read more).

Need some help?

🤖 INSIGHT

Why I cringe when talking about company head count

Our business is growing, but I find it cringy saying how many people work at Studio Almond.

Yes, this is an odd things to say.

But it isn’t because of the size of our company, but the perception that people often associate with size of company, and leads people to ask that question.

I find myself saying that we’re not planning on growing much further (we have an all-star lineup) but really, at the end of the day, if a hire makes sense, then we hire.

The most important factor I believe is the ethos and vision behind the growth.

It is essential that there is continuous development, that new information is captures, processed and then provided to empower not only us, but those we work with.

Without this - you are a dinosaur.

I wouldn’t call myself a control freak, but there are some things I just need a certain way, and the bigger a company gets - the harder it is to keep that a reality.

Do we need a company of 40 people to work with great people, be creatively engaged, and make a good living?

No.

But there is also nothing wrong with that.

But in this age, if you want to have it “your way” then now is the time to do it.

We recently completed a full-day of business strategy for the next 1-3 years with our business advisor covering both Studio Almond, and Almond Labs.

What you’ll see is growth in impact, value, and presence, but bare the odd hire, not headcount.

Interested to follow along on this journey - feel free to check out my LinkedIn.

🤓 KNOWLEDGE

From our community - collaboration in action.

We’ve had an influx of new members to our Almond labs community – and we’ve been seeing some great insights, feedback and teamwork.

Thanks to Joyce from Abel & Cynatra from Blunt coming together re: US tariffs and operations.

And some great feedback from Julia of Two Islands, and Anna from Mom Store on an upcoming Roadmap feature which we wanted to get feedback on.

Our Almond labs community is completely free to join as an ecommerce brand - get in touch if you wanted to be added, and get access to:

• Courses

• Resources

• Knowledge Hub

• Webinars

• Masterclasses

🤖 SH*T BE CRAZY

AI in the wild / Your AI classroom

I have been blown away this week by some truly exciting AI demos in both the ecommerce space and LLM’s in general.

For today - I’ll keep it to Notebook LM by Google.

Notebook LM

This allowed me to upload a white paper on resale I had created, at which point Notebook created a 2 way AI podcast with human voices and a live discussion.

I can also interact with the podcast, ask questions, and debate with the podcast hosts.

At the moment the voices are AI generated, but wait until we can use our own voices #vibeMarketing.

You can listen to this audio below - I have not edited anything, and the reference I used wasn’t even complete. And yes - I then used Midjourney to create the image.

📣 HAVE YOUR SAY

How did we do?

Thanks for reading!

See you next week.

Alex Murton
Managing Director & Co-Founder
Studio Almond