The Cheese #83 🧀 - Four Stitches, $447k on Whatnot, and a Buc-ee's Retention Lesson

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Remember how last week I said I was on hour 1 of 170 of single parenting? Make that three minutes in. I picked Johnny up from preschool, and he did not even make it out of the building. He stumbled, fell, and caught the corner of the exit door right on his forehead.

We were not headed home like I told him we were. We were making a pit stop at CHOA for four stitches. Not exactly the start to the 170 hours I had in mind.

He cried for about 30 seconds when it happened and then never cried again. Not once at the hospital. The little guy is tougher than most adults I know. Everything since has been completely uneventful, and we have actually had a great time, though I have caught myself being overly cautious with absolutely everything now.

The week itself flew by. We ran a deep dive and a no bad idea call on the first 60 days of being a BattlBox member. We reviewed the whole email and SMS welcome series and talked through ways to touch the customer outside of it too. Even with a 24% click-through rate on the first email of the welcome series, that still means some people are not reading them.

Our retention on the first 60 days has been pretty much identical if you take the yearly averages across the past five years. We walked out with a short list of things we can execute quickly and a separate list of things that need more discussion. The best part is the tweaks we landed on play really well into the bigger customer experience changes we are already making in 2027.

Whatnot set a new bar. We finished August at $447k. Both Brandon and Chuck had $100k plus host months, and Chuck actually set a new host record with $119k for August. Cameron's team keeps leveling up.

Amazon kept its streak alive. We are 8 for 8 on six-figure months this year, and August landed as our second-best month of 2026 so far.

On the AI side, we did not build anything crazy this week. What we did do is lean on our agents for a couple of lifts that would have been brutal by hand. Walter needed a Shopify profile tag added to around 2,500 customers, and Patrick needed a metafield added to around 1,500 products. Each one took less than two minutes through the API. That is hours of manual work gone.

BattlGames is basically here. We are less than two weeks from game time, and I cannot wait to see it!

One quick plug before we get going. Commerce Roundtable is September 21-22 in San Diego at the Port Pavilion. I know how ecommerce works; half of you are going to wait until the last minute, so consider this your nudge. Use code JOHNR for $150 off. commerceroundtable.com.

Travel is quiet next week, one last stretch of peace before it all gets crazy. Let's get into the rest!

How to Build an AI Agent for Shopify Product Pages

This is the full step-by-step behind the agent we built to handle our product pages (yes, Leo). If you have wanted to build something like this yourself, I laid the whole thing out start to finish.

Aine Kennedy: How The Smooth Company Grew From an Attic Startup to 92 Countries

Lhea's latest. Aine Kennedy started The Smooth Company in an attic and grew it into a brand selling in 92 countries. Good operator read.

A Gas Station Is Paying General Managers $200k to $275k+

Buc-ee's put GM pay of $200k to $275k+ on a hiring sign out on the sidewalk for anyone to photograph. I wrote up why that is not generosity at all; it is the cheapest turnover strategy in retail. The pay buys tenure, and the tenure is the whole product.

Judge.me Is Entering the Email Space

PJ Celis of Judge.me announced they are moving into email after 12 years focused on reviews. Everybody tries this, and deliverability and regulation usually eat them alive. His angle is different: wildly low pricing to prove the same model he already proved with reviews, plus a personal score to settle with Klaviyo.

Ask naturally. Market smarter.

Omnisend MCP brings your email and SMS marketing directly into ChatGPT or Claude. Check campaign performance, build customer segments, uncover revenue insights, and more without ever opening Omnisend.

Ask the questions you'd normally search through dashboards to answer. Find your best-performing campaigns. Create audiences in seconds. Understand what's driving sales. Your AI handles the heavy lifting so you can keep moving.

Marketing, without the tab switching.

Connect Omnisend MCP - use code BATTLGAMES30 to get 30% off your first 3 months.

That’s a Wrap on This Week’s Cheesy Scoop! 🧀

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Team Online Queso