For years EcomFuel has surveyed its community of ecommerce merchants about their growth, margins, tactics, and more. The company released this year’s findings last week.
Founder Andrew Youderian recaps the report in this episode, addressing the state of ecommerce among 300 participating businesses.
Our entire audio is embedded below. The transcript is edited for length and clarity.
Eric Bandholz: Give us a rundown of what you do.
Andrew Youderian: I run a company and community called eComFuel. My background is in starting and operating ecommerce businesses. We have an online message board, online forum, events, reviews, and research.
Our “2026 Ecommerce Trends Report” is based on responses from 300 store owners — mostly seven, eight, and nine-figure brands — who answered 50 questions.
We ask about traffic, margins, Amazon, warehousing, AI, business models, tariffs, and more. We don’t track the number of merchants who have exited the industry. People join and leave our community every month for various reasons. When asked, some say they’re closing their business. It peaked 12 to 18 months ago. I’m a little more optimistic about ecommerce for the next couple of years.
Going forward, successful brands will likely be smaller with loyal customers. They will make interesting products. They won’t grow as fast, but they’ll be much stickier and more durable in the long term.
The number of respondents in our report who manufacture products increased by 50% over the past three years. All other models were either flat or down. Respondents who resell products are largely unchanged. Private label sellers were down significantly. Drop shipping was down 50%. Merchants are adjusting to a new reality.
In 2017, about 20% of respondents’ total revenue came from Amazon. It subsequently spiked to about 28%. It’s now back to 20%, despite 63% selling on that marketplace.
I respect how Amazon built out its infrastructure for the long term. They’re not going anywhere, but the types of products they sell will likely be either very low-end or very high-end. They’ve lost the middle tier.
Bandholz: Have you tracked AI’s financial impact?
Youderian: For the trends report, we asked, “Have you meaningfully incorporated AI into your business?” Seventy-two percent of respondents said yes. The top four use cases were, in order, copywriting, images, analytics, and coding.
Certainly some merchants have dialed in AI and are seeing strong benefits. But most are still in the investment stage.
For example, EcomFuel has heavily invested in AI over the last year. We’ve built proprietary AI tools. But we’ve not seen great ROI from those efforts. That seems to be what’s happening for most e-commerce companies.
One of the most surprising findings in this year’s survey was the ages of AI adopters. Roughly 90% of respondents under 30 are using AI. But folks in their 30s are investing less than those in the 40- to 54-year-old cohort. Anecdotally, we’re seeing merchants build impressive in-house operational tools, and most are 40 or older.
Bandholz: Where can people join your community or reach out?
Youderian: Our site is eCommerceFuel.com. I’m on LinkedIn and X. I also host “The eComFuel Podcast.”
