Linnacademy 2025 recap: 3 actionable takeaways to level up your ecommerce operations

Volatility is the new normal. Surcharges can spike without warning, an influencer mention can wipe out your stock overnight, and fulfillment networks are constantly shifting—all while customer expectations remain perpetually high. 

In today’s landscape, how can growing brands manage logistical challenges and still come out on top? Trying to manage this volatility with legacy strategies is a recipe for falling behind. The teams that are pulling ahead have built their ecommerce operations to be agile, able to transform sudden challenges into their next competitive edge.

For Linnacademy 2025, we sat down with leaders from Walmart International, DHL, Amazon, and disruptive DTC brands for one reason: to get past the theory and find out what’s truly working. We’ve distilled the key lessons into three actionable takeaways, complete with on-demand video sessions, to help you build a more resilient and profitable business.

What you’ll walk away with

We’ve pulled key Linnacademy sessions most likely to move the needle in your business. Each insight comes with the full session video on-demand, so you can gain the complete frameworks from the discussion.

“It is not just about plugging one system to another system. It is about what it means for your customers, and how can you elevate your customer experience with shipping?”

— Klaas Schippers, Customer Success Team Lead, Linnworks

Linnacademy: where ecommerce operators get their answers

Linnacademy is a resource we built for the unsung heroes of ecommerce—the ops directors, warehouse leads, and founders juggling it all. It’s where growing retailers dealing with challenges in ecommerce logistics find clarity. 

Get unfiltered advice and proven strategies from the people and platforms shaping the future of retail, including:

• Global giants: Walmart International, Amazon, TikTok Shop, Tesco and more.
• Shipping powerhouses: DHL Express, Shippo, GFS.
• Data & automation experts: Conjura, Scayle, Spreetail.
• Founder panels: Straight talk from operators at Character.com, Home and Garden Extras, and more.

A look inside their playbooks

In our on-demand library, you’ll find panels and talks focused on immediate impact:

• Using analytics to make smarter decisions.
• Mastering marketplace and social commerce expansion.
• Building a brand that stands out in a crowded market.
• Choosing the right fulfillment model for your next stage of growth.
• And much more.

Start watching now

Below we go through three key panelists sessions from Linnacademy 2025, providing insights on some of the biggest challenges facing ecommerce operations.

Insight #1: No more guesswork. Start operating on data.

Manual exports and disconnected reports have become liabilities. With modern ecommerce data analytics, top operators are plugging real-time dashboards—and, increasingly, automated triggers—directly into their commerce systems so they can act before margins erode or stock-outs hit.

How data directly drives profit

In a Linnacademy 2025 panel, Sock Snob’s Head of Ecommerce, Steve Brighty, admitted they were “flying blind completely” before building out their data capabilities. The first wake-up call came when they discovered that 90% of their revenue came from just 30% of their product catalogue.

That single insight was transformative. Armed with this data, the team purged slow-moving inventory, tightened replenishment cycles on best-sellers, and redirected ad budgets toward proven winners. 

This allowed them to push prices where margins could stretch—sometimes doubling the average order value (AOV) on new channels—while keeping a close eye on channel-specific return rates to protect profitability.

Your data-driven checklist:

• Channel/SKU-Level profitability: Factor in all associated costs, including fees, ad spend, pick/pack labor, and returns.
• Return rates & reasons: Spot product quality or sizing issues before they tank your reviews.
• Average Order Value (AOV) shifts: Correlate spikes and dips with marketing promos, seasonality, or new marketplace launches.
• Inventory velocity: Track days-to-sell and stock cover by SKU so you can trigger auto-replenishment rules for winners and de-list the laggards.

Watch the full Linnacademy 2025 session:
“Leveraging Data to Operationalize Your Business – How, With What, When?”

Insight #2: Treat shipping as your customer experience engine

Poor ecommerce shipping and fulfillment can undo all your hard work, while a great experience builds the trust and loyalty that fuels growth. Expert panelists at Linnacademy 2025 revealed they no longer treat shipping as a back-office cost. Instead, they leverage it as a crucial part of the customer journey.

“Don’t just look at the obvious, which is, how much cheaper can they (shipping providers) get it for me? … You’ve got to ask yourself… how confident am I that this person is going to have my back? Because at that point, the fact that you’ve saved two pence on a parcel is really nothing.”

Bobbie Ttooulis, Group Marketing Director, GFS

Four plays to steal from the panel

1. Go multi-carrier for choice and contingency. Offer customers the delivery options they want, as a lack of choice is a primary reason they abandon their carts. Panelists advise providing a mix of services—from free/economy options to premium, tracked services—and letting the customer decide what to pay for. This also spreads your risk so you have a backup when problems arise.
2. Measure what the customer feels, not just the carrier’s KPIs. Your customer’s clock starts the moment your system says the order is picked, not when the carrier does their first scan. The panelists prioritize metrics that directly reflect the customer experience, such as on-time collections and, most importantly, their Trustpilot scores.
3. Use automation to manage complexity. Implementing a multi-carrier strategy can create complexity for your warehouse staff. Panelist Simon Ball recommended using a “Rules Engine” to automatically assign the correct shipping service to each order. This removes the burden of choice from the warehouse floor and reduces human error.
4. Build real relationships to survive peak. During the busiest seasons, your personal relationship with your carrier’s account manager is your most valuable asset. When issues arise, a manager who knows you is more likely to help fix them, even after hours. Panelist Hukam Nerwan even uses gifts like a box of chocolates to stand out and ensure his collections are prioritized when things go awry.

Watch the full Linnacademy 2025 session:
“Shipping smart: Choosing the right shipping provider for your ecommerce growth” 

Insight #3: Go global, incrementally 

For growing retailers, international expansion is a powerful path to growth. As Barry Tong from Sol Retail explained, “there’s a whole world of opportunity” waiting on cross border ecommerce platforms. 

Yet despite the promise, a critical challenge remains: unforgiving customer expectations. In fact, 50% of shoppers will abandon their cart if you don’t offer the right delivery options.

The panel’s advice? Start small to win big.

“Don’t go sending thousands of pounds worth of pallets across the water. Try a few boxes first. See what happens, make sure it gets through.”

— Barry Tong, Sol Retail

Why a test-and-learn approach wins:

• Lower financial risk: Test the waters with small parcel shipments before committing to costly freight and overseas inventory.
• Regulatory learning: Use initial orders to discover and navigate compliance hurdles incrementally. Barry’s team, for instance, discovered plastic toothbrushes are classified as medical devices in the US, requiring unexpected FDA approval.
• Market validation: Use early sales data to understand local customer behavior and preferences before scaling your fulfillment infrastructure.

Your quick-start checklist:

1. Choose your first market based on existing demand signals, like website traffic from other countries or search volume patterns.
2. Surface landed costs at checkout by displaying all duties, taxes, and delivery fees upfront to avoid surprise charges and cart abandonment.
3. Set up multi-currency payments through specialist providers to offer a seamless and localized checkout experience.
4. Prioritize fast delivery options, as customers now expect next-day or 2-day delivery even on international orders.
5. Start with English-speaking markets to test your processes in familiar cultures before expanding into regions that require deeper localization.

Watch the full Linnacademy 2025 session:
“The international opportunity: Embracing cross‑border to expand your market”

From insight to impact: building a resilient operation

These three pillars—data-driven decisions, customer-centric shipping, and strategic global expansion—represent a unified blueprint for building a resilient business. One where streamlined ecommerce operations directly enhance customer experience and unlock sustainable growth.

But the story doesn’t end there. Across all 24 Linnacademy sessions, a clearer picture of the modern commerce landscape emerges. Winning brands are proving ecommerce automation is no longer optional by relentlessly pursuing efficiency, from automating the entire order lifecycle to deploying paperless warehouse management. 

They are strategically diversifying their channels, mastering not only giants like eBay but also leveraging the explosive growth of social commerce on TikTok Shop and navigating the rise of new marketplaces like Temu.

Crucially, ecommerce businesses are making deliberate, informed choices about their fulfillment models—constantly weighing the agility of dropshipping against the scale of 3PL partners to master omnichannel fulfillment for the modern consumer.

The path to building a scalable, profitable, and resilient ecommerce business is paved with proven strategies from those already succeeding. Develop your own complete playbook and learn how to automate your ecommerce business by exploring our complete on-demand library, with every session from Linnacademy 2025.