Winning With Shopify Podcast: Ecommerce Growth for Shopify Store Owners · July 25, 2026 · 33 min

How to Build a DTC Brand: Your Shopify Store Isn’t Enough

A successful Shopify store can generate sales. A strong DTC brand gives customers a reason to choose you, remember you and buy again. Nadine Killoran joins Nick Trueman to explain how ecommerce businesses can move beyond building a good store and create a brand with long-term customer loyalty. Drawing on her experience with brands including Absolute Collagen, Aion Bank and MYJAR, Nadine shares practical advice on brand investment, customer retention, subscriptions, pricing and securing CFO buy-in. Learn what customers actually care about, why the second purchase is more important than the first and how to build a DTC brand that customers choose over cheaper alternatives. In this episode: 00:00 - Store vs brand: the real difference 01:57 - What customers actually care about 03:11 - Nadine's journey to becoming a CMO 05:57 - Getting CFO buy-in for brand investment 09:16 - Measuring awareness and brand stickiness 11:29 - Retention, churn and the second purchase 18:25 - Turning customers into subscribers 24:45 - Pricing a growing DTC brand 29:15 - Difficult brand and pricing conversations 33:02 - Final thoughts Exclusive listener offers: Seguno - Shopify email marketing Get a free customer analysis and strategy session with an email expert. Claim your free Seguno session Yoast - Shopify SEO Get 15% off Yoast for Shopify and WordPress with code WWS15 . Visit Yoast Inventory Planner - Shopify inventory management Join the free seven-day inventory planning bootcamp. Join the free inventory bootcamp TaxCloud - Shopify sales tax management Get free migration onboarding as a Winning With Shopify listener. Claim free TaxCloud onboarding