The Everything Store by Brad Stone is a book I revisit every year. I don't read it to admire Amazon, I read it as a warning. It shows exactly what relentless focus looks like, and it keeps me sharp about the risks of building a business within Amazon's ecosystem. This book reminds me how quickly Amazon can spot a rising category and move in with full force. Every time I read it, I walk away with fresh ideas on staying agile, protecting my brand, and thinking several steps ahead. If you sell on marketplaces, this is essential reading for staying competitive and aware.
For a "summer reading" roundup, I would recommend the following three books, especially for e-commerce founders and operators: 1. Andrew Chen's "The Cold Start Problem" Why I suggest it: Any e-commerce founder hoping to grow a platform or brand should read this book. In addition to providing useful frameworks that apply not only to social media but also to creating robust communities around products, influencers, and user-generated content in e-commerce, it delves deeply into the workings of network effects, from zero users to viral growth. It's particularly helpful when developing a marketplace or subscription-based business. 2. Rory Sutherland's "Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life" Why I suggest it: Sutherland presents a strong argument for using psychological insight rather than just logic when making business decisions, which is something that brand builders and e-commerce marketers should definitely take advantage of. It will change your perspective on customer behavior and conversion optimization, and it's funny and counterintuitive. Ideal for entrepreneurs who wish to differentiate themselves in a crowded market. 3. James Clear's "Atomic Habits" Why I suggest it: Although it isn't specifically about e-commerce, it's a useful book for entrepreneurs who are managing a lot of tasks at once. It has aided me in putting minor, regular process enhancements into place, whether they be in marketing, CX, or team workflows. If you're building a lean business and want to stay focused without burning out, this book offers solid, actionable tools.
As a COO of a D2C brand, 'Alchemy' by Rory Sutherland transformed my thinking about branding and decision-making. The best thing I've learned reading this book is that logic isn't always the best way to think. One line that I liked the most and wanted to share with you is, "To be brilliant, you need to be irrational." Alchemy demonstrates how emotional thinking drives customer behavior. It gave me a new lens to view branding as identity. Moreover, Sutherland suggests don't over plan things. In the evolving ecommerce landscape, this advice is gold. Alchemy is not just a playbook on marketing; it's about seeing business through a more human lens. Another great read is "The Cold Start Problem" by Andrew Chen. This book helped me revisit how we launch new products. You can find real-world case studies of Uber, Airbnb, and some successful e-commerce startups. The author suggests how to tackle early startup hurdles, making it perfect for e-commerce professionals trying to grow from zero to traction.
My go-to recommendation is 'Contagious' by Jonah Berger. Founders often treat virality like catching lightning in a bottle, but this book completely demystifies it. It breaks down the science of social transmission, showing that what makes a product catch fire isn't random. Our success on TikTok looked explosive from the outside, but it was really a result of our product hitting on the core principles Berger identifies. For any e-commerce brand, this is critical. You can't rely on paid ads as your only growth engine anymore. Your best and most sustainable marketing channel is your own customers. This book provides the framework for building a product and a message that people feel compelled to share. It shifts your thinking from 'how do we market this?' to 'how do we make this inherently marketable?'
I recently finished 'Building a StoryBrand' by Donald Miller, and it completely changed how I think about communicating with our online shoppers at ShipTheDeal. The book taught me to position our customers as the heroes of their shopping journey, not our platform, which helped us boost our conversion rates by 25% after rewriting our website copy with this approach.
As someone building SaaS for e-commerce, 'The Lean Product Playbook' by Dan Olsen has been absolutely game-changing for how we develop features for Tevello. I constantly refer back to this book when making product decisions, and it helped us avoid wasting months of development time on features our customers didn't actually need.
Digital Marketing Consultant & Chief Executive Officer at The Ad Firm
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One of the books that I refer to again and again is The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau because it is clear-headed. Many e-commerce entrepreneurs hold back on the assumption that they require significant funds or flawless frameworks to make an entry. The book turns around that thinking. I have witnessed clients fiddle with minute things, such as months honing a logo with an untested product. Guillebeau's approach is active. He demonstrates how actual businesses began virtually with nothing and grew rapidly, since they are all about priority demand. This book will give you a kick in the pants if you're still in planning mode. Brian Tracy explains what motivates people to buy in his book "The Psychology of Selling," a no-nonsense guide to selling. It is the great products that sell themselves early in my career. Then, I would watch brands that had mediocre products outselling better brands, as they knew how to persuade. Tracy deconstructs the triggers, such as scarcity, social proof, and trust-building, which we as ad campaigners deploy in our day-to-day advertisement. Just rewriting product pages to overcome the subconscious objections Tracy elucidates, one of the clients doubled down on conversions. Assuming you have traffic but no sales, this book will help you figure out what is wrong. The Everything Store: Brad Stone is a must-read for gaining insight into the playbook that Amazon has designed and how to counter it. This is what I advise e-commerce customers caught under Amazon's feet. The insights into the decisions of Bezos that Stone shows in the book (e.g., focusing on speed over profit early in the career) present areas where smaller brands should be able to apply them as well. One lesson we use: the customer friction points obsession of Amazon. One client redesigned its returns to be incredibly simple, and as a result, its retention improved by 30 percent. And I mean not copying Amazon, but learning their way of thinking.
I'm currently reading 'They Ask, You Answer' by Marcus Sheridan, which transformed how I think about content marketing and SEO for e-commerce. His practical approach to addressing customer questions helped us reshape our service offerings and content strategy, leading to a 40% increase in organic traffic for our clients.
Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike is an absolutely fantastic read! This book by Phil Knight details the journey of an inspirational founder of one of the most influential sports brands in the world. It's exciting, entertaining, and at times sad and emotional. The story is so impressive and shows how much grit, integrity, and resilience is required for success. Nike is arguably one of the most well-known retail brands in the world. Burgeoning entrepreneurs looking to break into retail, whether in e-commerce or elsewhere, would be wise to read this book.
The last book I read was "Working Backwards" by Colin Briar and Bill Carr (Amazon). It's not just an Amazon success story, but a real practical guide worth its weight in gold. It's all about operational thinking - and it makes you look at how you build a product, make decisions, and scale a business differently. The authors are two ex-top managers at Amazon who generously share with readers the real tools that allowed the company to stay focused on the customer even during periods of rapid growth. One of the most famous approaches they describe is the legendary principle of "start from the press release": before you create something, write what it will look like for the customer. This completely changes the logic of launching. We have been guided by this principle more than once — and, ultimately, it is thanks to it that we are at the level we are today. At FlightRefunder, we deal with a large volume of client cases every day — flight delays, compensation, disputes. Simply scaling in our field often means the risk of losing service quality. And that is why this approach is so close to us:we build around the client, not around functions; we use data, but only those that provide real value, not just look good in reports; we improve processes, not just advertising. This book is for us a methodology: for those who want to grow not just fast, but grow correctly - with a structure, with a focus on customer experience and with a systemic vision of change. That is why we recommend it for reading to all employees of the company.
I recently fell in love with 'Building a StoryBrand' by Donald Miller - it completely changed how I think about communicating with customers in the digital space. After applying his framework to our SEO content, we saw a 40% boost in engagement since customers could better connect with our message and understand our value proposition.
A cool book that I personally recommend is "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael E. Gerber. This book was a cold shower for me and for those who are confused by daily operational tasks and think that "being a businessman" is just doing everything themselves. Have you heard of the myth of the entrepreneur? Gerber talks about it, and the point is that many business owners start out as experts in some field (for example, a lawyer or an IT specialist), but mistakenly believe that being good at their job automatically means having a successful business. The main ideas of the book are that a business is not just a product or service, but a large system. It should work even when the owner steps aside. This is what allows you to scale, delegate some of the responsibilities to others and not lose quality. It was also useful to read about the roles of an entrepreneur, a manager and a specialist. Gerber identifies three roles that every business owner must balance: The entrepreneur - sees the strategic picture and opportunities. Manager-organizes work and processes. Specialist - does specific work (for example, programs, consults, processes orders). Most often, the owner gets stuck in the role of a specialist and forgets to build a structure. This book was important for us because I reviewed how our support service works: instead of chaotic reactions to customer requests, we created clear scenarios and templates that can be repeated. Implemented a training system for new employees to quickly "build" them into the process and maintain quality standards.
After scaling Dirty Dough's online presence, I found 'The E-Myth Revisited' by Michael Gerber incredibly valuable for systematizing our e-commerce operations while maintaining product quality. The book's emphasis on working on your business rather than in it really hit home when we were struggling with order fulfillment during our rapid growth phase, and it helped us create SOPs that made our online operations much smoother.
"The Cold Start Problem" by Andrew Chen This book helps shift the perspective for e-commerce business owners from focusing on ads, SEO and influencers to understanding the impact of building community and the impact of networks on the overall growth of their products. In this book, the author shows how big companies such as Uber, Airbnb and Tider managed to overcome the difficulties of the beginnings when there weren't enough users to make their products valuable known as 'the cold start' and managed to build momentum so that their product starts selling itself. In this book, you'll understand the importance of building communities around your product and how it was beneficial for many e-commerce businesses, how to use early adopters to drive word-of-mouth cycles to market your product, the importance of creating buyer networks, referrals and using UGC so existing customers become your marketers and designing incentives that mimic network effects. By reading this book, you'll completely shift your perspective from focusing on how to buy growth, to how to design growth.
A cool book "Made to Stick" by Chip Heath & Dan Heath. It taught us how to write cool SMS that actually bring customers. In the world of e-commerce, we are always trying to win first place in the fight for attention- in mail, social networks, advertising, product. The book "Made to Stick" explains why some ideas are remembered and passed on, while others are forgotten before they even reach the customer. The book contains 6 methods for making a message "sticky": simplicity, unexpectedness, specificity, plausibility, emotion and stories. We at Cognition Escapes began to use these principles to completely rethink our approach to content: we started with simplicity: we stopped loading the text with technical terms and writing in "smart words" - instead than we explain everything like we would to friends. We added real customer stories instead of abstract examples. Changed tone of voice - from formal to lively and understandable. Began to test non-standard headlines in SMS and email campaigns more actively - this increased open rate by over 20%. This book is a real must-have not only for copywriters, but also for everyone who works in marketing.
Chris Guillebeau's "The $100 Startup" shifted my understanding of service design—and the role I play in helping travelers experience Mexico City with less friction and more joy. I am the founder of Mexico-City-Private-Driver.com and I didn't take on investors or complete a business plan—I addressed one challenge: helping visitors feel safe, understood, and cared for, from the moment they arrived. Guillebeau's book clarified that a lean business (with a crystal clear value proposition) can scale by doing one thing well, and this mindset provided the foundation to build trust, in a space where so much of that trust lies with the word-of-mouth buzz of customers, without big budgets—just empathy, systems and word-of-mouth. Another title I often return to is Joey Coleman's "Never Lose a Customer Again". In the world of e-commerce, retention = revenue. The insights this book provided me allowed me to change a stressful airport pickup experience into one that built loyalty through, thoughtful emails prior to arrival, clear communication from the driver and the addition of small gestures that were significant, for example, cold water or recommendations for the city in their native language. We have had clients book again (2 years later!) simply because they had an unforgettable first impression! Anyone in e-commerce, especially in service-based businesses should revisit these pieces of reading and dig deeper into the tactical things they can implement. They helped me shift what was "just an site for a local driver" into a name that continually ranks in the top 3 on google and receive 5 star reviews from international travelers week after week.
Hey Paul! I'm Rositsa Petrova, Founder & CEO of Home of Wool, where we produce custom wool mattresses, bedding, and decor, handcrafted in Europe. We embed scientific sleep research into our product design, offering environments that support immune health, emotional balance, and cognitive performance through restorative sleep, and we prioritize sustainable progress over fast growth, prioritizing people and process over profit, quality over speed, work-life balance, and sustainable margins. Our key principle is to only use natural, sustainable, and biodegradable materials and make items that last a lifetime. This summer, I'd recommend Amanda Steinberg's Worth It: Your Life, Your Money, Your Terms. This is, hands down, the best book for women on money that I have read yet, and I have read most of them. Amanda's down-to-earth style of talking to the reader as if we are a close friend with whom she openly shares all of her missteps and mistakes is at once endearing and refreshing. Her method of looking first at the big picture, net worth question, rather than focusing first on budgeting and income, feels like an intelligent woman talking to other intelligent women about the things we have all been missing out on all along, not because we are dumb or not good with money, but because financial advice has always been delivered to women in a way that is not particularly helpful to our bottom line and life goals. In the e-commerce space, where we're often swept up in rapid growth, fast profit, and hustle culture, Amanda's message is grounding. She reminds us to zoom out, to build not just a profitable brand, but a financially sustainable and values-aligned life. Thank you for your time, Paul! Best of luck with your article.