Converse and Conversions: Highlights from eTail Boston
An evening meetup during eTail Boston 2025 brought retail leaders together for shoes, shop talk, and a panel with Matt Ezyk, Vinod Kumar, and Rob Garf. The hosts - Kasama and Shopify - staged the event at the Converse Flagship Store at Lovejoy Wharf, with custom sneakers, food, and a relaxed format that made conversation easy.
Quick context
eTail Boston ran August 11 - 14, 2025 at the Sheraton Boston. And this event took place on Tuesday evening, August 12, at the Converse store.
If you don’t know the venue, the Converse Flagship Store is known for its customization studio, which features the popular “design your own pair” option.
Who was on the panel?
Matt Ezyk - Senior Director of Engineering, ecommerce at Hanna Andersson. Matt has more than two decades of experience building and scaling digital commerce systems. Before Hanna Andersson, he led ecommerce at Pet Supermarket, where he oversaw omnichannel builds, BOPIS functionality, and AI-driven inventory allocation. His leadership continues to focus on aligning engineering teams around commerce goals and operational excellence.
Vinod Kumar - Co-founder and CEO of Syntheum AI. Vinod previously drove analytics and product insights at Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Demandware. He is featured on Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud Innovations podcast, where he discussed how Syntheum’s platform integrates with Salesforce B2C Commerce to speed merchandising operations. His focus is on building agentic AI tools that simplify workflows and create measurable impact for retail teams.
Rob Garf - Vice President and GM of Retail at Salesforce. Rob has more than 25 years of global retail leadership, spanning roles at Lids, Marshalls, AMR Research, IBM, and now Salesforce. He chairs the company’s Retail Client Advisory Board and is a member of the National Retail Federation’s Digital Council. Rob is widely recognized as a retail thought leader, often quoted in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Good Company series and on Salesforce’s global blogs.
Left to Right: Mark Rubin, Matt Ezyk, Vinod Kumar, Rob Garf
What attendees came for
The preliminary event page set the tone for this popular eTail destination: create a custom pair of Converse, hear a short panel discussion with three experienced thought-leaders, and spend time with peers over food and drinks - a stone’s throw from historic Boston Harbor.
Themes from the conversation
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Merchandising speed is now a team sport
Panelists described faster campaign set-ups coming from tighter workflows and fewer handoffs - not heroics.
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Signal quality beats signal volume
Attendees agreed that consistent tagging of search terms, returns reasons, and support notes made testing easier and insights more trustworthy.
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Merchandisers want fewer tabs not more features
Leaders said teams already have features they need - what they want is fewer log-ins and less rework across systems.
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“Pilot first” is the default
Short pilots with clear “stop or scale” rules are now the standard approach, replacing long open-ended projects.
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Talent mix matters as much as tooling
Pairing a strong category merchant with a data-oriented partner was cited as a winning agentic ecommerce approach.
What this means for ecommerce teams
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Treat data hygiene like a product: give it an owner and a backlog.
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Shorten the edit loop: deliver real buyer signals to merchants quickly.
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Pilot with guardrails: define success and scale rules upfront.
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Simplify the stack: fewer tools often mean fewer mistakes.
Thanks to the hosts
Thanks to Mark Rubin and the team at Kasama - and Shopify for setting up a format that emphasized connection over pitch.
Feedback from the event has been overwhelmingly positive, with attendees appreciating the knowledge sharing - perhaps almost as much as their new sneakers.
FAQ
What is “Converse and Conversions”?
An invite-only meetup during eTail Boston that blended custom Converse design with a panel of three retail leaders, hosted by Kasama and Shopify.
Where was it held?
At the Converse Flagship Store at Lovejoy Wharf in Boston.
Which night did it take place?
On Tuesday evening, August 12, during eTail Boston 2025.
Who were the panelists?
Matt Ezyk, Vinod Kumar, and Rob Garf.
About Syntheum.ai
We help e-commerce retailers implement agentic ecommerce merchandising solutions that go beyond basic automation. By integrating truly intelligent systems into merchandising strategies, we help businesses unlock their full potential - delivering efficiencies that improve operations and redefine what’s possible in online sales.
Empower Merchants with Ease and Intelligence
Syntheum is the Semantic Merchandising Platform for Agentic Commerce - powering onsite search, conversational shopping, and AI discovery through one merchandising brain your team controls.