Stord

A card expires. A subscriber pauses. An address changes. None of that is a customer deciding to leave. But most subscription tools handle all three the same way: badly, and usually after the fact. Involuntary churn, the kind caused by a failed payment rather than a customer walking away, makes up 20 to 40% of total subscription churn. That's not a retention problem. It's a systems problem. Billing, storefront, and fulfillment running as three tools that don't talk to each other, so nobody finds out something broke until the customer already has. Stord Subscriptions runs all three on one platform, so a paused order actually stays paused, a failed payment gets caught before it costs a subscriber, and the warehouse knows what's coming before a renewal spike hits it. Senior Product Manager Sean Sandrock breaks down what's actually driving subscription churn, and how fixing the systems underneath it is different from fixing the product itself. Read the full piece in the comments.

Keep the subscribers you're quietly losing. Most subscription tools stop paying attention the moment a subscriber does something outside the checkout flow. A subscriber pauses, and the next shipment goes out anyway. A subscriber updates an address, and the box ships to the old one. Nobody's watching the handoff between systems, so nobody catches it until the subscriber does. Separately, failed payments are a bigger problem than most brands realize: 20 to 40% of subscription churn is involuntary, caused by a card that expired or a retry that never happened, not a customer choosing to leave. (Recurly) Stord Subscriptions runs billing, the storefront, and fulfillment on one connected platform. A failed payment gets caught and retried automatically. A paused subscriber's box actually stays put. No subscriber left behind. Link in comments to learn more about Stord Subscriptions.

Last week we hosted founders and leaders at Bob Bob Ricard for our Commerce Leaders London Social, to talk through what's actually on their minds right now. The topic that came up again and again was international expansion. Makes sense. Most of the room is scaling fast, and expansion is no longer a someday plan. It's a live decision. What stood out was how much AI came up, not as a buzzword but as a practical tool: automated translation, localization/localisation, and making sense of the operational data that piles up the moment you start selling across borders. That's the thing about getting the right people in one room. From wellness and beauty, to pet care, to consumer tech and home, every perspective on international growth was shaped by a completely different kind of business. A founder scaling a supplement brand thinks about expansion differently than one scaling pet food, who thinks about it differently again than someone in consumer electronics. Put them at the same table and the conversation gets sharper, fast. The discussion moved into AI and creativity too, and one point stuck with the room. AI can scale a good idea across audiences. It can't originate one. If you're sitting on something genuinely unique and wondering whether AI could have done it faster and better, the answer is no. Which means the brands going AI-first from day one aren't the ones outpacing you on originality. They're proving the opposite: the value still sits in the time and money spent bringing an original thought to life in the first place. Good conversation, better company. More of these to come.

It's a big week for the Stord Summer Roadshow: Vessel International in San Marcos, Beanstalk in New York, PARCEL Forum (The #1 Package Fulfillment Event in the U.S.)#1 in Orlando, and Origin Point in San Diego, Sept 13-18. Four cities in one week, and every stop is a new room full of the people building independent commerce. Busy doesn't begin to cover it, but we're soaking up every conversation and enjoying the ride. Want in at any stop? events@stord.com

Amazon is roughly a third of U.S. e-commerce, and already a trillion-dollar company on that third alone. Recently on BBC's Talking Business, Stord CEO Sean Henry made the case for the other two-thirds: independent brands who can't absorb tariffs, energy costs, and global disruption on their own, and who need infrastructure built to carry that volatility for them. That's the two-thirds we care about, and the UK is where we're proving it next. Check the comments for showtimes of the full segment.

Attending Beanstalk in New York City from September 14-16? Schedule time with our team in the Beanstalk app today. Looking forward to being there!

The Stord Summer Roadshow rolls into the Windy City on September 2. 🍕Deep dish debates aside, we're sitting down for the Stord Sessions Dinner Series alongside Bluestein Ventures, Listen Ventures, and JPMorganChase. It's set to be another fantastic stop on the road trip we've been running city by city all summer, alongside the partners and operators building independent commerce. Want to join us on the next stop? Email events@stord.com.

SIX years. SIX times recognized. We're honored to share that Stord has been named to the Inc. Magazine 5000 2026 list for the sixth consecutive year, a streak most companies never reach. Most companies only build one half of commerce enablement. Stord built both: a global fulfillment network and the AI-powered technology that runs it, battle-tested first at Stord Labs. Our physical intelligence layer is where our AI trains on real orders instead of simulations before it deploys across nearly 100 facilities worldwide, and that’s what empowers independent brands to deliver an experience once reserved only for retail giants. And it's what keeps landing us on this list year after year. None of it happens without the brands who trust us, the partners who build alongside us, and everyone at Stord who shows up for it. Thank you!

This week, the Stord Summer Roadshow lands in SoCal. We're hitting the WeHo Wind Down on Aug 26, followed by Stord Sessions w/ TriNet in Malibu on Aug 27. ☀️ We'll be enjoying the California sunshine, because next week we're headed to the Windy City! Want to join us along the way? Email events@stord.com.