The CEO Spot with Matt Harris of Harris Digital

Written By Rick Watson

In this second episode of The CEO Spot, Rick Watson sits down with Matt Harris, Founder of Harris Digital.

The interviews were conducted at Shoptoberfest 2025, discussing the state of B2B e-commerce and the challenges of 'hard commerce' faced by manufacturers and distributors.

Harris explains that many companies struggle with legacy ERP systems, analog data management, and complex pricing models involving tiered and customer-specific discounts. He emphasizes the importance of product information management (PIM) systems in cleaning and centralizing data before launching e-commerce platforms.

Harris shares his background, starting in the 1990s, with early e-commerce projects and how his agency helps mid-market manufacturers (with up to $1 billion in revenue) modernize sales by augmenting—not replacing—existing ERP systems.

He discusses the friction caused by generational mindset shifts and private equity consolidation in these industries. On AI, Harris notes that while small-scale AI and analytics are useful, most enterprise AI projects fail to deliver revenue due to siloed data and unrealistic expectations; he advocates for building unified data lakes and warehouses as a foundation for future AI-driven business improvements.

Rick Watson

Rick Watson founded RMW Commerce Consulting after spending 20+ years as a technology entrepreneur and operator exclusively in the eCommerce industry with companies like ChannelAdvisor, BarnesandNoble.com, Merchantry, and Pitney Bowes.

Watson’s work today is centered on supporting investors and management teams incubating and growing direct-to-consumer businesses. Most recently, in partnership with WHP Global, Rick was a critical resource in architecting the WHP+ platform, a new turnkey direct to consumer digital e-commerce platform that powers AnneKlein.com and JosephAbboud.com.

Watson also hosts a weekly podcast, Watson Weekly, where he shares an unbiased, unfiltered expert take on the retail sector’s biggest players.

In the past year alone, Rick has spoken at many in-person and virtual events as well as podcasts on topics ranging from retail/ecom to supply chain/logistics and even digital grocery including CommerceNext IRL, ASCM Connect, and Retail Innovation Conference.

https://www.rmwcommerce.com/
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