Bonus Episode: Creating In-Store Experiences on Your Website with Yoav Oz & Shauli Mizrahi

Yoav Oz is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rep AI, the conversational commerce platform giving online shoppers the kind of guided experience you’d expect from an in-store salesperson.

The spark came from Yoav’s own frustration: landing on ecommerce sites where he was ready to buy but stuck with eight pages of product copy and no one to answer his questions. Call centers felt broken. Chatbots felt generic. Out of that gap came Rep,  short for “representative”: an AI sales assistant trained to step in at the exact right moment, with the context of everything a shopper has clicked, viewed, or abandoned.

Yoav isn’t building alone. Alongside him is Shauli Mizrahi, Rep’s CTO and co-founder, who brings years of experience in behavioral AI. Together, they’ve built a tool that doesn’t just cut support costs: it upsells, converts hesitant browsers, and helps brands maximize the traffic they’ve already paid to bring in.

Their story blends SaaS know-how with ecommerce scrappiness: from proving AI could act like a real salesperson, to showing how conversational data can optimize entire funnels, to scaling integrations that slot into any brand’s existing stack.

Whether you’re running a DTC store, trying to push up average order value, or rethinking how AI fits into your tech stack, Yoav shares a candid look at why the ecommerce funnel is broken and how Rep AI is working to fix it.

In This Conversation We Discuss: 

• [00:48] Intro
• [01:22] Sharing career paths before entrepreneurship
• [03:23] Bridging gaps between chatbots and consumers
• [07:01] Shifting mindset from support to revenue
• [08:33] Training AI with millions of conversations
• [12:55] Optimizing websites beyond guesswork
• [15:41] Creating experiences that drive purchases
• [17:16] Personalizing offers beyond discounts
• [18:11] Customizing tone of voice for every brand

Resources:

• Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube
• eCommerce shopping AI agent www.hellorep.ai/ 
• Follow Yoav Oz linkedin.com/in/yoavoz
• Follow Shauli Mizrahi linkedin.com/in/shaulimizrachy 

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Transcript

Yoav Oz

Think about it. How much are you spending today from your budget on bringing traffic? Your store is not on Fifth Avenue. It's somewhere on the web. People need to know about you and you're spending a lot until you're creating a brand to bring this traffic. 

Chase Clymer

Welcome to Honest Ecommerce, a podcast dedicated to cutting through the BS and finding actionable advice for online store owners. I'm your host, Chase Clymer. And I believe running a direct-to-consumer brand does not have to be complicated or a guessing game. 

On this podcast, we interview founders and experts who are putting in the work and creating  real results. 

I also share my own insights from running our top Shopify consultancy, Electric Eye. We cut the fluff in favor of facts to help you grow your Ecommerce business.

Let's get on with the show.

Chase Clymer

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. Today, I'm bringing to you not one but two amazingly smart gentlemen in the world of AI. I have Yoav and Shauli, the co-founders of Rep.AI. It's an A-powered conversational tool that unobtrusively guides shoppers through their journey, leading to better customer experiences and higher conversion rates while also resolving the vast majority of support inquiries. Gentlemen, welcome to the show.

Shauli Mizrahi

Thank you. Thanks for having us. 

Yoav Oz

Thank you. 

Chase Clymer

I’m excited. So I guess first and foremost, let's just take a step back. What were your careers like before launching this startup? How did you end up in the Ecommerce space? Give me the short story there. 

Yoav Oz

I came from more of the investor side, investing in tech very shortly. After that, I built my first company and one of the co-founders and sold it to a master company. So I was like a strategic planner for the D2B part of publicist. I was building the marketing strategy for brands from Fortune 500 for a couple of years. And then they decided they want me to invest in a company that can do much better for brands, Ecommerce online. And did it for a few years. Started this company with Shauli, whom we have known each other for more than 15 years now, best friends. We even used to be roommates for five years, I think. 

Shauli Mizrahi

Something like that. We go way back. I've been in the tech industry for the last 20 years. I rose up from being a developer, but went up to BPV R&D my last as a company before we started rep together. And in my last company, I was doing a lot of AI stuff before it was actually called AI, before AI was, when AI was a curse basically, when it was just called machine learning. 

So did a lot of that stuff mainly in behavior AI, understanding user behavior on websites and how to engage with that and how to predict what's their next move in order to have an action. So back then it was more in the publishing tech world. 

Worked with companies like CNN and the biggest publishers around. And now basically took the same idea and we moved it into Ecommerce. How we can predict what customers are doing on the website and actually have actionable items based on that.  

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. So when this episode comes out, it's going to be roughly around the 3-year anniversary of when ChatGPT just broke the internet. One of those cultural moments. So obviously, right when it first came out, everyone thought it could do everything. 

And now we've learned that there are some things it's good at, some things it's bad at, things that it's getting better at. So with all that in mind, what do you think was one of the things that surprised you that AI could do? And what do you think it's still struggling to do well? 

Shauli Mizrahi

I mean, one of the things that's struggling to do well is to understand the full context of the environment where it's in. I think that's something that we still have companies trying to overcome with bringing more data into AI. 

And I think that the main struggle that exists today is how do you educate the AI about the full environment, about the full context of where it's at. And we see that with many solutions that are out there that they're very, you know, can get, everyone gets a cookie cutter experience. So it doesn't matter who you are.

You approach the AI and you start speaking to the AI and you get the same experience as anyone else just because the AI doesn't know much about you, about what you've been doing. And that's basically one of the things that we see as a great leverage of how to get the AI, feed the AI more data, more context. That's something that is actually getting better today. So context windows are becoming larger and larger. So the models, new models have larger context windows so they remember you more. 

So I don't know if you probably remember that when ChatGPT came out 3.5, then it didn't know much about you. Every time you started a new conversation, it would start from scratch. And then OpenAI did this way later on, it used the memory capabilities where it's able to actually track what you said before and continue from there. So it started gathering memories about you and everything that you said is coming up in the next conversation. And this is something that we see that is missing in Ecommerce. 

Every time I click on the chatbot solution. Most likely, I'm going to start from scratch. It doesn't know who I am. It doesn't know what I've been doing on the website at all. And this is where it's struggling. One of the things that we're trying to bridge is bringing that behavioral information into the AI to make sure it's equipped with all the information so the competition starts with, “Hey, I know exactly what you're doing. I know exactly what you're looking for. Let me help you.”

Yoav Oz

I will take it from a different angle, Chase. To be honest, like most of us as consumers, naturally using the power of the AI. It's great that we're asking GPT questions and doing those kinds of stuff. But this is basically what most of the people are doing. Okay. We sometimes do automation and we sometimes play with it a little bit more, but we're not utilizing like 10% from the power of what should GPT or other solution given us. 

And this is when companies come in, when companies can really have the developers having the power, having the capital to build something that is more robust, that can really utilize the power that now we have to make a significant impact to other companies or individuals. And I think this is one of the things that we're doing. And there are a lot of other companies that are trying to take the power that they have in-house, the capital that they have, and to create something that is much more simple for others. In this case here, Ecommerce can use and to benefit from that. 

Chase Clymer

I think that is an amazing point. I think that most general users of AI, you're correct, they are not using it well. They're using a shotgun to kill a spider when they're just. It's too much power for the simple thing that they're trying to do. And they're not really thinking about it in a way that could change their business or give them better answers. 

Yoav Oz

I totally agree. I think one of the things that everyone is now trying to do is like, okay, let's reduce cost. Let's make the support much more automated and have more powers. This is great. But this is kind of like a solution that exists. If it's good by 90%, good by 70%, this is great. 

But you basically can have this power that you now can also approach people that didn't buy the product. They don't need support and a system. You can not only save time, you can increase revenues. 

You can utilize the power of that to do analysis  on real data and get real insight and stop guessing how this is going to work, how this is working. And if you need to spend this budget there or there, like you can use it for so many things. that can impact the entire company if you are 1% or 100 people inside of the company. But you need to be in the mindset that it's possible. And not only like to look at it as ChatGPT can answer my tickets, support tickets, and I can reduce costs. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah. And I think one of the things that a lot of not sophisticated tech people do with AI. And we're using ChatGPT just like it's the name of the industry. You use Google. Google is in every search engine. ChatGPT is in every AI model. But basically, people are just  using ChatGPT to replace Google and just have a conversation with their query or their question, which is not the best result that you can have. You can do crazy stuff with it. 

Now I do want to talk a bit more about what you were saying about how your specific model and business is not only helping with the support tickets, but it's helping pre-purchase and seeing how the customer is interacting with the website. So what an example would be, I'm on a website, they're selling, let's just say skateboards, and they're like, “Hey, we noticed you're looking at this particular deck. What question do you have?” Is that something that it's doing for me? 

Shauli Mizrahi

Yeah, exactly. It's even more than that. So it grabs the entire context of where you are and what you looked at and what you bought before. So it knows exactly. Imagine you walk into a brick and mortar store and you're looking at different items. And then the sales assistant comes in and says, “Hey, I saw you checked out our running shoes. Do you have any questions? Is there any specific type of running you're interested in? Maybe I can actually try to match something that makes more sense for you.” And then it brings on that sales conversation. And that's exactly what we're giving for Ecommerce, right? It's the same exact experience.

We know the AI knows everything that the user is doing because we track everything that they're doing. And once the AI approaches the customer, the AI approaches the customer with all the contacts to bring the customer in the conversation and to try to sell the customer to different items or upsell. It doesn't matter. Each case is different. Obviously it's super personalized to the use case, but the whole point is it's trained. It has the context of the behavior and is trained to sell as much as a salesperson and brick and mortar store.

Yoav Oz

I love when Shauli explained it in that way. For me, it's like when we started it, it was a crazy story. It was like after selling the company, I was thinking what I'm going to do next. And basically I was doing online shopping for like three months, and kept buying stuff. And I realized that 99% of the time I'm not buying anything. I saw a great ad on Facebook. I saw a great new company, you know, on Google that they search for something.

When I was coming to the website, I wasn't buying the product. And I realized that I don't have time to read eight pages about the type of coffee. And I don't have a chat where I can ask about products. And usually if I try to call a call center, it was the worst experience ever. And I was someone that's willing to buy. And this is how we came with the idea of Rep. 

This is the shortcut of representative because we want to give this assistant to people. But when we did it, there were three parts that were very important to understand and can do it. And we did it with AI. One is to link the salesperson.The first thing that the salesperson is doing is looking at the people around them, where they're coming from, what they're doing. 

So we understand if they need something or if they're going to live in a second, whether they're like potential buyers or not. The second thing is that if they're detecting that someone needs assistance, when is the right time to come and assist them? It's now or when he's looking at the next product or is collecting a few items, there are a lot of, you know, sell signs behind it. 

And after that, when you're approaching, you need to have more education than the buyer to give the best recommendation or the advice that will make them trust you as the person that knows better than you. These are three parts, three different technologies that we created that enable that. 

And it took us four years to train it and it took us more than 500 clients and more than 100 million conversations to make it possible to make it good for everyone now. So this is how we can utilize, by the way, a great solution with AI and the ability that you can do that instead of the three different parts that you can run together as one solution. 

Chase Clymer

No, that's amazing. Now I want to talk about what I think is a great positioning that I just heard, which is, think about it as like a sales rep in a store, like a physical. It's basically, it's gonna do a good job of emulating that experience because, let's use that skateboard shop example. If I go to my local skateboard shop, Joe remembers everything I bought. He remembers the wheels I put on my deck. 

He remembers the grip tape. He remembers the types of brands that I'm interested in. So not only is he going to be like, “Oh, do you need a replenishment? You need new wheels for your skateboard.” He's also going to be like, “We just got in these new shirts from this brand. Are you interested in seeing those?” Yeah. Is this the same type of power that this AI is also going to bring to my Shopify store? 

Yoav Oz

It is. And I would say that the impact in Ecommerce is sometimes even bigger because, think about it. How much are you spending today from your budget on bringing traffic? Your store is not on Fifth Avenue. It's somewhere on the web. People need to know about you. And you're spending a lot until you're creating a brand to bring this traffic. 

So this traffic is going to meet you for the first time. What kind of impact do you want to give them that you invest a lot on the experience that they can ask about stuff. Second, that you can catch them before they leave and to give a recommendation. Also, because you're doing that, you have a better chance to get a better loss on the advertising. So you can spend more. If you have more clients, it means that your LTV might go better.

And sometimes when people spend more time on your website, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, all those places, thinking that the person converted. So the CPM decreases. So the impact is huge. It's not only on the value that you increase the sales. It's also recovering last revenues  and it's impacting the entire brand cycle. 

Shauli Mizrahi

The beauty of AI agents is that they can actually optimize on that. So you can tell them, I want to increase my average order value. And then goes and upsells and does the best upsell and tries different techniques in order to make sure that the upsell method is the best way. And this is something that technology allows us to do today, which is pretty amazing. 

It's really optimizing the website. So imagine the websites, additional websites are just search on a menu and there's nothing new about them. You can't really optimize them. If you try to optimize them, it's all guesswork. Running A/B tests on things that sound good, but they don't really provide value. And here, AI can actually go ahead and talk to as many customers on the website as possible, try different things on them and see what works and optimize on that. 

Chase Clymer

That's great. Now, we talked about replacing these AI agents. Not necessarily replacing salespeople, but assisting and they exist in the store. This isn't just a glorified chatbot that's going to pop up and annoy me, right? What's the difference? 

Yoav Oz

The philosophy of something that's up, interfering to clients or to visitors, it's true. It's true when it was pop-ups, when it was statistics, when you didn't know the context, when it was just. Here is 30% before you leave the website. But if there are any behavioral insights AI that attaches to the approach like a salesperson, there is a good experience. 

It's exactly the example I think that is surely talked about. you come into a brick and mortar store and the moment that you enter the store, the salesperson jumps and tells you, “Hey, do you need assistance?” You're like, “Wait a second. didn't enter yet”. And I don't know if I want to buy something, but if it's the salesperson, this is the worst experience.

But if the salesperson is looking at you and sees what you're doing until you're finding a product, holding it in your hands and looking for help, if it's a good salesperson, a salesperson will see the behavior and know that this is the right time to approach you. This is a very different experience. And this is why people like me, that a lot of brands miss, that I want to buy something. Now use this technology to really help their experience of the videos that come to the website. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah, absolutely. Now instead of it just being a generic pop-up that's like, do you want 30% off skateboards? Now it's like, hey, we noticed you were looking at this particular deck. We have a sale on complete. Are you interested in getting it by next Thursday? I mean, that's just like marketing 101. The more personalized your approach can be, the higher the ROI is going to be. 

Shauli Mizrahi

Exactly. Exactly. And think that the main addition to that is that we collect over 500 different data points about what's happening on the website. So what you click on, how you hover over items, which items you've seen now in this session or in a previous session, ah of course, what you bought before, where you are in the world, what time of day is it. 

All that information is being fed to the AI to make decisions in real time. The AI makes decisions about what to offer you, how to approach you as a customer and how to lead that sales conversation all the way to checkout. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. And I know we only got a few minutes left here. But with all those different data points and me integrating this into my tech stack,  I'm not a data scientist or an AI specialist. Is this hard to do? 

Shauli Mizrahi

So no, we're a full plug and play solution. One-click integration to Shopify stores. Basically, super easy. You can get up and run in 5 minutes. Of course, if you want to go ahead and manage the conversation, enrich it with more information, train it in different ways, connect it to different platforms, you're able to do that, but to get up and running only takes five minutes. 

Yoav Oz

We have a different approach, a little bit. I think it's part of the reason that we built a company. We want to build a company in Ecommerce that is fully transparent, that is showing you everything.

So in our platform, you can see how many we approach, how many we talk to, where the sales are coming in, even the checkout and then take out all inside of the chat itself. So that the vision is easy. We're showing exactly how many moves to talk to a human, how many they answered, what optimization you need to do and things like that. And it's all very easy to do. But we also know that, you know, a lot of brands want to have AI, but are also afraid to have AI.

You know, to talk to little visitors, customize them a lot. So we bring from outside AI experts to be part of the extension to the team and to train the AI by their request, including the tone of voice. So if you're selling a Renaissance product, it can sound like a Renaissance guide. So everything, everything is adjustable. Everything can be created and everything we can do for the brand itself. If they don't have the time and time, it's a big thing now with everything that's happening. And we're more than happy to do that. It's part of the model. 

Chase Clymer

Oh, that's amazing. Now, if I'm listening to this and I'm a brand and I'm like, hey, you know what? Embracing AI. This is right up our alley. This is something that I want to investigate. And they're curious to learn more about  your product and how it might be able to help their brand. Where should they go? What should they do? 

Yoav Oz

So first of all, they can go to the websites. It's hellorep.ai. 

Shauli Mizrahi

Hellorep.ai. 

Yoav Oz

Exactly. And the first thing that we did, we built a simulator. So anyone that wants to try it, uh only 10% of the power of that can do that with no integration. The second thing is to book a demo all to do the onboarding. It's only six clicks onboard. 

And as part of transparency, our philosophy is also don't pay if you don't see value. So we're giving to anyone, no matter what the size is 30 days free trial and for the second month, money back guarantee. So if you don't see at least 5 weeks on what you're paying us, we will not charge you.  

Chase Clymer

That's an amazing, amazing offer there. Before you guys go, anything that you want to leave with our audience? 

Yoav Oz

Try more real-life tools, but not only for support. You will be amazed at what you can do with a few people and the impact that is going to do on the web to your own store when you're analyzing the data.

Chase Clymer

Amazing. Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing all those amazing insights. 

Yoav Oz

Thank you, Chase. 

Shauli Mizrahi

Thanks, Chase.

Chase Clymer.  

We can't thank our guests enough for coming on the show and sharing their knowledge and journey with us. We've got a lot to think about and potentially add into our own business. You can find all the links in the show notes. 

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Lastly, if you're a store owner looking for an amazing partner to help get your Shopify store to the next level, reach out to Electric Eye at electriceye.io/connect.

Until next time!