Daniel McMIllan

Skills

Over the last 15+ years, I’ve helped ecommerce businesses grow, fix what’s broken, and build for the long haul, not just the next quarter. From fast-moving startups to global brands, I’ve worked across every stage of the ecommerce journey. My specialty is in identifying the hidden inefficiencies that stop growth and turning complexity into a clear, profitable system that works.I work hands-on with founders, marketing teams, and operators, with a focus on Shopify businesses that need commercial clarity, smarter marketing, and operational sharpness.Below are the key areas I help with.1. eCommerce Strategy & Business Model DesignWhat I do:
- Audit and refine your business model for profitability.
- Define customer journeys from first click to repeat purchase.
- Align marketing, operations, and finance around shared commercial goals.
- Identify growth ceilings caused by margin gaps or operational friction.
- Clarify your channel strategy (owned vs retail vs marketplace).Who this is for:
Shopify stores doing $500k–$20M+ in revenue annually that need to move from “growth at any cost” to sustainable, margin-aware scale. If you're hitting plateaus or unsure where the next phase of growth comes from, this is where we start.2. Customer Acquisition & Performance MarketingWhat I do:
- Fix leaky acquisition funnels across Meta, Google, Affiliates, and Email.
- Improve ROAS by connecting creative, targeting, and product positioning.
- Set up attribution frameworks that make marketing decisions clearer.
- Build efficient media plans that scale without waste.
- Coach teams or agencies on best-practice execution.Who this is for:
Brands with strong products but underperforming media spend, or businesses with rising CAC and unclear attribution. If your paid channels are no longer working the way they used to, I’ll show you why and what to do.3. Retention, Lifecycle, and CRM StrategyWhat I do:
- Build segmentation and flows that drive repeat purchases.
- Redesign email and SMS programs around LTV, not just open rates.
- Improve subscription or replenishment performance.
- Create win-back and post-purchase journeys that boost AOV.
- Implement better use of Klaviyo or your preferred CRM platform.Who this is for:
Shopify stores struggling with customer retention, high churn, or low repeat purchase rates. Particularly useful for consumables, wine, food, supplements, and products with natural replenishment cycles.4. Platform, Tech Stack & Website OptimisationWhat I do:
- Audit and simplify bloated tech stacks.
- Migrate or optimise Shopify and Shopify Plus setups.
- Work with devs or agencies to improve speed, UX, and CRO.
- Connect data layers (GA4, Meta CAPI, Klaviyo, Recharge, etc.).
- Build checkout and PDP strategies to lift conversion.Who this is for:
Shopify brands with legacy platforms, clunky UX, or excessive tools that aren’t pulling their weight. If your stack feels like it’s grown faster than your strategy, we clean it up.5. Digital Team Building & Capability DevelopmentWhat I do:
- Define the skills and roles your digital team actually need.
- Recruit and coach internal hires or train external partners.
- Set up workflows, reporting, and routines that create accountability.
- Help founders move from “doing everything” to leading effectively.Who this is for:
Scaling brands hiring their first Head of eCommerce or trying to build a lean but capable in-house team. I also support CEOs who want a clear view into their digital performance without micromanaging it.6. Operational & Supply Chain AlignmentWhat I do:
- Bridge the gap between marketing and ops to improve cash flow.
- Improve inventory planning and promotion alignment.
- Help manage or transition 3PL and fulfilment partners.
- Create smarter bundling and merchandising strategies.
- Align warehouse, finance, and front-end strategy for smoother scale.Who this is for:
Brands that have hit operational bottlenecks during growth, especially those running promotions that don’t align with stock or fulfilment, or struggling with margin compression due to inefficient logistics.7. Executive Support & Fractional LeadershipWhat I do:
- Act as a fractional Head of Ecommerce, Head of Digital, CMO, or Growth lead.
- Support investor reporting, board updates, or M&A due diligence.
- Develop strategic plans for new channels, markets, or product lines.
- Help executive teams unify their thinking on digital strategy.Who this is for:
Businesses in transition, scaling quickly, navigating leadership changes, preparing for investment, or needing a clear voice of commercial reason in the room. Ideal for founders looking for a trusted partner to think through the big stuff.The Businesses I Work Best With
Shopify businesses doing $500k–$20M+ in revenue annually who want profitable growth.Founder-led brands who need clarity, not complexity.Product-focused teams who have traction, but lack digital capability.Operationally stretched businesses who’ve outgrown their current stack.Investors and executive teams needing digital and ecommerce expertise they can trust.If you’re trying to scale profitably, build a more capable team, or make your business less dependent on guesswork, that’s where I come in.

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My Story

In 2025, I was named one of the Top 50 People in Ecommerce in Australia, a highlight that reflected years of work behind the scenes: launching the first-ever direct-to-consumer eCommerce platform for [yellow tail] Wine, one of the most globally recognised wine brands in the world.To put that into perspective: [yellow tail] Wine sells over 12 million cases a year, is available in more than 50 countries, and is the number one imported wine in the United States by volume. [yellow tail] as a single Australian brand imports more wine into the US than all of France combined. It’s a brand that became a household name by relying on traditional marketing, so when it came to building the brand's very first ecommerce business, we weren’t just launching a site; we were rewriting how one of the world’s most scaled wine businesses connects directly with its customers for the first time in over two decades.That kind of challenge doesn’t come out of nowhere. It comes from years spent collecting the kind of hard-won, cross-functional experience that allows me to walk into a business and know how to build, fix, or scale it from the inside out.I started my career in 2009 at Yodel Australia, a small Sydney-based digital marketing agency, where I was deep in the performance marketing trenches running small business Google Ads campaigns. It was early days for paid search then, very manual, and I learned quickly that results weren’t promised, they were earned with the budgets we had. It taught me how to be scrappy, how to make data-led decisions, and how to stretch every marketing dollar further than it wanted to go. For the small businesses that I represented, it wasn't lost on me that the business owners' livelihoods depended on my ability to drive people into their businesses.In 2011, I moved to London and joined Zenith Media, one of the world's largest advertising agencies, where I spent almost four years working across EMEA markets for some of the world’s most iconic brands - Rolex, Microsoft, HP, Qantas, and Chevrolet, to name a few. Here, I learned how to navigate scale and complexity, and global business practices that you don't get exposure to here in Australia. It was about more than media plans; it was about understanding brand ecosystems, stakeholder alignment, and what it takes to execute with precision across multiple markets, languages, currencies, and cultures. From a global brand point of view, I was suddenly in the driver's seat, pushing strategy direction, instead of receiving it.By 2015, I was back in Australia and ready to immerse myself in the business side of things. Agency life was fun, but I wanted to learn the true financial implications of my work. I joined Jayride, a fledgling travel marketplace, as Head of Marketing and later became Chief Marketing Officer. This was a turning point for me; I wasn’t just focused on clicks and conversions anymore, we were building a business with investor money, smart money. People thought I was crazy when I left agency land, but I wanted to understand if my efforts were driving profitable, sustainable outcomes, not just vanity metrics. That curiosity pulled me deeper into the business side of ecommerce, into margins, contribution, lifetime value, and how all the levers connect. Over nearly five years, we scaled from a handful of people with early-stage traction into a global presence spanning more than 80 countries. We built a high-output ecommerce growth engine that listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2018. It was here I learned what true end-to-end ownership felt like, from building teams and setting strategy to managing CAC, LTV, and investor expectations. I was finally making decisions with profit in mind, not growth at all costs.In 2020, Covid-19 led to a downturn in traveller bookings, and to help Jayride financially outlast the travel bans imposed by governments around the world, I opted for redundancy. Happens to the best of us. Shortly after, I joined Pact Group to lead digital for a diverse portfolio of FMCG brands. During this time, I launched many ecommerce stores to develop new revenue streams for brands already distributed in Coles, Woolworths, and Bunnings. A unique role that allowed me to partner directly with the CEO of the billion-dollar business to develop ecommerce-first NPD concepts, including the launch of an Australian-first online gaming supplement brand. This role solidified my ability to drive innovation within large, legacy environments, a skill that would prove critical in subsequent roles.In 2022, I stepped into Naked Wines as Head of Growth, focusing on smart acquisition and retention strategies to support one of Australia’s most recognisable DTC wine businesses. Like many in the category, post-pandemic shifts in consumer behaviour and rising acquisition costs created fresh challenges, even for brands once considered disruptors.Later that year, I joined BoozeBud as Chief Marketing Officer during a company-wide transformation phase. The brief from the new CEO was clear: rebuild the entire customer and operational stack from platform and CRM to paid media, affiliate partnerships, and team structure. Like many digital-first drinks businesses, BoozeBud had grown quickly during COVID but was now facing the industry-wide reality check of post-pandemic consumer shifts, poor historical marketing decisions, supply pressures, and a renewed focus on profitability. We stripped back the tech stack, migrated thousands of SKUs to Shopify, rebuilt the strategy, and focused everything on efficiency and fundamentals. It was high-stakes, fast-paced, and deeply rewarding. It was also where I fine-tuned the skills I now lean on most: knowing how to bring people, platforms, finances, and processes into alignment to deliver profitable growth. BoozeBud ultimately was acquired by Paramount Liquor and rebranded to Bottle Stop.Which brings me to now. I’m Head of Digital at Casella Family Brands, overseeing ecommerce and digital strategy across [yellow tail], Peter Lehmann, Morris Whisky and many more brands within the CFB Wine, Spirits, and Beer portfolio.I'm not just building online stores for Casella Family Brands, I'm creating modern, scalable commercial engines and teams for some of the most storied brands in Australian wine.What ties all these chapters together is a common thread: I’ve built my career collecting the rare, real-world experience needed to make ecommerce work in today's world, not just in pitch decks. I’ve learned how to drive growth, reduce waste, build capability, and make businesses stronger from the inside out.I started as a wannabe digital marketer with a headache. Today, I help companies build, fix, and scale their ecommerce businesses with commercial clarity and operational sharpness. I develop teams that know how to win together.

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