CartStars

CartStars is the most exclusive friendwork for eCommerce’s top 5%—a curated space where leaders build, learn, and scale together.

What Makes CartStars Different
- Invitation-only—membership is earned through participation, not fees.
- Peer-driven—no sales pitches, just trusted advice from industry leaders.
- Curated vendor ecosystem—only partners recommended by members.
- Beyond digital—private platform, local meetups, and executive retreats.

Why It Matters
Great businesses aren’t built alone. CartStars brings together the brightest minds in retail and eCommerce—leaders who are shaping the future and willing to share what they know.

Know a CartStars member? Ask them for an invite.

Founder & CEO

Diversity Plug

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Founder

Inveterate, Inc

 Director Of Partnerships

Gladly

Trusted by hundreds of companies including Crate & Barrel, Ralph Lauren, and Warby Parker, Gladly is the people-centric CX platform that puts customers and agents at the center of every conversation to kickstart and nurture more natural relationships, driving long-term brand loyalty, revenue, and support efficiency.

Based in San Francisco, Gladly was founded in 2014 and is privately backed by industry leaders including Greylock, GGV Capital, NEA, Glynn Capital, FutureFund, and JetBlue Ventures.

Manager, Strategic Partner Program

dotdigital

The dotdigital platform is an omnichannel marketing solution for B2C, B2B, and NFP marketers in the Americas. Import data, build segments and triggers and create relevant marketing campaigns that engage your customers on their favorite channels. Don’t limit yourself to email marketing; personalize your marketing messages across SMS, push notifications, live chat, and social ads.

Speed and ease of use are at the core of what we do, so our omnichannel marketing features can help you reach your goals faster. If you want to increase marketing ROI, boost sales revenue, drive more qualified leads, or boost donor growth – dotdigital is the single-sign-on platform you need.

Sr. Enterprise Account Executive

SAG-AFTRA

Actress

Demandforce

The Demandforce software-as-a-service application is used by thousands of customers to grow revenue, keep clients coming back, and manage operations more effectively. Demandforce connects Demandforce clients to over 100 million consumers via email communications, text messaging, and online services. Demandforce has achieved 26 quarters of over 80% year-over-year quarterly growth and is led by a management team with over a decade of experience developing and delivering web-based applications that drive real, tangible business value. As of February 2016, Demandforce is proud to now be a part of the Internet Brands family.

Senior Account Executive

Yelp

Account Executive

Lion Management Group, Inc.

CEO at CartStars | Cultivating an Empathetic & Resilient Community for eCommerce Leaders

Two years ago, I had a lightbulb moment.

As a newly minted Director of Partnerships, I gathered seven experienced colleagues to get their honest feedback on a tech solution I was evaluating. No agendas. No sales pitches. Just real advice from people who understood my KPIs.

Their insights saved me $40,000 and a year of frustration.

That’s when it hit me:
 In an industry with 8,000+ tech tools and 4x as many agencies, leaders don’t need more noise. They need trusted, agenda-free connections.

That’s why I built CartStars.

CartStars is the exclusive friendwork for eCommerce’s top 5%—a curated, high-trust space where senior brand, retail, and eCommerce leaders ($10M+ revenue) connect with peers to share insights, solve challenges, and build real relationships.

What makes CartStars different?
✅ Invitation-only—membership is earned through contribution.
✅ No sales pitches—just real, peer-driven conversations.
✅ A curated partner ecosystem—only solutions recommended by members.
✅ Digital + in-person—our platform and executive events create real impact.
✅ Your friendwork in your pocket—get answers instantly from trusted peers.

We believe the best executives don’t scale alone. They grow by building relationships with other smart, kind, and engaged leaders—without wasted time, bad deals, or endless sales cycles.

CartStars is invite-only. If you know a member, ask them to invite you.

🔗 Learn more at CartStars.com

Debbie Kemunto Pearce

No one owes you anything.


Not their time.
Not their trust.
Not their belief in what you’re building.

I learned that early.

Maybe that’s why the last three years have meant so much to me.

Because the only reason CartStars works,
is that the best service providers in this industry decided to give us something they didn’t have to:
Their partnership.
Their excellence.
And their reputation… long before we had one of our own.

Every partner who has ever worked with us was recommended by our members.
Which means before they ever worked with CartStars, they worked with you.
They earned your trust first.
We simply inherited it.
And I don’t take that lightly.

So today I just want to say thank you.

To every team that showed up for our members, solved real problems, and made this ecosystem better.

So here’s to the partners who have been part of this journey,
past, present, and now officially, 2026.

85SIXTY, AB Tasty, Absolute Web, adMixt, AthenaHQ, Bark-Ai, BTR Media, CommerceNext, Flexport, Friendbuy, Instant, Intelligems, Keynes Digital, Kimonix, Klaviyo, KODIF, LettrLabs, Loop, Loop Subscriptions, ShipHero, Nishe, Nostra, Oceans Talent, Opensend, OrderProtection.com, Passport, Poplar/ Share Local Media, Power Digital Marketing, Redo, Retention.com, Rise.ai, Rivo, SARAL - The Influencer OS, SiteVibes, Skio, Stay AI, Stord, & the rest in the comments!

We see you.
We appreciate you.
And CartStars is better because of you.

If you’re reading this and you’ve worked with any of them,
tag them below.
They deserve it.

#CartStars #retail #ecommerce #trust #partnerships

Founder, CartStars | Building the room where top retail and eCommerce minds grow together.

You can’t buy this.


“So what’s the difference between a sponsorship and a partnership at CartStars?”

I get why they ask.

From the outside, the difference looks cosmetic.
A nicer word.
A softer label.

But I’ve never liked soft labels.

A sponsorship is transactional.
You pay. You get visibility. Your logo shows up somewhere it wasn’t yesterday.
Fair enough.

But a partnership is different.
A partnership is work.
An agreement to grow together.

Our partners show up for our members.
We show up for their teams.
Both sides bring something the other can’t.

That is why we are so strict about who becomes a partner here.
You are not buying a list.
You are entering an ecosystem.

If you are here only to take, you will hate it.
If you are here to give, you will feel at home.

Because you don’t get anywhere good by taking without giving.
Not in this industry. Not in this community.

And for CartStars, “partner” is not a nicer word for sponsor.
It’s a promise.

You bring your best work.
We bring our best people.

And when both sides grow from that,
It doesn’t need to be defined. It's felt.

#CartStars #retail #ecommerce #partnership #thoughtleadership #growth

Speed over space. 


If something didn’t click quickly,
I assumed it was wrong.
Or I was.

So I’d look at people who welcomed a slow start and feel almost envious.
They got time.
Time to build processes.
Time to make mistakes without an audience.
Time to breathe before they had to prove anything.

But CartStars never gave me that.
It felt like a long, quiet hallway.
No hockey stick.
No “we blew up overnight” story to tell on a podcast.

At first, I thought that meant we were behind.
But now, the view from the climb feels different. 

Like The Pillars of the Earth.
Ken Follett spent ten years on that book.
ten years tracing every stone,
every choice,
every consequence.

A world built slowly enough that the foundation actually holds.

It’s the kind of story you can’t speed through,
because it wasn’t written that way.

CartStars unfolded the same way.
Carved into place, not rushed into existence.

That’s why I’m grateful we did not get everything we wanted quickly.

You can engineer speed.
But you can’t fake depth.
And depth is what we’re here for.
So I plan to take my time.

Because overnight success is a fallacy.

#CartStars #retail #ecommerce #growth #journey #thoughtleadership

We've heard the whispers. 


"CartStars has too many rules." 
"Other platforms get 6X the sponsorship."

But here's what we keep hearing: "Other rooms don't feel the same."

Because vendors can't pay to be in the room. 
They have to be recommended by members who've used them. 

And they don't make astronomical investments, which means there's air.

Not pressure and pitches.

This year, Allison Gagnon from Tibi sat next to the Videowise team at Torrisi.
No topic. Just dinner.

Twenty-seven live shopping episodes later: $2 million in sales.

Everyone wins. 
Leaders discover what works from peers. 
Vendors doing great work grow. 

And we get to keep building the room.

Receipts in comments :)

#CartStars #retail #ecommerce

Can we fight about it?


When Justin texts you with:
“Hey… what about a boxing match for charity?”

You know something that sounds unhinged,
is about to make perfect sense.

Raising $1,000,000 for charity, 
across clean water, emergency medical care, and cancer research.
That kind of purpose has a way of settling everything into place.

So here we are.
Eight exhibition matches.
Sixteen brave (or slightly unhinged) eCommerce leaders.
Five hundred people in the audience.

All of us trying to do something that looks a little impossible.
And therefore all the more worth it.

I’m part of the donations and boxers team alongside
Anas Hoque at Klaviyo and Bradley Johnston at Opensend.

And yes…
I may or may not be stepping into the ring myself.
You’ll have to show up to find out.

Huge thanks to the incredible group making this real:
Justin Silver (our fearless Chair),
Ben Walter, Emmanuel Kamau, Alexander Lazoff,
Jess Cervellon, Bryce Alsten, Lauren Sawyer ☀️,
Ian Korer, Grace Nicklas,
Bill Murphy, and Josh Garellek!

See you in Vegas on March 24th at The Space.
Let’s make this count. 🥊


#retail #ecommerce #charity #fightforcharity #shoptalk #shoptalk2026

I said yes.


To new ideas.
New experiments.
A few questionable decisions I’m still pretending were strategic.

Eventually, the team started saying I was “subscribing” to everything.
And honestly… fair.
My credit card has been through character development this year. 😬

But when our members started nominating their picks for the 2026 CartStars partnerships in the subscription category,
something unusual happened.
No noise.
No debate.
No fourteen-way tie.
(If you’ve been in eCom long enough, you know that alone is a miracle.)

So if you lean in closely,
I’ll tell you what I’m subscribing to next year:
Skio and Loop Subscriptions!

Chosen by members who don’t just plug into a stack.
They stay in it. 
With skin in the game.
And receipts in their dashboards.

So…yes, I’ve said yes to a lot this year.
But this is the subscription I’d sign twice!
Everything else can stay on free trial 😏


#CartStars #retail #ecommerce #partnerships #subscription

praella

Sales Director

Miva, Inc.

Helping Merchants Increase Sales, Cut Costs, and Grow Revenue on Miva

Accounts Director

Supporting & Driving Success of the Miva Community

Professional Services Manager

Helping SME clients optimize and evolve their online operations.

Miva believes that all online businesses should have access to a scalable ecommerce platform that can meet their unique business requirements. Miva offers PCI compliant ecommerce, hosting, and custom website design and development solutions. Miva customers have processed over $100 billion in online sales since 1997.

Sr. Account Manager

Digerati Group

I help take e-commerce businesses to the next level and turn business process ideas into extraordinary digital experiences that drive value.

Business Development Manager

Digital Strategist & Sales Manager

Lumia Marketing Agency

Digital Strategist

Evolve Security Academy

Evolve Security is a dedicated cyber security services firm that focuses on delivering real and measurable improvements to your security posture. We work alongside your current security and/or IT staff to manage and resolve your security vulnerabilities throughout the full security lifecycle.

ThirdPartyTrust

Conducted business development for a Chicago based cyber security startup with an SaaS vendor management platform which measures and monitors vendor risk and related cyber threats.

Business Development Executive

Netrix, LLC

A creative & strategic sales executive with a track record of helping companies drive business by leveraging technology such as SaaS, IaaS, Cloud, SharePoint, Custom App Dev, CMS, Automated Marketing, etc.  Works with Marketing and IT executives to first understand their business challenges then assists in designing and executing business development initiatives leveraging world class solutions.

Sales Account Executive

Americaneagle.com

Proven sales professional responsible for the sale of Americaneagle.com digital solutions and services nationally. Proficient in assessing and forecasting prospects' needs and presenting cost effective solutions.  The main objective being to empower corporate Marketing and Business Development Teams with the tools necessary to maximize their online presence.

Account Executive how assists corporate Marketing and Business Development teams leverage digital solutions to continuously optimize their online presence.  Has successfully worked with clients in various industry verticals.  Some examples are: one of America’s most respected and recognized Agriculture media brands, the world's 2nd largest manufacturer of heavy construction equipment, a global corporate member association, the internet's largest Military Homes and Army Navy Surplus websites, etc. 

Professional responsibilities include:
• Direct interface with clients’ executives, technical stakeholders and decision makers.
• Provide a Sales role including client presentations and preparation of estimates, proposals & SOWs.
• Scope & architect solutions based on the client's requirements, while maintaining an optimized User Experience.
• CMS platform agnostic with experience in idev, Sitecore, Sitefinity, Kentico & Mozu.

CME Group

CME LAB Options Euro Dollar Options Market Analyst

Empowering a team to help develop our structure, strategy and leadership to take Shopify Plus merchants to the next phase of growth.  Leading a team that strengthens the value of partnerships to transform the business of some of Shopify's largest merchants.

taplio

The Battle

Debbie Kemunto Pearce

Mark Krolikowski

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taplio

The Battle

Debbie Kemunto Pearce

Mark Krolikowski

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Debbie Kemunto Pearce's LinkedIn Performance

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