function() x Shopify: Two days in Athens
ECDM Expo 2026 is done, and we're still working through a notebook full of conversations worth following up on.
For two days at the Faliro Olympic Centre, we were a proud sponsor of the major Greek event for eCommerce, Digital Marketing, and Retail Technologies. As Shopify Partners, we came to do what we always do: talk shop with merchants, agencies, and anyone that wants to build on the platform.
Here's how it went.
Shopify on board
We had great company this year too. Yael Weiss, Lead Solutions Engineer at Shopify, and Alvin Suen from Shopify's Partnerships and Market Expansion team both joined us in Athens—and having them there made the whole event better. We were glad to share the days with both of them.
Yael Weiss on the OmniCommerce stage
On Friday, Yael Weiss took the OmniCommerce Conference stage. ECDM framed this year as the "AI Edition," and its through-line was clear: the future of commerce isn't digital or physical, it's intelligent. The merchants who treat that as a strategy question, not a tooling question, are the ones who'll pull ahead. Yael presented Shopify's work on agentic commerce, the latest from the UCP front, and how merchants can prepare their product catalogues for this new era of discoverability; while also presenting the tools that Shopify has made available for both merchants and developers for a more streamlined workflow.
Panos at the Digital Agencies Roundtable
Also on Friday, our own Panos Voulgaris joined the Digital Agencies Roundtable alongside eCommerce leaders and agency executives from across the industry.
The conversation landed on the question every agency is currently avoiding: what's your real value when AI has transformed every process your clients used to pay you for? No easy answers. The role of consulting and driving strategy, what to execute and why, was thoroughly discussed, in a field where predictions can fall short and flat very quickly.
The Shopify Partner Meetup
Before the expo floor opened on Saturday, we were delighted to take part in the Shopify Partner Meet Up in Athens: a great conversation over breakfast at the amazing surroundings of Café Canal in the Stavros Niarchos Park, with the people building, growing, and shaping the Shopify ecosystem across the region.
Developers, designers, service partners, and app development agencies; not just from Greece, but from Cyprus and Bulgaria too. The refreshing discussions that emerged revolved around collaborations, agency growth, and where the market is heading. It's the kind of get-together that reminds you the Shopify ecosystem here is growing and is more connected than it sometimes looks from the inside.
A special shoutout to the teams from Omnisend and Pandectes for being there with us!
The Workshop
On Saturday, Yael and Panos co-hosted the workshop: Beyond the Myths: Running Greek Commerce Businesses on Shopify.
The premise was simple. A lot of assumptions about what Shopify can and can't do for Greek businesses are out of date—or were never true. We spent the session pulling those apart and talking about what actually works for merchants operating here. Thank you to everyone who joined us and made the conversation more engaging with questions and shared experiences.
What we're taking home
Two days, two Shopify guests, a keynote, a roundtable discussion, a workshop, and a meetup that proved the regional ecosystem is alive and growing.
The merchants, partners, collaborators and colleagues who stopped by our stand engaged with us in conversations that made it worth the trip.
Here's to the next ones.