When your ads look profitable but your margin is shrinking, where do you look first? At Cross Border Summit 2026, that question connected sessions that might otherwise sit in different tracks. Sellers looked at factory costs, advertising metrics and the tools their teams use to run the business. They also had time to compare notes with each other between sessions.
The eighth Cross Border Summit brought ecommerce founders and operators to Chiang Mai Orchid Hotel from November 3 to 5. The theme was Fellowship. The agenda made room for it through small-group discussions, audience introductions and time to talk over lunch. Some attendees were already arriving on Sunday, and the community organized its own dinner on Monday before the summit opened.
November 3 brought sellers and speakers to the same table
The VIP mastermind started with small roundtables where sellers and speakers could go deeper into the problems they were working on. The VIP dinner gave those conversations more time. If you’re planning your own summit trip, bring a question you can explain in one sentence and one example from your business. That gives people something concrete to help you with when you sit down together.
November 4 put new sales channels and product quality in the same conversation
Michael Michelini opened with agentic commerce and what it could mean for how shoppers find and buy products. Graeme Paddock covered TikTok, Antoinette Jackson took on multichannel distribution, and Andy Church led an interactive session on product development and quality assurance. Audience introductions gave attendees a chance to say what they were working on and find someone to continue the conversation with.
One way to use that mix back home is to pick a product you want to sell through a new channel. Check whether the listing answers a buyer’s questions, whether you can fulfill reliably, and what happens to margin after fees and returns. Then decide what’s worth testing.
November 5 followed the margin back to the factory
Lyden Smithers asked whether the margin you thought you lost on ads might have been lost at the factory. Tim Sutton looked at what return on ad spend can leave out. Tomer Rabinovich’s AI Ladder and Chip Ge’s session on building seller tools with AI coding agents put another decision on the table: which workflows are worth changing?
Start with one SKU. Compare what it costs to make, land, advertise and fulfill with what you actually keep after a sale. Pick the largest gap you can do something about. That gives you a better brief for a supplier conversation, an ad test or an automation project. See the full 2026 agenda.
Attendee stories from the summit archive
Two attendees from the 2025 edition describe what they got out of meeting other operators. Junior talks about comparing notes with fellow sellers on search visibility, TikTok and the day-to-day work of selling online. Ashhar Ali of Make Brands Big describes meeting prospective clients and how conversations continued outside the formal sessions.
Browse the attendee testimonial archive.
Join us in Chiang Mai in 2027
The next Cross Border Summit runs November 3 to 5, 2027, in Chiang Mai. If you were in the room this year, pick one conversation to follow up on while it’s fresh. If you’re planning your first trip, start with the Cross Border Summit 2027 event site.
For background, explore the Cross Border Summit homepage or revisit the 2026 Fellowship edition.
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