If you missed commonsku's first ever LinkedIn Live mid-year update, you missed something big.
Bobby Lehew (Chief Content Officer) and Charlie Moscoe (VP of Product Development) pulled back the curtain on 2025's most significant product releases—including a sneak peek at AI features that could fundamentally change how promotional product distributors source product.
Charlie stepped away from his usual habitat (behind the code) to share what the team has been building, and the results are impressive. With over 60 features and enhancements shipped so far this year, here's what's actually moving the needle for distributors.
Out of 60+ features shipped in just six months (yeah, you read that right), three are absolutely crushing it in terms of adoption and real-world impact. And when we say impact, we're talking cold, hard cash and hours saved.
"We've already collected many tens of thousands of dollars in fees, and we've seen that acceleration coming from that approval flow, which is really incredible." - Charlie Moscoe
The Real Talk:
What This Means for You:
"We've seen amazing adoption and really frequent use of those reports, and also a lot of people using the new report save and scheduling feature." - Charlie Moscoe
Three game-changing reports are seeing heavy daily usage:
Bobby's Pro Tip:
"We're heading into Q4. You should be comparing those top 10 clients from what they purchased last year in Q4 or get a head start, get in there in August and start digging into it now."
This one caught even Charlie off guard:
"That report is getting hundreds of hits a day... people are saving and coming back to it on a weekly, monthly basis." - Charlie
Plot Twist: We thought business owners would check it quarterly. Instead, sales reps are living in it daily. Why? Because knowing what actually sells beats guessing every single time.
Who's Loving It:
For distributors handling complex workflows, commonsku is tackling automation challenges that seemed impossible:
"Split ship and drop ship tax calculation, I'd say is the biggest, hairiest, ugliest nut that we're cracking on that front this year." - Charlie Moscoe
The Challenge: Orders shipping to thousands of different customers requiring accurate tax calculation per jurisdiction.
The Solution: New partnership with Avalara to automate complex tax calculations within commonsku orders, including support through the existing pop-up shops workflow.
Who Benefits: Distributors managing large corporate programs with complex shipping requirements.
This is where it gets spicy. The opportunity discovery report is evolving from "here's what you should do" to "let me tell you exactly what you're missing."
Structured Reporting Identifies:
Coming Soon: Chat with an AI that actually knows YOUR business. Not generic advice. YOUR data. YOUR opportunities.
"85% of a distributor's business comes from existing clients and by referral. So building on that client experience... the more we can use our own data to augment that is fantastic." - Bobby Lehew
The enterprise product is officially leaving beta next week (cue the confetti), and it's bringing ALL the APIs.
Charlie's promise:
"Allow users to plug in any shop they can dream of, along with tools around things like tracking updates and audit for companies who need that kind of enterprise grade control."
The Full API Buffet:
Plus: Automated bill matching with Connected+ suppliers (because manually matching bills in 2025 is just cruel).
Schedule a consultation → Our team can show you exactly how these updates address your unique business challenges.
Here's where commonsku's vision gets truly exciting. We have been training AI systems for over a year with a dedicated development team, rolling out AI capabilities in three strategic phases:
"We have a bunch of AI agents and systems that we've been training in the backend for well over a year now." - Charlie Moscoe
Current AI Capabilities:
"You'll see those suggestions evolving into what we're calling assistance... a chatbot style interface powered by a large language model." - Charlie Moscoe
Secure AI Chat Features:
"We have this super secret group of folks that are working on nothing but AI stuff... developing true intelligent agents that are a part of the commonsku platform." - Charlie Moscoe
AI Companions for Every Role:
Key Benefits:
commonsku's AI Philosophy: "We think about AI as another hammer to help our customers tackle their biggest projects... the nails are the problems that our customers are focusing on." - Charlie Moscoe
We launched the AI Promo Brief newsletter launched last Tuesday, delivering industry-specific AI insights filtered specifically for distributors and suppliers:
"It's a newsletter for those that are fans of the Backpack... This is what's going on in AI and it's filtered specifically through the lens of distributors and suppliers."
What You're Getting Every Two Week:
The first issue already dropped, and based on the response, this is becoming essential reading for forward-thinking distributors who want to stay ahead of the AI curve.
Subscribe to AI Promo Brief → (Your competitors probably already have)
Look, we could tell you about our 900+ happy distributors or our 60+ features shipped in 6 months, but here's what actually matters:
Charlie summed up the distributor feedback perfectly:
"Thanks for this stuff, but more please."
And that's exactly what they're delivering. While others are talking about AI, commonsku's been training models for over a year. While others charge enterprise prices for basic features, commonsku's making power tools available to everyone.
The promo industry is changing. Fast. The question isn't whether you'll adapt—it's whether you'll lead or follow.