The BFCM and holiday playbook is shifting. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are finding products on TikTok and Instagram, then buying on mobile in minutes.
They expect speed, authenticity, and real personalization. If your funnels, offers, and ops aren’t tuned for that behavior, you’ll leave revenue on the table.
That’s why we’ve partnered with Cloudways to host Prepathon 2025, a free 3-day online event from September 30 to October 2. You’ll get practical sessions from 15+ proven operators on scaling profitably for the holiday surge, building mobile-first experiences, and using AI to lift conversion and LTV. No fluff, just tactics you can put to work before the rush.
Here’s what to expect: how to turn short-form discovery into purchases, how to personalize with first-party data without creeping people out, and how to automate the grunt work so your team can focus on high-impact moves. We’ll also cover social commerce, performance under peak traffic, and post-purchase loops that turn one-time buyers into repeat customers.
If you’re refining your retention plan for younger shoppers, this guide on personalized text messaging for Gen Z pairs well with what you’ll learn at Prepathon. Lock in your spot, and leave with a checklist you can roll out inside two weeks. The brands that prepare now will own the weekend.
What Makes Prepathon 2025 a Must-Attend Event
Prepathon is built for operators who need results before BFCM, not theory six months from now. The agenda focuses on the pressure points that actually move revenue and protect margins when traffic spikes. Expect field-tested playbooks, live teardowns, and Q&A with practitioners who have shipped at scale.
Explore the Agenda: Key Themes from AI to Gen Z Trends
Here is how the program maps to the problems you are solving right now, with over 15 experts, including leaders from Google, guiding interactive sessions.
- Website speed and UX: Tactics to cut load times, reduce render blocking, and streamline PDPs and checkout. Mobile-first sessions show how to shave taps and remove cognitive load, which lifts conversion on TikTok and Instagram traffic.
- Revenue growth and CRO: Frameworks for improving product discovery, bundling, and AOV. Expect live examples of funnel fixes you can ship in a week.
- AI for SMBs: Practical workflows, from predictive segments and dynamic merchandising to automated creative briefs and support deflection. If you want a snapshot of what is working now, see the top AI use cases in eCommerce for 2025.
- SEO and content: Search strategies tuned for short-form discovery and zero-click answers, plus how to align PDP content with high-intent queries without killing UX.
- Security and payments: Fraud rules that reduce false declines, better SCA flows, and payment routing to improve approval rates during peak minutes.
- Social commerce: Turning short-video awareness into cart sessions, optimizing product feeds, and using creators to validate offers.
- Gen Z and Gen Alpha trends: Sessions unpack how younger shoppers decide, what “fast trust” looks like, and which signals actually increase purchase intent. For more context on values and spending behavior, review these Gen Z retail and ecommerce insights.
- Sustainability and ethics: How to present impact data without hurting conversion, and where sustainability messaging helps AOV instead of distracting from it.
- Voice interfaces: Practical voice search optimization and conversational UX patterns that shorten the path to purchase.
Bottom line, each theme addresses a real pain: slow pages bleeding sessions, paid CAC rising, organic visibility shifting to social, payment friction, fraud risk, and the need to personalize without creeping out customers.
Meet the Speakers and Interactive Sessions
You will hear from seasoned operators, platform insiders, and tech partners who ship at scale. The format favors interaction so you leave with a checklist, not a wishlist.
- Expert panels: Converting “scrolls to sales” with shoppable video, creators, and UGC attribution. AI for decision support, from forecasting to pricing and email send-time optimization.
- Breakout rooms: Niche deep dives on PDP speed, attribution trade-offs, LTV modeling, and high-intent SEO. Ask your edge-case questions and get direct feedback.
- Roundtables: Founder-to-founder sessions on BFCM team prep, offer architecture, and margin protection when discount pressure peaks.
- Partner booths: Quick tours, live demos, and stack recommendations you can test the same week.
Practical takeaways you can expect:
- A prioritized speed and UX punch list you can implement in 10 to 14 days.
- A social-to-cart playbook with creator briefs, landing patterns, and measurement.
- AI starters, including segments, prompts, and workflows that free up 5 to 10 hours per week.
- A BFCM fraud and payments checklist to protect approval rates and reduce chargebacks.
How Prepathon Helps You Win the Next Generation of Shoppers
Prepathon was built for the shift that is already here. Younger buyers find products on social first, expect mobile to do the heavy lifting, and reward brands that feel personal. Sessions are designed to move you from isolated funnel fixes to a connected experience that blends content, community, and checkout. You will walk away with AI-powered insights, conversion tactics, and loyalty plays that translate into revenue in weeks, not quarters.
Strategies to Capture Gen Z and Gen Alpha Buyers
The fastest path to growth is to meet younger shoppers where they already spend time and reduce friction at every step. Recent studies show that most Gen Z shoppers discover products on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and many use reviews and creator content to validate a purchase. Prepathon sessions focus on embedding commerce into those moments instead of dragging people into a traditional funnel.
- Social-native storefronts: Turn short video into shoppable moments with creator whitelisting, product tagging, and deep links to mobile PDPs. Use UTM discipline and post-click landing patterns that match the content, not generic PDPs.
- Frictionless mobile buying: Compress taps, prefill forms, and prioritize wallet payments. Add BNPL where AOV justifies it. Aim for sub 3-second page loads, clean image delivery, and tap-friendly CTAs.
- Real-time personalization: Use behavior signals from the last session, not last month. Trigger dynamic bundles, social proof, and low-friction offers based on scroll depth, referrer, and time-on-page. The goal is fast trust, not heavy profiling.
- Integrated experiences, not just optimized checkouts: Stitch content, chat, and checkout so shoppers never feel a handoff. Think creator video, in-line FAQs, and one-tap purchase, all in one view.
- Social commerce and voice tips: Treat comments as intent data. Answer common objections with pinned replies and micro-FAQs. Optimize for voice queries like “best hoodie under $60 near me” with clean product titles, Q&A content, and local inventory fields.
Your action list for the next 14 days:
- Map your top 5 creator posts to matching mobile landers with wallet-first checkout.
- Add real-time segments that trigger dynamic offers for social traffic.
- Tighten PDP titles, Q&A, and schema to match voice queries and short-form search phrases.
Use AI and Automation for Smarter Ecommerce Growth
AI is now operator-grade. The brands pulling ahead use it for decision support, faster creative, and high-precision CRO. Prepathon sessions go deep on practical workflows you can deploy immediately, with clear guardrails.
- AI for marketing that prints time: Generate creator briefs, headlines, and hooks that mirror winning posts. Build predictive segments for first-purchase products, discount sensitivity, and churn risk. Expect a lift in CTR and a reduction in wasted impressions.
- Automation that pays for itself: Automate merchandising rules, feed hygiene, and back-in-stock logic tied to contribution margin, not just velocity. Route tickets with AI-assisted replies for status, returns, and FAQs, then escalate the edge cases to humans.
- Million-dollar strategy frameworks: Pair AI insights with a weekly decision cadence. For example, use anomaly detection on PDP conversion, roll changes on Tuesday, and measure impact by Friday. This rhythm compounds.
- Ethical AI and transparency: Be clear when content is AI-assisted. Avoid dark patterns and bias loops by reviewing model outputs weekly. Simple rule, if you would not say it to a customer live, do not ship it in an automated flow.
- Post-purchase and CRO deep dives: Trigger education sequences, usage nudges, and UGC requests based on product type and delivery status. Test offer depth by cohort, not across the whole list. Small CRO gains at high-traffic moments add up fast.
Quick wins you can implement this week:
- Create 3 predictive segments and feed them to email, SMS, and paid.
- Ship an AI-assisted FAQ that answers top objections on your highest-traffic PDP.
- Add an automated win-back with a creator-style product use tip and a time-limited wallet-only offer.
Here is the pattern I see consistently. AI-powered insights drive better decisions, automation frees your team to focus on high-impact work, and conversion mastery at peak moments fuels lifetime loyalty and revenue growth.
Register Now and Maximize Your BFCM Prep
Prepathon 2025 is free, focused, and built for speed. Reserve your seat, sync the dates, and set yourself up to execute faster than your competitors during BFCM. You will join a high-signal crowd of founders, operators, and tech partners who care about real outcomes, not theory. If you want a primer that pairs well with the event, bookmark this guide to build a winning BFCM strategy.
Step-by-Step: How to Join and What’s Next
Here is the fast path to get in, get value, and keep momentum after the event.
- Register in minutes
- Hit the registration link, add your name, email, and company.
- Choose your role so sessions and reminders match your needs.
- Add Sep 30 to Oct 2 to your calendar. Set a 10-minute buffer before each session for prep.
- Confirm your seat and set alerts
- You will get a confirmation email with your unique access link.
- Add SMS or Slack reminders if you tend to miss webinars. Treat this like a live workshop.
- Know the format so you plan your time
- Daily structure: short keynotes, tactical panels, interactive breakouts, and partner demos.
- Focus areas: site speed and UX, CRO and AOV lifts, AI workflows, payments and fraud, social-to-cart, and post-purchase retention.
- Engagement: live Q&A, quick teardowns, and polls to surface your biggest blockers.
- Co-marketing and community benefits
- Meet partners and peers in virtual booths and roundtables. Swap playbooks and compare stack notes.
- Join campaigns that extend beyond the event, like creator collabs, shared webinars, and bundle promos. Bring a clear value prop and a one-pager.
- This is a community, not a vendor parade. Expect candid conversations and practical intros.
- Post-event access and action plan
- All registrants get access to session recordings, slides, and toolkits.
- You will also receive a prioritized BFCM checklist and a resource bundle you can share with your team.
- Block 60 minutes after the event to choose three actions to deploy within two weeks.
Pro tip: Invite your developer, marketer, and CX lead. When teams hear the same guidance, execution speeds up and outcomes stick.
Guaranteed Takeaways!
Prepathon 2025 is the right prep window to turn plans into profit. You will get expert insights, practical playbooks for BFCM execution, and a clear view of what is coming next, from social-first discovery to AI-driven personalization. The sessions map to what actually moves numbers, not theory.
It is three focused days, 100 percent free, and powered by our partnership with Cloudways. You will leave with a prioritized checklist, AI starters, and retention moves that work beyond the holiday spike. Block the time, bring your team, and align on a plan you can ship in two weeks.
