Friday
Arrive and land
Shuttles from the airport, a welcome kit, and a name tag that lists your store and your number-one problem. Long-table dinner with your crew, then Crew Fires: one true story each around your own fire. There will be hugs.
Spring 2027 · The Horse Shoe Farm · Asheville, NC
72 Shopify merchants. One private estate. Two nights that change your store.
CommerceRetreat is the anti-conference. No booths, no badges, no pitches. You leave with one change shipped to your store and a crew of merchants you'll keep for years.
72 seats. Applications reviewed for fit.
CommerceRetreat 2027 is a 72-person retreat for Shopify merchants doing $1M to $10M, held in Spring 2027 at The Horse Shoe Farm, a private estate near Asheville, North Carolina. Hosted by Jay Myers of the Shopify1Percent podcast, it replaces conference keynotes with live store teardowns, merchant crews, and one committed change per attendee. Tickets are all-inclusive and admission is by application.
Why this exists
Another conference won't fix your store.
You've done the big ecommerce conference. 800 people, a sponsor floor, a keynote you forgot by baggage claim, and a notebook full of theory with nothing to show for it Monday morning.
And the great operator communities? Most gate at high seven figures, and none of them were built Shopify-first. If you're running a store between $1M and $10M, there's no room that's truly yours.
We got tired of waiting for someone to build it. So we are.
72
merchants, curated for fit. Not 800 strangers.
100%
of the estate is ours. No outsiders, no badge scanning.
1
change shipped to your store within 30 days. That's the whole point.
Presented by Shopify1Percent
Your host
I've spent 25 years on your side of the dashboard.
I'm Jay Myers. I've run online stores since 1998 and moved to Shopify in 2009. In 2012 I co-founded Bold Commerce, where we built the first upsell app ever on Shopify, then the first product options, subscriptions, and memberships apps. At our peak we had 32 apps and were the largest Shopify App Partner in the world.
These days I host Shopify1Percent, where over 100,000 subscribers get one practical improvement per episode. No fluff, no theory, just what's working in real stores right now.
But CommerceRetreat isn't about me. The room is the product. Seventy-two sharp merchants, hand-matched into crews, solving each other's real problems around real fires. My job is to get the right people on the property and get out of the way.
How it works
Three steps. That's it.
1
Apply
Five minutes. Tell us about your store, your revenue band, and the number-one thing you're trying to fix.
2
Meet your crew
If accepted, you're matched into a crew of 8 to 10 merchants. You'll meet on a call two weeks before, study each other's stores, and arrive as old friends.
3
Leave 1% better
You'll write down the one change you're making, say it out loud to your crew, and get on a call 30 days later to prove you shipped it.
The weekend
Two nights, built to breathe.
One big content morning, wrapped in food, fires, and enough unscheduled time to actually get to know people. Optional early mornings. Never mandatory anything.
Saturday
The engine
A live Shopify1Percent episode with a headliner guest. Teardown Theatre, where real attendee stores get rebuilt on the big screen. Crew work, an afternoon adventure, an operator roundtable on the mic, and a game show built from the room's own survey answers, paired with a bourbon tasting.
Sunday
Lock it in
Steal This: all 72 people share one tactic that's working right now. Then the 1% Commitment, the group photo, and a farewell brunch with long goodbyes.
Not your usual sessions
The parts people will talk about all year.
Teardown Theatre
Real attendee stores on the big screen, pulled apart and rebuilt live by Jay, a guest expert, and the whole room.
Two live episodes
A headliner interview and an operator roundtable, recorded live with you in the room.
Crew Fires
One fire per crew. One true story each. No mics, no polish. This is where the friendships happen.
Merchant Feud
Crew versus crew game show built from the room's own survey data, with a local bourbon flight alongside.
The Mystery Product
A random product from someone's store on every dinner table. Ten domains on a card. Argue, vote, reveal at dessert.
The Swap Table
Bring units of your product, leave with a bag of everyone else's. The best swag bag in event history.
The venue
We bought out the whole farm.
CommerceRetreat takes over The Horse Shoe Farm, an 85-acre riverfront estate on the French Broad, 20 minutes from the Asheville airport. Every home, cottage, and suite on the property is ours. Farm-to-table dinners at the Silo Cookhouse, a pool and hot tub with a Blue Ridge view, pickleball on the lawns, a game room in the Farmhouse, and a spa in a renovated barn if that's your thing.
You'll also meet Nelson and Marley, the resident sheep. They don't do teardowns, but they're excellent listeners.
Photos: The Horse Shoe Farm.
Who's in the room
72 seats. Curated on purpose.
This room is built for Shopify merchants doing roughly $1M to $10M, with a handful above and below when it makes the room better. Operators only. No agencies trawling for clients, no vendor booths, and any partners in the room attend as peers, capped hard.
We're looking for the right mix of brands, categories, and stages, which means not everyone gets in year one. That's not a velvet rope thing. A room like this only works if every single person in it can teach you something.
Casual is mandated. No suits, no pitch decks, leave the sales hat at home.
The ticket
One price. Everything handled.
Founding Merchant
$1,795
first 30 seats
Standard
$2,195
- Two nights on the estate
- Every meal and every drink, welcome dinner to farewell brunch
- All sessions, games, and the Saturday adventure
- Airport shuttles from AVL
- The swap bag: products from every store in the room
- The printed yearbook, mailed to your door
- Your crew, long after the weekend ends
For context: big conference tickets run $450 to $750 before you've paid for a hotel, three dinners, and a ride home every night. This is the entire weekend, handled, with the whole property to ourselves.
Questions
FAQ
Spring 2027, Friday afternoon to Sunday noon. Applicants get the exact dates first.
The room is small on purpose.
72 Shopify merchants, one estate, and one change that pays for the trip. Or another year of notebooks.
Applications reviewed for fit. Not everyone gets in year one.