You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who knows more about marketplaces than Sean Walsh, Director at Pattern Australia. Pattern isn’t just a global ecommerce accelerator—it’s Amazon’s largest third-party seller globally, helping brands like Thankyou, Coco & Eve, Evo Hair, Bellroy and Quad Lock navigate the chaos and complexity of online marketplaces with surgical precision. They do it through proprietary tech, global fulfilment power, and a local team that’s just as obsessed with conversion as it is with cause-led brands. In this Checkout chat, Sean gives us a look under the hood—from the brands that genuinely inspire him, to the tech that drives global growth, and the systems thinking that’s helping him tackle today’s ecommerce challenges.
When Purpose Is More Than a Marketing Line
When asked which retailer has impressed him most recently, Sean was quick to answer: Thankyou. Not only are they one of Pattern’s clients, Sean is constantly impressed with how their mission runs deep and drives every decision. “They are a profit for purpose,” he said. “So their mission and why they’re selling products to consumers is around ending extreme poverty. I think that’s just a no-brainer, like it’s so inspirational.”
What stands out isn’t just the ambition, but the follow-through: “I think they define someone living in extreme poverty as someone living on $2.15 or $2.30 a day…and it’s around 700 million people.” Sean was quick to point out that they’re not just purpose-led on paper. “They’re really, really inspirational to work with. I think they’ve donated 20 million, almost 20 million in their time. Amazing product people as well.”
With Pattern running Thankyou’s entire ecommerce operation, from site to fulfillment, the admiration clearly goes both ways.
The Tech That Powers Trust and Transparency
While most ecommerce leaders would name a martech stack or productivity app as their most essential tech, Sean has a different answer: Pattern’s own proprietary platform. “I’m going be biased here and say that it’s the tech that we use,” he said. “We are very much a build over buy business… since the business started.”
Pattern clients benefit directly from the platform’s capabilities. “What I like about it is the tech that we have access to, brands we partner with, they get access to it as well,” Sean explained. “So it’s not this black box stuff, kind of like you get with advertising platforms where it’s like, ‘this is what you need to spend, but we’re not going to tell you how it’s going to work’.”
That transparency has become a cornerstone of Pattern’s success: “It’s literally, this is what you spent it on. This is why it worked. This is why you need to think about your incrementality over here. It’s very much an open ecosystem.”
Audiobooks and Systems Thinking
With a career built on data and strategy, it’s no surprise Sean has a sharp reading list. But recently he’s swapped out hard copy for podcasts, audiobooks and structured reading lists. “I used to be so good at reading books….I’ve fallen off since I’ve had kids,” he laughed. “So I don’t read as much as I used to, but podcasts are something.”
Over the Christmas break, Sean found inspiration in a curated list by systems expert Ben Meer. “Posted something around these 12 books are the equivalent of an MBA. So I don’t have an MBA, he’s got one from Cornell. So I’ll trust his advice on something that might be close to an MBA.”The list spans strategy, finance, operations and negotiation. “There’s Zero to One, Peter Thiel, there’s The Lean Startup, there’s some financial books… there’s one around negotiating from a FBI.” He’s referring to Never Split the Difference, a favourite among ecommerce founders. “I’m getting through those audiobooks at moment,” Sean added.
One Shared Goal, Many Shared Challenges
Sean sees Pattern’s work as a partnership. That mindset shapes how he thinks about challenges too: their client’s challenges are their own. “I wouldn’t say there’s one challenge…I think in the environment we’re in now, the challenges today might be very different tomorrow.”
Rather than listing internal frustrations, Sean pointed straight to the realities of modern ecommerce. “Our biggest challenge, given our model, is dependent on our partners’ biggest challenge,” he explained. “So if their biggest challenge is how do I get product to the U.S.? That becomes our biggest challenge for that partner. If theirs is how do I get more contribution margin from this channel? That’s our biggest challenge.”
One consistent thread across all of them? Inefficient ad spend. “Solving advertising inefficiencies, that seems to be quite a bit of a constant,” he said. And as Amazon takes a bigger slice of online shopping, that challenge isn’t going away anytime soon.
Systems, Strategy and Playing the Long Game
What sets Sean Walsh apart isn’t just his marketplace expertise. It’s the way he thinks. He doesn’t get distracted by trends or shortcuts. Instead, Sean is laser-focused on compounding value over time: for customers, for brands, and for his own team. His insights reveal a deep understanding that great ecommerce is never just about sales. It’s about purpose, process, and platforms that genuinely support long-term growth.
In a world where so many brands are chasing the next product drop or channel hack, Sean reminds us to zoom out. “The challenges today might be very different tomorrow,” he says. But with the right systems and partnerships in place, that’s not something to fear. It’s something to prepare for.
Want more from Sean? Listen to the full checkout episode here.
The Checkout is a short snippet of our conversations.
