Josh Andrews

Custom stacks can lead to two very real problems: depending on custom development and increased tech debt. Combined, your pace slows and ultimately, your trade-off is innovation and growth. That’s why Mejuri went from a fully custom stack to Shopify. Before Shopify, Mejuri was on an entirely custom stack: custom ecommerce, payments service, and middleware that was built to connect their custom ecommerce site to their point of sale system [POS]. This led to a ton of challenges. They were spending too much time building and maintaining 3rd party integrations to coordinate channels, data, and functionality between systems. With limited resources and team members, the trade-off of building custom features was they were not able to address their mounting technical debt. Addressing those issues in-house, slowed down their pace of innovation making them unable to deploy features as fast as they needed to. That’s the ‘invisible’ cost component with a custom stack. You spend an inordinate amount of time building custom features at the cost of innovation. Brands can avoid that with Shopify. Shopify is a natively unified ecommerce and POS system so everything just works together really really well. It doesn’t require middleware or integrations. Your customer, order, and product data flows to both channels from a single source of truth. It’s simpler and allows you to move faster. Hear about from Mejuri yourself. Rohit Nathany, the Chief Digital Officer sat down with us to talk about the pain points they faced on a custom stack. As Rohit says, what better way to simplify than to have a unified ecommerce and POS solution? See the full interview here: https://lnkd.in/eyCSdVgf

474

24 Comments

Fun fact: 2% of customers on Shopify make a mistake at checkout and contact customer service asking for help. For this Canadian jewellery brand that has shipped over 300,000 orders since launching with us, that's a LOT of support tickets. To be exact, Order Editing has self-serviced 6,443 customer support tickets since launch. If it takes 4 minutes to solve a support ticket, that's 429 hours of customer service work we'ves saved them. 429 HOURS in 60-days. To do some quick math for you: ✅ 10k orders / month = 13 hours spent editing orders. ✅ 20k orders / month = 26 hours spent editing orders. ✅ 40k orders / month = 52 hours spent editing orders. ✅ 80k orders / month = 104 hours spent editing orders. How do I know that 2% of customers make a mistake at checkout? I used to be head of customer experience for a Shopify brand doing $40M GMV, I have felt this pain. And, acrosss every store we work with, at least 2.06% of all customers edit their orders. Michael Ludwig, am I right about the 2% fact? #Shopify #Ecommerce #Customerexperience

47

14 Comments

Businesses that invest in reliability are standing out this holiday season. But notably, Shopify. BFCM was one of the most reliable days out of the past several we’ve seen. There were no headline worthy outages, and it was larger than previous years. Shopify was processing over 7 terabytes of logs per minute at peak. Businesses (like Shopify) are investing more in software reliability. Not as a side project, but as a core business function. They understand that reliability is money. You don’t handle 170 million requests per minute on accident. Reliability has become a massive moat for businesses. I’d wager Shopfiy includes a note about their incredible BFCM reliability in their next earnings release. Source: https://lnkd.in/er3cAzRg

27

2 Comments

We wrangled our whole team to Ottawa to celebrate Downpay's 2 year anniversary 😭 I can't believe how far we've come. Downpay's first year was Denis and I figuring out our MVP and finding the core problem we wanted to solve. In August of 2023, we publicly launched Downpay on the Shopify App Store. Fast forward to today and it's insane how far we've come. ✨ 6+ team members have helped... ✨ 800+ Shopify Brands process... ✨ $40M+ extra GMV with partial and deferred payments. 😍 Not to mention metrics I'd never thought I'd see in my #productmanagement career. ⭐️ + 47% checkout conversion ⭐️ + 25% AOV bumps ⭐️ + 30% increase in online sales ⭐️ Millions in GMV processed in less than a day, TWICE I'm so incredibly lucky to be on this journey with all these amazing humans who have the best laughing faces. Denis Zgonjanin Ian Kelly Brittney Oberfeld Jeremy Hanson-Finger Alain Achkar BFCM, Holiday season, 2025, we're here for it! 💪🏻 Let's go. 🚀 #shopify #startup

160

16 Comments

Want to hear what customers think of FERMÀT? We got to chat with Maximilien Langlois, Head of Growth at Dose on today’s FERMÀT Friday podcast. Dose is a DTC wellness brand that needed help increasing its subscription orders from ad traffic. Here's how it's going... Dose built a FERMÀT funnel that drove faster first-order subscriptions than their existing post-click experience—from day 1 of implementation. How? From ad to cart, Dose is telling the story of what building a daily routine with their wellness shots looks like for customers. That routine is then tied to subscribing, which the funnel artfully serves as a solution throughout the entire customer journey. Because the funnel is easy to experiment with, Max and his team can find winning combinations quicker than they can on their site. Efficiency metrics are also super visible, so he can read the data quickly. As a result, Max told us he doesn't mind a higher CPA on an ad that directs to FERMÀT because the subscription take rate is so much higher. These conversations are so valuable to me. When your customers are super smart, you learn new things about your own product by talking to them. Take a look at the full episode to learn more from Max:   https://lnkd.in/gtZRvENf

14

4 Comments

Next year, Lightspeed Commerce will exit its teenage years and turn 20. What does that maturity mean? For me, it’s all about shifting from simply a growth mindset to one of profitability. I sat down with Gus Papageorgiou, our Head of Investor Relations and host of the Inside Lightspeed podcast, to discuss this cultural shift, where we’re heading, and how my role as CEO will guide this moving forward. When Lightspeed first started, we were all about seizing opportunities — whether it was moving to the cloud early on, expanding into new markets, or launching payments. These bold moves have driven us to where we are today. Now, as we approach this new chapter, we're putting an emphasis on: - Doubling down on areas where we can truly excel and deliver the most value to our customers. - Making profitability our new North Star and ensuring that every move strengthens our foundation. - Staying true to our core mission: helping SMBs thrive. But now, we’re doing it with a sharper focus on long-term success. Had a great time reflecting on Lightspeed’s past, as well as discussing our vision for the future. Check out the full podcast here: https://lnkd.in/gF3vG-Qn

124

8 Comments

Shopify showed the world that simplifying something complex can generate $8B in annual revenue. Here’s how I’m bringing that lesson to the company I co-founded: When Shopify started, they were turned down by almost all VCs - The market was deemed way too small.    What those VCs missed - Shopify was creating its own market. The VCs didn’t see this because they were only looking at existing markets. Now, Shopify is closing in on $8B annual revenue. “Market sizing gets much larger as friction is removed.” Tobi Lütke, co-founder and CEO of Shopify. Because taking something complex, making it simple, and inviting new players into the e-commerce space. Expanding the market size… This is essentially what we’re trying to do with private market investing at Stableton. Private companies that have reached the growth equity or pre-IPO phase are typically fast-growing, well-funded, often profitable and can provide strong returns to investors. The problem: It is out of reach for most investors, including banks and wealth managers. And even here, most of them typically only participate in primary funding rounds. The only way to invest is by participating in secondary transactions, which are complex deals many investors are unaware of. We’re taking this complex problem and making it simple. We’ve built a portfolio of the Top 20 pre-IPO tech companies by making 50-100 secondary transactions per year. As the go-to partner for pre-IPO investing, we can enable financial firms and their end clients to participate and subscribe to this portfolio, much like an ETF. This way, they get exposure to some of the most attractive private assets without ever engaging in a single secondary trade. From complex to simple. Want to learn more? Check out Stableton’s Navigator newsletter for the latest investing trends and insights: https://lnkd.in/eBE5GxAK #secondaries #innovation #growthequity

37

9 Comments

Do you ever look back and appreciate what your team has done? We're at our company offsite this week in Canada, and I pulled a few slides to share what our Marketing team has accomplished since our last offsite. I was 🤯 with how much we've done. Here are a few highlights: 🚀 Product launches 20+, and it doesn't include fixes and small upgrades 🖥 Website 3 versions of our homepage in this period + rebranded our entire site. 📂 Templates SEO-optimized our 400+ templates, including those made by our community, so they get more traffic, sell more templates, and make more money. 👩‍💻 Experts 5,000+ freelancers and agencies use Glide to deliver custom software to clients. Our program keeps getting bigger and better! 👩‍🏫 Education 1,300+ have completed at least one of our 3 Glide Certifications. Spoiler: we have a new AI certification going live next week! ✍ Content Our blog, The Column, is often praised for content quality. It's a must-read if you want to roll out software successfully at your company. 📹 Video Last year, we decided to double down on video, and it paid off. Our YouTube channel is the best in the industry, and we're coming for LinkedIn video now. 🎉 Events 30+ virtual events for businesses, freelancers, and partners. We always get 4.5+ out of 5 in all our events! I'm in awe of my team every day, and I make sure they know it. PS: If you want to learn about any of these specific initiatives, just comment, and I'll write a more detailed post about them.

27

10 Comments

Who better to talk about Shopify's trajectory and future than Benjamin Lang • OLY.? In our 50th podcast episode, I had an extremely interesting conversation with Benjamin about a lot of awesome topics that are close to my heart, and I can't be more excited about what's happening in the Shopify ecosystem. For example: • B2B features • From only online commerce to commerce in the more broad sense of the word • The focus on TCO • Customer centricity I'm very grateful I had the chance to talk to Benjamin, and I hope we can do it again some time in the near future as things are moving so fast. Thanks a lot for your time and effort Benjamin! #deardigital #shopify #podcast

21

1 Comment

Interesting watch for anyone in the Shopify & Klaviyo ecosystem. 🎥 At the recent Editions.dev conference in Toronto, Shopify CEO and founder Tobi Lütke & Klaviyo CEO Andrew Bialecki (AB) had a fireside chat discussing learnings, strategies, and challenges scaling up both businesses. 🚀 It was a great experience being at the live event, and the session was recorded for those interested in watching these two eCommerce heavyweights in conversation. Watch the insightful discussion here: https://lnkd.in/duazpj6Z #Shopify #Klaviyo #eCommerce #BusinessInsights #EditionsDev

11

1 Comment

One day I would love to have a sneak peak behind the scenes at Shopify. Who makes all of these servers, updates, integrations work at this huge scale? So much complexity is shielded from us, which is exactly the magic of Shopify. But this "veil of simplicity" spikes my interest to one day have a look behind scenes and understand what is actually going on. Today I was playing around again with metaobjects, metafields, form submissions. It's bunkers how extendible Shopify's data structures are becoming. What happened behind the scenes to make this extensibility work so seamlessly and beautifully? What additional servers had to be spun up? Where are these buildings full of servers located? Who is managing this technological marvel to make it work day to day?

41

5 Comments

We've seen this so many times. Your brand/customers/product is unique, but that doesn't mean you should reinvent the wheel with your commerce/marketing stack experience. When brands choose heavily-customized tech stacks, it usually leads to high implementation & maintenance costs. But more importantly, it makes it difficult to iterate down the line. You'll be stuck with your "custom" ecom site, loyalty program, unique UX for years - while your competitors will blow past you with "out of the box" tools.

12

3 Comments

The Rise of E-commerce: Why Shopify is Leading the Way! 🛒💼 E-commerce is booming, and platforms like Shopify are revolutionizing how businesses operate online. At GOFTECH, we’re excited about the future of e-commerce and how Shopify is making it easier for entrepreneurs to thrive. Here’s why Shopify is a game-changer: 🌟 User-Friendly Interface: Shopify’s intuitive design allows anyone to set up and manage an online store with ease. ⚙️ Customizable Themes: A variety of customizable themes help businesses create a unique and professional online presence. 🔌 Robust Integrations: Shopify seamlessly integrates with numerous apps and tools, enhancing functionality and streamlining operations. 📈 Scalability: As your business grows, Shopify scales with you, offering solutions for small startups to large enterprises. 🔐 Secure and Reliable: Shopify provides top-notch security and reliable performance, ensuring your store runs smoothly and safely. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to take your e-commerce business to the next level, Shopify is the platform of choice. Explore our E-commerce (Shopify) courses at GOFTECH Learning Academy to master this powerful tool. #Ecommerce #Shopify #GOFTECH #OnlineBusiness #TechTrends #BusinessGrowth

7

This is a really cool moment for Novel... We're being spotlighted on the Shopify App Store—chosen as the Shopify Staff Pick! Very thankful to the Shopify Apps Team for showcasing our product. Seeing the impact we've brought to Shopify brands resonate within the platform is extremely rewarding. If this spotlight is the first time you're stumbling upon Novel, here's a quick overview of what we do: Novel creates branded Wallet Passes for Shopify brands that live in the consumer's Apple or Google Wallet. Owning a branded Wallet Pass aims to boost your retention strategy. We've seen results near 12X customer engagement and 10X referral revenue for brands using Wallet Passes. This is accomplished through: ➝ Seamless conversational referrals facilitated by QR code scanning and SMS.  ➝ Native push notifications that are automatically opted into by customers upon installation.  ➝ Location-based push notifications that target customers near retail locations, relevant situations, or competitors.  ➝ A new home for loyalty and tiered rewards, with various integrations so you can use existing programs seamlessly We work with Liquid Death, SwimOutlet.com, and Cometeer, just to name a few, and have many more amazing partnerships to announce soon. If you have any questions about our product or what we do, drop them below or shoot me a DM!

246

16 Comments

There are many more changes (around 200 in total) that Shopify released, but these are the few that stuck out to me as most impactful. To view all my takeaways in one article you can click here - https://lnkd.in/ebCRwEGZ and to see the whole editions, click here - https://lnkd.in/euJt3AgC

4

Deep Pockets Over Party Rounds It's YC demo day in 2 weeks and fundraising around the Summer 24 batch is already at fever pitch. Many founders are experiencing a lot of demand and it's tempting to raise a bunch of money from lots of small checks. I'm biased but if you are lucky enough to have plenty of interest, I suggest you engage those with deep pockets. 1. Most Companies Need More Money. Regardless of your momentum now, most companies end up needing a little more capital to reach the next round. If you've only raised from angel investors, they most likely won't be able to add much more to their position. 2. Term Sheet Minimums. Plenty of lead investors will ask for a minimum amount to be raised for the next round to close and for them to wire the funds. If your cap table has funds who can participate at the later stages, this relieves a lot of the pressure to fundraise beyond securing the term sheet. 3. Investor Network. Most funds are measured by who invests in their companies after they do and at what price. So your fund investors are heavily incentivized to help you fundraise your next round, if they've invested a large enough check. #startups #fundraising

8

Is Shopify's Stock a Buy After its Recent Earnings? Shares of the cloud-based commerce platform, Shopify, are trading higher this morning following the company’s upbeat earnings results. Their strong performance was driven by growth in subscription solutions revenue, which rose from $444 million to $563 million year over year, thanks to more merchants signing up and the increase in pricing on its subscription plans. The company also enjoyed more fees from a metric called "gross payment volume," which measures the total value of orders processed through the payment platform. The increase in revenue helped the company surpass its net income expectations, reflecting significant growth from the same quarter last year when they reported a loss of $1.3 billion. This quarter’s net income came in at $170 million, or 13 cents a share, beating the 8-cent estimates but declining from last quarter’s 26 cents. Nonetheless, Shopify investors found the earnings report to be a positive signal, largely because of the company’s rosy outlook. The company expects its next quarter to grow by about 20-25% from last year, which isn’t magnificent, but it is notable considering the uncertain economic environment. Overall Numbers: Looking at Shopify’s fundamentals as a whole, the company’s current valuation of $85 billion is particularly high compared to its annual revenue of $7.19 billion (2023). Although Shopify’s performance and its ability to beat expectations are impressive, the company needs to continue boosting revenue significantly in the years to come in order to justify its valuation; otherwise, a correction might be due. Net income will also remain a big focus for investors, especially for a technology-based company like Shopify. Technology companies are often forgiven for posting negative net income in the early years of their life, but Shopify is now a seasoned name that should bring more consistency to satisfy investors.

1

2 Comments

Recent news of Bench Accounting, a 13-year old accounting software based in Vancouver, that raised a total of $140m, with $60m in 2021, shutting overnight is a reminder of how VC funding is a high-stakes game. On the outside, things may seem perfectly fine. But many underlying operational difficulties may be hidden beneath "50% y-o-y growth in ARR", etc. until it is no longer sustainable, leading to drastic decisions. #startups #vc

22

🚀 Summer Editions just dropped and it’s another massive release from Shopify! Just in time for editions.dev tomorrow in Toronto. Shopify is rolling out fantastic new features that I’m excited to dive into. 1. Managed Markets (formerly Markets Pro) Duties included in prices, making international sales seamless. This simplifies cross-border transactions for our merchants, enhancing global reach and customer satisfaction. The last nail in the coffin for the managed markets vs Global-e debate! 2. Search and Discovery Enhanced search capabilities allowing merchants to efficiently manage large inventories. We built a store with 1 million SKUs using this feature, demonstrating its robustness. This reduces the need for third-party search solutions, lowering costs and improving site performance. 3. Hydrogen Builder A powerful tool for building customized storefronts while maintaining ease of use for business users. Hydrogen allows us to create highly tailored and powerful storefronts without compromising on user-friendliness. This is a game-changer for merchants looking to enhance their online presence. 4. Automatically Ship to Store & Pickup instore Automatic ship-to-store and store transfers. We are already integrated to import these transfers into WorkMate, our app, and with our API into your ERP or accounting software. This unlocks in-store fulfillment for our merchants some with up to 1,000 stores, significantly unifying their inventory availability. 5. Post-Purchase POS Extensions New extensions for post-purchase processes. Increased extensibility throughout the POS system will enhance the post-purchase experience, driving customer satisfaction and loyalty. One thing we were hoping for a GA release was account extensions GA. Eagerly waiting to use that for some of our massive B2B brands we’re migrating to Shopify this year. Shopify consistently delivers features that unify their platform, ensuring consistent extensibility across all aspects. They are trailblazing the path for the trillion-dollar retail and B2B opportunity, expanding their reach as the leading commerce stack. These advancements just show the value Shopify continues to deliver as a product-led company that improves at a pace no one can compete with. Check out the latest features from Shopify Editions Summer 2024: https://lnkd.in/g4Xqd_pR #Shopify #Ecommerce #TechInnovation #ShopifyPlus #RetailTech #WorkMate #HydrogenBuilder #SearchAndDiscovery #POS #TeifiDigital

34

5 Comments