Scalability & Innovation: Future-Proofing Your Shopify-Centric Stack

Speaker A: Welcome back to the final part for now of um, master your toolkit with Shopify and with Dot Digital as usual. I'm your host Rowan Smith from UE and and I'm joined once again by Yael and Niels from Shopify and Dot Digital respectively. Thank you very much, guys. Yael, if I can just come back to yourself to start off with. For anyone who is tuning in right at the end of this, could you give us a very quick who you are and what you do.

Speaker B: Hi, I'm Yael. Uh, I'm a partner solutions engineer at Shopify. I'm covering the EMEA region, so working with partners, agencies, tech partners to leverage Shopify as a commerce platform in Nurse Talk.

Speaker A: Thank you. And um, Nils, yourself. Hey, yeah.

Speaker C: My name is Niels, partnership manager at Dot Digital, focusing on agencies, service partners and making sure that they know everything about our products so that they can help customers more efficiently with their personalization and marketing automation efforts.

Speaker A: Which is exactly what we're here to do today. So we're going to do an exciting bit to wrap up. We are talking about scalability and innovation, future proofing your stack, whether you are on Shopify or considering moving there. I think the scalability piece. We spoke a little bit at the start about the impact of seasonal events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday. But can you share some insights on what Shopify has done and is doing to make sure that people who invest in a Shopify centric stack are scalable, that their web environment isn't going to disappear when everybody logs on at the end of November?

Speaker B: So Shopify, if you go and use the entire platform as opposed to other legacy platforms, you do not need to take care of hosting, security, performance. Shopify has that and our infrastructure is covered in over 300 places in the world. So it knows how to monitor exactly where the customer is logging in from and um, provide the correct bandwidth and um, stretch it as much as it needs. And um, not only our checkup is really the best checkout there is and it's very performant. Shopify checkout can handle per minute over 40,000 checkout ones. And during high season high events of merchants, we know how to also extend that and support that according to need. We work closely with our merchants, we anticipate these things and we make sure they're covered. One of our big merchants, gymshark, was on Shopify and at some point they moved over to one of the other legacy platforms. It took one Black Friday Cyber Monday where their store crashed to come back to Shopify and stay At a ever since. So I think that also speaks quite

Speaker A: loud, especially if you're a highly seasonal business. So much of your revenue being reliant on a certain time of the year. You can't allow lapses like that, I guess, from the digital side as well. Niels, how are you enabling this kind of scalability for your customers for the future? Does that come down to easier access to data through platforms like Shopify or making sure that you can handle the right load of that data?

Speaker C: This scalability piece in particular? Yeah, there's a number of things we do. So first of all, with the peak sort of days or periods that we just discussed, for us, that's very much about deliverability. So making sure that we can actually send out those volumes in one go, which is monitored extremely closely by the team. And so all of these peak periods will make sure that we ramp up, that we make sure everything is in place to send out those kind of volumes. But the other piece is the plans that we have available to customers. We talk about starting small but scaling quickly. And that's very much what we've been seeing over the past couple of years with merchants needing to just get going, but then once they're established, making sure that they can scale up if and when they need to. So that results in our platform into additional channels that you can bolt on to the ones that you're already using. But it's also more flexibility with APIs, the load of data that we can process within the platform, the number of data fields, the number of integrations that we have, et cetera. So there's quite a few sort of things in place to make sure that

Speaker A: we can help merchants grow on that channel perspective. We've talked about unified commerce a fair bit in previous sections. Where do you see the future of channel management in marketing, leveraging platforms like Shopify for your clients on digital?

Speaker C: Yeah, there's a lot happening. And I think one of the things is more the conversational marketing. So that's very much what we're seeing at the moment. Social commerce has been mentioned earlier as well. That's a big development. So I think for us, like the conversational part is there, it's making sure that we can actually support customers through WhatsApp, through live chat, and make sure that we're there in case they like to talk to us, they like to speed things along rather than having to wait, et cetera. So that's where things are heading from the marketing automation point of view and from a personalization point of view. It's very much about showing uh, the right content at the right time on the right channel. We've used that for so long. But I feel like it's becoming more and more relevant actually as you get along.

Speaker A: It's certainly still correct. And Yael to yourself on this as well. What are you seeing from a platform perspective on Shopify that's really enabling your customers and your brands to get ready for the future? What's obviously there may be things that you can't share, but what are you excited about coming up in the e commerce market soon?

Speaker B: I think I want to take it to the developer workflow life because I think brands are understanding, they need to focus on what they do right. So they need to focus on their brand awareness, on growing the brand on those initiatives. And I think where what we understand is that we also need to help those developers, those agencies working together with these grants to get their infrastructure right and to build those technical roadmaps with them. And I think that's where I'm excited about because Shopify is investing a lot in developer workflows, making the APIs even better. We focus now a lot on our uh, GraphQL APIs, so making it even better to create those API calls and queries for developers. That's one thing to note. We're seeing the excitement in the developer ecosystem of wanting to work with a platform like Shopify or like the cool kids in town because uh, technology is there and they're happy to work with it. And I think for even agencies like yourselves, developers are more excited to come on and work on a Shopify project rather than other projects of just keeping up the light so they can innovate and they can create on top of it.

Speaker A: And ah, that's got to be exciting for brands as well, right? That if you're able to attract the best people and you're able to work with the most innovative developers and the most creative minds in the industry because of what they're able to do with a platform rather than being maybe held back by a legacy.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Okay. And just on that API line, niels for yourself, what advantages for the future does an API first approach like that between Shopify and digital bring for your customers?

Speaker C: It means super fast access to the data of your end customer. Right. And being able to use straight away. I think everything we discussed today, like that's powered by Data and yeah, APIs are going to help out NASA delete with anything that you want to do as a brand in a way that you want to grow and all of the personalization tactics that you want to

Speaker A: apply and bringing away from the not limiting what you're able to do for the future as well, that you're not having to unpick years upon years of work to add something new there. Definitely, if I can as well, just to keep it on the digital side for future proofing. Not just the stack, but also the decision making. How are you seeing predictive analytics being used to get ahead of customer behavior rather than just responding to it?

Speaker C: A good question. And I think the tools are there, but I think is making it a part of your marketing strategy and your tactics. That's, I think the stage we're in right now and I think it can be tricking, it can be overwhelming because you've got all that data available, it's right there at your fingertips. But uh, it's making sure that you set up all of the campaigns, all of the automated programs for it. And I think this ties into your strategy. So it's like taking a step back, looking at how you want to serve your customer experience, but also look at the quick wins for your customer from their point of view. So again, keeping that customer centric and uh, making sure that you take the steps needed to get there. Because it's one thing having that data available to you, but it's another thing being able to use it to your advantage and making sure that you combine it with the right type of communication and the right messaging.

Speaker A: I just want to cut back a couple of points, if I can, to the gymshark example. So we have a point there about a more legacy or more monolithic platform that can let you down at the wrong time. How do you balance uh, with your brands, driving forward more cutting edge innovations and introducing new features for scaling your platform for the future versus making sure that the lights stay on, that you still got that operational stability?

Speaker B: Yeah. So I think the great thing is that when you start working with ShopSight, you don't have to take everything. You can start with something and scale and introduce more features and capabilities. I think. And um, quite rightly, brands today are hesitant to a platform because they're not sure what they're going to get and how it's going to perform. What we're seeing is, okay, let's start with Shopify checkouts, see the conversion, let's see the stability, let's see that it actually works. And then it's easier to start shifting and changing other pieces of the puzzle step by step. We also have lots of tools in place to monitor these things. Right. To see what's impacting your site, what's impacting your performance, where optimizations can be made, what systems might be hurting that performance. So it's not like a cold turkey type of thing. We want to give brands, developers, the power to monitor, to make changes. But I think that trust is gained once you see the impact of the checkout, the performance, the reliability. And I think the reason why Shopify put so much investment there is because we know that's the livelihood of the business. Right. Downtime is crucial. Even just one minute of downtime for a business can not only lose lots of sales, but lose customers forever.

Speaker A: Definitely. And, um, Nils, if I can come back to yourself as well, just more on this. If what we're seeing from the Shopify side is trying to build stability but also driving features for brands for the future, how are digital helping Shopify merchants also prepare for the future? What's up and coming that you're excited about?

Speaker C: It's a lot. We've already touched on quite a few of them. Right. And I think we're approaching things from

Speaker A: a more modular point of view.

Speaker C: Nowadays. It is a lot easier, easier, I think, for merchants to mature along the way. So without having to buy into everything at once, you can just start with the things that mattered to your customers right now or the things that you're able to pick up right now and then grow. And I think some of the things that, uh, we're excited about is ways of bringing together more data within our platform and turning that into insights. So we talked today a little bit about unified commerce, regardless of where a product is purchased, making sure that we put that together into a single customer review, and that returns insights to marketing teams to leverage. And then the other piece is addition of channels. So we know that email is probably not the only channel that matters. Right. And we've moved on. And that's a good thing, I think.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, the addition of additional channels like conversational messaging that we talked about before, that is quite an exciting addition to the platform as well. And then obviously the personalization piece to things being able to personalize from that first touch point onwards and then extending that into the channels available to you in our platform.

Speaker A: That's huge. Fantastic. Thank you very much, both of you. Just to wrap up, because we are at the end of this first version of your toolkit with Shopify and Digital via ue, we always close these things in the same way. And I'd like to come to closing remarks. Yael, for yourself, for anybody who's Listening along to this today or is choosing to watch along with the live version, what would you want the one take home message to be for that brand of how you should master your Shopify centric stack?

Speaker B: I think that would be to remember that Shopify is your commerce engine. We will be there to create that innovation, to be one step ahead of the game in terms of trends and features that you as a commerce business needs so that you can focus on what really matters for your brand, which is growing your brand, growing your customers, creating that retention and innovating on that piece. We will make sure to innovate on the commerce piece there for you in terms of technology and I think that's uh, what I like. Whoever's listening, take a look.

Speaker A: Perfect. Fantastic. Thank you very much. And niels to yourself, how can Digital help a Shopify merchant or a prospective Shopify merchant get the most out of their E commerce?

Speaker C: Sure, we talked about a lot today but I think key in current times like acquisition is expensive. So start treating your customers right. And I think that starts by using all of that super valuable data that Shopify gathers, uh, on customer level, start using that to your benefit and make sure that you start thinking about the value that you bring to your customers rather than the products that you can push to your customers. And I think that's just a bit of a mindset change that needs to happen. More focus on loyalty, more focus on retention. But yeah, taking a customer centric approach with all that data.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Thank you very much both of you for joining us. And that is all we have time for, I'm um, afraid. Thank you very much for tuning in or for listening back to master your toolkit with yui. We have been joined by Shopify and Digital for this first version. If you would like to know more about how to master your toolkit on Shopify, how to get the most out of your marketing automation with Dot Digital, or how to put together the right business strategy to make sure that you make the smart decisions on which stack to go forward with. Make sure to get in touch. We will be back with further toolkits to master in the future and we're always looking for more questions on these as well. So if you do have any questions out of what you've listened today, anything you'd like more clarity on or if you'd like to know more about Shopify, Huey or digital, make sure to get in touch. Thank you very much indeed.