I ruthlessly unsubscribe from almost all newsletters. Eric’s one of a select few that I look actually forward to opening because it has proven itself consistently valuable for Shopify merchants.
— Kurt Elster, Ecommerce Strategist, founder of Ethercycle, and a top Shopify Plus Expert.
Past issues
Shopify Dispatch Issue #281 - Long-term customer relationships, Easy alt text
Want Repeat Customers? Foster Long-term Relationships Pamela Hazelton goes beyond discounts and free shipping and writes up several ideas to boost long-term customer loyalty, all around making the customer's life and experience just a bit better. What is alt text and why do I care? Too often I see Shopify...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #280 - Returnless refunds
Returnless Refunds 101: Everything Store Owners Need to Know Kaleigh Moore describes how returnless refunds can help your store profits. It can be a relatively easy policy to implement but the impacts can be far-reaching (positive and negative). Analyze your customer's behaviors before they defect Your customers aren't yours forever....
Shopify Dispatch Issue #279 - Google Shopping Ads, Unconventional approaches
The Retail Store Owner's 11-Step Guide to Launching Google Shopping Ads Kirk Williams writes about how to get started with Google Shopping Ads. Google Shopping and all of the components are complex and difficult to understand so take your time getting it setup and give it a few months before...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #278 - 2020 holiday sales wrap-up, SMS marketing
2020 Holiday Sales Wrap-up Marcia Kaplan shares their 2020 holiday wrap-up, pulling in results from a variety of reports. Overall online sales grew like crazy, more than I would expect in a slow economy. The downside is a high return rate forecasted with UPS forecasting that 1/3rd of all purchases...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #277 - Customer stages, customer retention
Customer Development Kevin Hillstrom describes five stages that customers could go through over their lifetimes. It's interesting that he also sees clients ignoring the first two stages, which weaken the later stages' performance. 7 Customer Retention Strategies for 2021 In a similar article, Armando Roggio writes about several strategies and...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #276 - Holiday retail/ecommerce results, apps for social commerce
5 Retail Insights from a Covid Christmas Armando Roggio collected various 2020 holiday metrics to show how the season performed. Basically it was a major move towards ecommerce as most people predicted but even retail had a few surprises. It will be interesting to see how 2021 shapes up and...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #275 - Final 2020 campaign, Customer complaints
Easy win for the holidays Ilana Davis writes about how there's still time for one last campaign to close out the year. Given 2020 and the self-care focus, this could be a significant campaign that takes very little effort and time to run. Upset Customers? Here's How to Stop Customer...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #274 - 2021 strategies, new VAT setting in Shopify
7 resolutions for eCommerce businesses in 2021 Jilt has 7 big-picture strategies for stores to consider next year. Each one could be a multi-month project but you'd only need one to succeed for the year to be a success. I like to split things up into 3-month quarters so you'd...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #273 - Shopify's Future of Commerce 2021, Only 3 ways to acquire customers
Shopify's Future of Commerce 2021 Shopify started a new annual survey this year and they have now released the results. The analysis is spread across three pages: a summary page, a landing page, and the report itself (PDF). There's a lot of useful insights in there so make sure to...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #272 - Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2020 analyses
Black Friday Cyber Monday 2020: An Analysis of Over $5.1 Billion in Sales Shopify's released some more of their BFCM analysis. There are a lot of details but most of them are what I was expecting: higher volume, consistent conversion rates on top channels, etc. Curbside and local delivery is...