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 #397 - Shopify Benchmarks, Data profiling
Issue #397 - May 3rd, 2023 Compare Data to Stores Like Yours with Benchmarks Shopify has released the ability to benchmark some of your metrics against other stores. It's a very limited set of metrics and has a lot of criteria but it's an improvement over their previous store-wide benchmark...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #396 - Shopify Bill Pay, Collection list performance
Issue #396 - April 26th, 2023 Introducing Shopify Bill Pay: Pay Any Business, Any Way You Want Shopify has integrated with Melio to offer the ability to pay bills within Shopify. While an interesting feature, it feels a bit off-topic for Shopify to build. The Current State of E-Commerce Product...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #395 - Should you sell on Amazon, Full-funnel product pages
Issue #395 - April 19th, 2023 The Realities of Selling on Amazon: A Practical Guide for Founders Courtney Goudswaard breaks down the pros, cons, and costs for selling on Amazon. It's very well researched and presents multiple sides and things to consider. How to Optimize Full-funnel Product Pages Armando Roggio...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #394 - Better long-term customers, Shopify 2.0 themes
Issue #394 - April 12th, 2023 Investing Marketing Dollars Kevin Hillstrom shares an example where different product categories create better long-term customers, even though they appeared weaker at acquisition. That's why you need to go beyond just the basic transaction metrics and look at customer behavior. Shopify 2.0 themes highly...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #393 - Send gift cards from Dawn, Dynamic data for blogs
Issue #393 - April 5th, 2023 Send gift cards directly to the recipient, and include a message Shopify's Dawn theme now has the ability to send gift cards to the recipient with a message. It's interesting that this functionality was built into Shopify's theme instead of the platform itself. Other...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #392 - Raising price problems, Shop sales channel
Issue #392 - March 29th, 2023 Price / Customer Tradeoff Kevin Hillstrom writes about how price increases that might appear profitable in the short-term, could have negative impacts in the long-term. Especially when it comes to merchandise and the need to liquidate. The Shop sales channel has been added to...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #391 - Long-term impact of product problems
Issue #391 - March 22nd, 2023 What Harms You Today Harms You Tomorrow Kevin Hillstrom writes about how introducing a set of under-performing products can end up hurting your store for years to come, even if there's no crisis. Learn which products build the best customers Find which products create...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #390 - Google Analytics 4, Custom CSS
Issue #390 - March 15th, 2023 Connect Google Analytics 4 with Shopify Google Analytics 4 has finally come to Shopify and Ilana Davis has written a guide to get Shopify talking to GA4. Easily Extend your Theme with Custom CSS Shopify is adding a way to add custom CSS to...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #389 - Loyalty program costs, Fix broken links
Issue #389 - March 8th, 2023 Loyalty Program Expectations Kevin Hillstrom writes about how they evaluate loyalty programs and why those programs might not be profitable after accounting for program costs. Check broken links without using another Shopify App Ilana Davis shares how she checked and fixed broken links using...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #388 - Buying preferences, Apps losing theme editing
Issue #388 - March 1st, 2023 Online / Store Relationships Kevin Hillstrom writes about how customers have preferences for where they buy from you and how you need to adapt your marketing to account for that. Upcoming changes to Asset API approval scope While full of technical jargon, Shopify has...