So, remember last week’s edition of your favorite newsletter — this one, duh — when we told you about Shopify changing their annual conference from in-person Shopify Unite conference to an online version called Shopify (re)Unite. Well, last Wednesday (May 20th) the Shopify folks pulled it off.
Was it cool? Sure. Is there stuff you should know about? Absolutely. Am I going to write about it in this week’s email? What do you think?
Here are a bunch of links to stuff you need to know about Shopify (re)Unite and a couple of bonus eCommerce stories because I like to give give give. So, let’s get to the giving!
Happy Selling,
Zachary
Top Shopify Stories of the Week
What’s that you say? You missed the Shopify (re)Unite Live Stream last Wednesday! Well we have to see what we can do about that. Fortunately, Shopify has uploaded the Live Stream to YouTube. So, this evening when you have finished the last episode of Tiger King and baked one more loaf of sourdough bread, you can fire up your video device of choice and spend three blissful hours in Shopify paradise. Check it out.
Putting a New Face on Your Facebook
One of the coolest surprises announced last week was a partnership between Shopify and Facebook to let Shopify merchants deploy custom storefronts directly to Facebook Shops. And yes, they appear on both Facebook and Instagram. If you have a consumer product, this is a freak’in no-brainer. Read all about it.
If you don’t have time to slog your way through nearly three hours of recorded Shopify festivities, don’t worry! Shopify (re)Wrote a handy summary blog post that (re)Views all of the top news, announcements, and product (re)Leases for you to (re)Read at your own pace. There are even helpful bookmarks and crosslinks.
Tobias Lütke — Shopify’s CEO — was being interviewed by FinancialPost.com about the surge is eCommerce sales on the platform and said, “Amazon is trying to build an empire, and we’re an army of rebels.” Sounds like SOMEONE has been reading this newsletter … Hi Tobi!
The interview is actually pretty good and you can read it here.
Shipping … the bane of every eCommerce merchant. The evils of shipping are many — costs, labeling, unrealistic customer expectations, and porch pirates are just a few of them. So whenever we find an article that might be helpful we try to bring you the info. ShipperHQ wrote up a nice little piece about offering free shipping, why it adds value, and some advice on how to do it.