The Shopify App Show

Today on The Shopify App Show, we're talking about Rollouts and automation in general. Rollouts is an underrated Shopify feature. It's been around for a little while and, like a lot of Shopify stuff, it's been slowly maturing into something that's actually usable for more and more merchants. Most people know it as an A/B testing tool, but it also does a lot of stuff that a lot of the A/B testing apps don't do.

You can schedule theme changes, you can set them to roll back automatically, and you can even swap your product catalogue on a timer. So your Black Friday prices go live while you're asleep, not while you're hunched over a laptop at midnight. It's not perfect. It can't do repeating schedules, it can't set a fixed price across a bunch of products, and it can't do product drops with a countdown. That's where apps earn their keep.

That's why I've had Jamie Derrick from Real Agency join me today. He's not just an agency guy, he's also got his own app, JD Auto Schedule, which has been around for seven years, back when the Shopify App Store only had about 2,000 apps on it. There were about 2,000 apps that went live last month alone, so it was a very different world back then. Jamie has evolved with the platform and works with merchants on this stuff day to day, so it was great to have him talk about Rollouts and where it all fits in.

He's also really honest about where Rollouts steps on his toes, and where apps like Auto Schedule are still relevant. If you're still planning to do all your price changes and theme updates manually, it's worth tuning in to hear Jamie's insights.

Sponsors

This episode is sponsored by The Support Heroes — dedicated Shopify support agents who actually know what they're doing. Head to thesupportheroes.com.

Running scheduled sales into the EU? Omnibus Owl tracks your 30-day lowest price automatically, so every discount you schedule stays compliant with the EU Omnibus Directive. Set it once and stop worrying about it.

In this episode:

• Why Rollouts is far more than an A/B testing tool (RIP Google Optimize)
• Testing tiny tweaks vs a whole new theme, and why new themes rarely convert better on day one
• Seven years of JD Auto Schedule and how scheduling apps have evolved with Shopify
• Catalogues vs percentage rules: how Rollouts and apps schedule prices differently
• Where apps still win: repeating schedules, fixed prices, countdown product drops
• Jamie's BFCM advice: schedule it, stagger your discounts and get some sleep

YouTube Chapters

00:00 — Rollouts: so much more than A/B testing
01:53 — Welcome Jamie Derrick
02:45 — Does Rollouts put Auto Schedule out of business?
03:15 — How Rollouts schedules theme changes in the customiser
04:55 — A/B testing and life after Google Optimize
05:54 — Tiny tweaks vs testing a whole new theme
07:27 — Why a new theme rarely converts better on day one
08:54 — A word from The Support Heroes
09:27 — Seven years of JD Auto Schedule
11:08 — Catalogues vs percentage rules: two ways to schedule prices
14:06 — 10 euro Thursdays, handbag drops and meal prep menus
16:44 — Stopping your app becoming a Frankenstein
18:31 — BFCM: stop staying up till midnight
20:35 — Running your sale weekend like clockwork
21:35 — Wrapping up

Repairs and alterations are easy to care about. Particularly in fashion and retail.

So many products go through returns, end up in landfill or sit in the back of our cupboards. We all want to reduce that, and we all care about what it costs our businesses. But when you dig into the logistics, it all seems too hard and too expensive, especially repairs and alterations that need a person to actually touch the product.

When I came across Owen’s business, Hello Tailr, earlier this year, I had all those too-hard-basket thoughts. Then he walked me through the distribution network he’d built, using social enterprises to alter products bought online. Sounds a bit too good to be true. He’s now expanded into the US through Upkept, co-founded by today’s other guest, Robin Atkinson.

It’s not all altruistic either. As well as being good for brand positioning, repairs and alterations can lift profitability and give you a real point of difference. And with regulation landing in Europe, California and beyond, brands will soon have to own what ends up in landfill.

If your returns rate keeps you up at night, or you’ve ever looked at a perfectly good pair of jeans heading back to the warehouse because they’re too long, this one’s for you.

The Support Heroes - This episode is sponsored by The Support Heroes, dedicated Shopify support agents who actually know what they’re doing. Head to thesupportheroes.com.

Native App Co - It’s not too late to get Fish Wishlist, Stork Credit or Omnibus Owl live on your store before BFCM. Wishlists that drive return visits, store credit that keeps customers coming back, and EU price compliance sorted. All built native to Shopify.

Hello Tailr on your store: https://apps.shopify.com/hello-tailr (for transparency, I helped Owen build the app)

In this episode:

• Why every Shopify store has a returns app but none have a repair button
• The unit economics that make repairs a high volume, low margin problem
• Lessons from Hello Tailr’s pilot with The Iconic
• Why denim hemming is the easiest place to start
• “Just do it in Iowa”: why small pilots beat big rollouts
• EPR, California’s 2029 deadline and what’s coming for retailers

YouTube Chapters

00:00 - Why repairs feel too hard (and why they're worth it)
01:55 - Meet Robin from Upkept and Owen from Hello Tailr
04:10 - Two repair founders on opposite sides of the world
05:30 - Why every store has a returns app but no repair button
07:01 - The unit economics problem
08:40 - Upfront pricing and no-printer drop-off
10:58 - Lessons from The Iconic pilot
13:15 - The dress that ran too long
14:00 - Handling repairs when you don't know what's coming
16:54 - Why denim hemming is the dream use case
18:31 - What stops brands from starting
21:20 - Just do it in Iowa
21:45 - The loose-button trial that turned a profit
23:50 - Regulation is coming: EPR, California and right to repair
27:00 - Greenwashing rules and claims you can back up
28:22 - The first closet: where the value really is
31:20 - The Dyson email brands should copy
32:11 - Tupperware and getting the economics right
33:14 - Wrapping up

Black Friday isn’t just about having the best sales and making the most revenue. It’s about how to actually make money from it, and what to do once the sale’s over.

I’m joined by Carla Penn-Kahn from Profit Peak and Cande Rybecky from SHERO Commerce. Between them they cover big growth brands and the small guys running on tight budgets, across Australia and the US.

We get into:

• Why your discount should depend on when you started acquiring customers
• Bundles vs sitewide discounts, and what kills your margin
• How to plan for the Q1 slump now
• Why ChatGPT shoppers are spending more per order
• Carla’s warning for Aussie brands: learn TikTok Shop now, or get smashed when it lands here

If you’re running a Shopify store, listen before you lock in your BFCM plan. Seriously.

Sponsors

Thanks to SHERO Commerce for supporting the Global Compass Series. We’ve been chatting to some of the best ecommerce brains from all over the world, and you can check out the other episodes wherever you’re listening to this.

This episode is also brought to you by Fish Wishlist by Native App Co. It’s the wishlist app that doesn’t feel like an app, because it blends right into your theme. It’s not too late to add it to your store for peak season. Head to fishwishlist.com.

YouTube Chapters

00:00 - Profit vs revenue: why when you acquire customers matters
01:40 - Missed July? Balancing CAC and discount depth
02:34 - Bundles, gift with purchase, store credit: picking the right promo
04:05 - Building your list and creative before November
05:29 - When to ramp up ad budgets
06:21 - Retention after BFCM and the 12-month stock-up problem
08:23 - Planning for the Q1 lull, and January product drops
10:05 - Segmentation that actually changes what you sell
12:23 - The fastest growing Shopify categories (hello, caravans)
13:42 - Interest rates, consumer sentiment and zip code targeting
15:21 - Australia vs US: going from big fish to small fish
17:14 - Localised creative and the Eurosummer mistake
19:00 - Finding influencers in your own customer list
21:45 - ChatGPT as an ad channel, and why AOV is higher
25:01 - Carla's TikTok Shop warning for Aussie brands
26:37 - Google Ads then vs now
27:05 - Wrapping up

Lately we’ve been going short and punchy for peak season. This one’s a return to our roots: a proper deep dive with Jake Casto from Layers, one of the most progressive search and merch platforms in the Shopify ecosystem. Jake’s an ex-agency guy who understands this ecosystem inside out, and he’s never short on a hot take.

We get into Meta’s new Muse agent and whether it’s the future of agentic shopping, why Layers hit pause on building chatbots to go all in on MCP, and why being platform agnostic is now a disadvantage. Jake explains how a metaobject-based integration took half an hour instead of months, why he refuses to hog attribution, and how one brand turned six weeks of product data work into four days with AI.

Then the boring-but-critical stuff: what merchants are doing to get ready for Black Friday, from hyper-niche segments to accessibility audits, buying flow tests and hunting down zombie landing pages leaking stacked discounts.

If you’re heading into BFCM wondering what actually matters, this one’s for you. And check out our Black Friday series with SHERO Commerce for more quick wins this peak season. Like, subscribe, share - you know the drill.

Shero Commerce - a Shopify Premier agency helping mid-market and enterprise brands migrate to, optimise and scale on Shopify. In the lead up to BFCM they've been helping me bring conversations with the people who can help your store have a successful campaign.

The Support Heroes - This episode is sponsored by The Support Heroes - dedicated Shopify support agents who actually know what they’re doing. Head to thesupportheroes.com.

Product Pelican - Better product data makes everything better: search, merch, Google Shopping and agentic feeds. Product Pelican is the native PIM for Shopify, built to manage and audit your catalogue at scale, right inside Shopify. Get your catalogue BFCM-ready.

In this episode:

• Meta’s Muse agent and the fight to own the customer
• Why Layers paused its chatbots to go all in on MCP
• Native integrations in half an hour vs months of API work
• Proving ROI without vanity metrics or attribution hogging
• How AI-enabled teams are building hyper-niche BFCM segments
• The daily BFCM checklist: accessibility, core web vitals, buying flows and zombie discounts

00:00 - Back to our roots: a deep chat with Jake Casto
01:34 - Meta's Muse: future of agentic shopping or another fad?
05:32 - Amazon goes its own way
09:02 - Layers and the 4G to 5G upgrade
11:36 - Chatbots are so last year
12:23 - Why Layers paused its agents to go all in on MCP
16:41 - Slack agents that need an MCP to buy
19:24 - Why platform agnostic is now a disadvantage
20:01 - A half hour integration via metaobjects
22:44 - No vanity metrics: proving ROI honestly
24:23 - Attribution hogging and the image search example
27:27 - Founder vision and never saying "we can't"
28:24 - 6 weeks of product data work done in 4 days
30:38 - BFCM prep: hyper-niche customer segments
33:56 - A custom GPT trained on 3 years of Black Friday data
35:25 - The daily checklist: accessibility lawsuits and Claude Code
37:38 - Core web vitals and impatient bots
38:55 - Test your buying flows (and kill the hidden mini carts)
40:15 - Zombie landing pages and stacked discounts
41:31 - Happy surprises in old pages
42:13 - Has anyone actually bought through an agent?
45:44 - Wrapping up

Over 450 Shopify apps have been pulled from the App Store, and plenty of them are reputable apps. Hackers found ways to inject code that sent shoppers to a fake checkout, right in the lead up to BFCM. Dylan Pierce from Very Bad Panda has been writing about Shopify security long before it became topical, and his site has become the go-to guide for what’s going on.

We get into how the attack actually works (unprotected metafields and endpoints that let JavaScript run on the storefront), why vibe coding a replacement app can be worse than waiting it out, and why code is a liability, not a one and done. We also cover how merchants should choose apps now, why SOC 2 isn’t realistic for a $10/month app, and how AI has flipped the security pyramid so Shopify stores are now worth targeting.

If you’re a merchant with apps in limbo, an app dev getting your house in order, or an agency fielding nervous clients, this one’s for you.

Links

• Very Bad Panda: https://verybadpanda.dev/
• Shopify - Securing your app, together: https://community.shopify.dev/t/securing-your-app-together/38752
• List of delisted apps: https://heyapps.dev/apps/delisted?sort=reviews

In this episode:

• How the fake checkout hack works
• Should you switch apps fast, vibe code a replacement, or sit tight?
• Testing your store with apps and JavaScript turned off
• What to look for when choosing apps now
• SOC 2, small app shops and why incident response matters
• The inverted security pyramid and the next wave: AI agents holding your keys

YouTube Chapters

00:00 - The Shopify App-ocalypse: 450 apps down
00:40 - How the hack works: unprotected metafields and endpoints
01:33 - What it means for store owners
02:12 - Why vibe coding a replacement can be worse
03:23 - Switch apps fast or sit tight?
04:52 - Turn off your apps and JavaScript: test your critical path
05:39 - Why merchants need better checkout testing tools
06:35 - How to choose apps now
07:55 - SOC 2, small app shops and incident response
09:24 - The silver lining for the app ecosystem
10:36 - The inverted security pyramid: AI and phishing
12:15 - Back to basics: passwords, API keys, dodgy emails
12:43 - The next wave: AI agents holding your keys
13:32 - Wrapping up

I jumped under the hood to road test Shopify's new shop.md, which lets anyone create a personal Shopping agent.

Shopify just gave AI agents a credit card. Shop MD lets ChatGPT, Claude or any agent search Shopify’s catalogue, build a cart and check out with Shop Pay, without ever touching a store’s website. Martin Cox put it through a crash test by getting Claude to buy his next pair of running shoes.

He covers the setup, the vague prompt that went nowhere, the specific one that found his exact shoe on sale in seconds, and how much better results have got since he tested agent shopping a few months back. Plus what merchants lose in this flow (checkout upsells) and what they keep (the customer and the data).

If you’re feeling buried by Shopify announcements before Black Friday, this one’s for you.

Agents can only sell what they understand. Product Pelican is the native PIM for Shopify. Manage and audit your catalogue at scale so your products are ready for every channel, AI agents included.

In this episode:

• What Shop MD is and how it works
• Setting it up in Claude (2FA and all)
• Vague prompts vs specific prompts
• How much agent search results have improved
• Why merchants shouldn’t panic
• What to do before Black Friday

It feels like every day there is a new way of selling via AI. A new integration, a new model, a new type of agent.

The next few months is when we'll see some real numbers on what is working and where to invest. But one thing that's certain, is there's opportunities for businesses of all sizes to cash in on new sales channels.

In this conversation, I chat with Carla Penn-Kahn from ProfitPeak, and Cande Rybecky, CMO or Shero Commerce, discussing strategies for e-commerce merchants to get the most out of platforms like ChatGPT and TikTok Shop this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

This chat is part of the Global Compass Series, presented by Shero Commerce and Native App Co. Bringing actionable insights for Shopify merchants as we head into peak season.

Perfect preparation equals peak performance for peak season.

Now is the time to be running the tests and optimizing your store for the busiest ecommerce trading period of the year.

It's not the season for think pieces. Merchants just want to make more money. That's why we built the Global Compass series: short, sharp chats with the best of the Shopify ecosystem, from all over the world.

Episode 3: making your store perform when it counts. Blake Waldron, founder of Checkout Components, joins from Melbourne, Australia. Georgi Petrov, co-founder of Uxify, joins from Sofia, Bulgaria.

We cover what to A/B test right now, why mobile is more important than ever, how 404s and rage clicks kill conversions and why store credit is beating discounts.

The countdown to BFCM is on.

Sponsors

The Global Compass Series is brought to you by:

Shero Commerce - a Shopify Premier agency helping mid-market and enterprise brands migrate to, optimise and scale on Shopify. Since 2010 they've built e-commerce experiences across platforms, with expertise spanning migration, B2B, D2C, SEO, AEO and growth marketing. Their approach is simple: understand the challenge, build the right solution, and help brands grow for the long term.

Native App Co - Blake made the case for store credit over further discounting in this one, and it's exactly why we built Stork Credit. Stork turns native Shopify store credit into cashback, loyalty and rewards automation. Cash, not points, and no theme edits. 

In this episode:

• What to A/B test now, from trust badges to upsells
• Mobile is hundreds of devices, not one
• Why ChatGPT shoppers need brand content at checkout
• 404s, dead ends and rage clicks: the silent conversion killers
• Store credit as the answer to "we don't want to discount further"
• Shopify Canvas: Squarespace-ification or the start of something big?

00:00 - Why CRO matters for peak season
00:34 - What to A/B test right now
01:48 - Testing the whole journey: devices and friction
02:52 - Mobile isn't one device
04:02 - Multiple Shopify checkouts live at once (and foldable phones)
05:08 - Different content for mobile vs desktop
05:59 - Checkout content for shoppers arriving from ChatGPT
07:06 - Broken links, 404s and rage clicks
08:57 - Does code freeze actually exist?
11:25 - Sponsor: Shero Commerce
11:54 - Store credit instead of deeper discounts
14:11 - Uxify's revenue-per-visitor program
15:30 - Automation vs hands on the wheel
16:51 - Shopify Canvas: first thoughts
19:37 - Who Canvas is really for
22:35 - Wrapping up

Shopify Canvas is a new visual, AI-powered design workspace that allows Shopify merchants to build and customize their online stores by chatting with Shopify's AI assistant, Sidekick. In this mini episode I chat with Blake Waldron from Checkout Components and Georgi Petrov from Uxify about their initial reactions, what it means, and what the future of Shopify storefronts looks like.

Trying to reduce Shopify support tickets and increase order value this Black Friday? In this episode of The Shopify App Show, we cover Shopify order editing, post-purchase upsells, customer retention strategy, and how to prep your customer service team for peak season, with Kiril Climson, co-founder and CTO of Shopify app Order Editing, and Nicole Christopher from the Order Editing team. If you're a Shopify merchant looking to sell more this BFCM without drowning your support inbox, start here.

On The Shopify App Show Global Compass Series we talk to the smartest people in the Shopify ecosystem to get real insights for how you can win this peak season.

Guests:

• Kirl Climson, co-founder of Order Editing and joins us from Toronto.
• Nicole Christopher, commercial manager of Order Editing, joins us from Sydney.

Sponsors:

The Global Compass Series is brought to you by:

Shero Commerce - a Shopify Premier agency helping mid-market and enterprise brands migrate to, optimise and scale on Shopify. Their approach is simple: understand the challenge, build the right solution, and help brands grow for the long term.

The Support Heroes - dedicated Shopify app support, keeping apps covered all over the world this peak season.

Native App Co- Sammy brought up store credit in this one, and it's exactly why we built Stork Credit. Stork turns native Shopify store credit into cashback, loyalty and rewards automation. Cash, not points, no theme edits.

In this episode:

• "One brand's 'least valuable' customers, the ones who came in on a November discount, turned out to have the highest lifetime value of anyone."
• "Running your A/B test on the night of Black Friday? It's too late."
• "Stop trying to beat last year's revenue. That's not a strategy, it's a scoreboard."
• "We built a waiting room for order edits. Turns out people don't mind waiting if you're honest about it."
• "Free express shipping at $100 converts better than a lot of physical 'free gifts' ever did."
• "Show one offer at a time. Four upsells fighting for attention converts worse than one."
• "The most important flow this peak season isn't the sale. It's what happens after."