ShopOps weekly

Perplexity can now run your store, outdoor is trending hard, and a boxing brand built on $40K and discipline

May 29, 2026

Hi there,

Jon here.

Interesting week. Some practical updates and one data drop worth paying attention to.

  • Perplexity now integrates with Shopify — manage your store, research markets, generate product images, design themes, all from one place

  • Summer demand is already building — Shopify's April sales data has some numbers worth knowing

  • Customer accounts are getting a design overhaul — worth testing in preview now

  • Automate the repetitive ops work — a Shopify Flow service that actually removes tasks from your plate

  • Brand story — he borrowed $40K from family, reached out to five influencers a day, and built a $150K/month boxing brand

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Shopify Updates You Can't Miss

1. You can now manage your entire Shopify store from inside Perplexity

Perplexity now integrates directly with Shopify. From one conversation you can check orders, update products, research competitors, generate product images, and work on theme design — all without leaving Perplexity's interface.

It joins ChatGPT and Claude as AI tools with native Shopify store access, part of the broader shift toward managing commerce through conversation rather than dashboards.

Why it matters: Each new AI tool that connects to your store is another surface where you can get things done faster. If you already use Perplexity for research, this closes the loop - you don't have to switch context to act on what you find.

What to do: Connect the Perplexity integration from your Shopify admin under Sales Channels. Start with something low-stakes - ask it to pull your top products by revenue this month, or research a competitor while reviewing your own catalog. See how the workflow feels before building habits around it.

2. Customer accounts are getting a major design upgrade - test it now

Shopify has introduced a new customer account layout in feature preview. The update brings a cleaner single-column experience, better navigation, and improved visibility for UI extensions — meaning apps that extend the account area will feel more integrated and discoverable rather than tacked on.

Why it matters: Customer accounts are an underused retention surface. Most brands treat them as an order history page. The new layout makes it a more coherent post-purchase experience - and for brands using loyalty apps, subscription management, or returns portals inside accounts, those features will now actually get seen.

What to do: Enable the preview in your Shopify admin → Themes → Feature preview. Check how your customer account UI extensions look in the new layout - some positioning may shift. Better to catch it now than after it goes live for everyone.

3. Shopify Payments payouts page got clearer - small change, real confusion removed

Shopify updated how payout information is labelled. "To be paid" is now "Payout balance" and reserved funds now have clear help text explaining why they're held. No change to amounts, timing, or reserve terms — just clearer language.

Why it matters: A small one, but reserved fund confusion generates a disproportionate number of support questions. If anyone on your team checks payouts and periodically panics about held funds, this helps. Worth knowing it's cosmetic.

What to do: Nothing. But worth forwarding to whoever handles your finances if they've ever been confused by the reserves line.

The Tasks You Do Every Week That Shopify Flow Could Handle Instead

Most Shopify stores have the same 10–15 repetitive operational tasks running on manual. Tagging orders, updating metafields, handling inventory events, routing based on customer behaviour, syncing data across apps. They're not complex — they're just time. And they compound.

Shopify Flow can automate most of them. The gap is usually setup: knowing which triggers, conditions, and actions to combine, and when custom JavaScript or GraphQL calls are needed to go further than Flow allows natively.

Maik Gossen builds Flow automation workflows from scratch based on your actual processes — triggers from order events, customer behaviour, product updates, or internal operations — and extends them with custom logic when Flow alone isn't enough. The output is a set of automations that run without you.

If you've opened Flow once and closed it, this is the faster path to actually using it.

He'd Been Boxing Since 18 and Couldn't Find a Single Rope Worth Buying

Lorenz Wüest looked at every jump rope on the market and saw the same thing: no identity, no craft, nothing that matched the discipline boxing actually demands. So he went to his best friend, raised $40K from their families, and started building BOXROPE from scratch — working day jobs and finishing sessions at 1am.

They didn't run ads. Every day they reached out to five small boxing influencers, sent a rope, and let the community do the rest. By month four, they hit $10K in monthly revenue. Today it's $150K/month — bootstrapped, lean, and still obsessively focused on a single product done right.

What Lorenz learned about staying focused when everything pulls you toward expansion is worth reading.

Want your story featured? Submit it here.

The Smartest Way to Build Your Tech Stack Isn't the App Store

…It's talking to the people building the next version of it.

App store research is a platform where Shopify merchants get paid to share how their stores actually operate - in short calls with the founders building new tools. You get early access to what's coming. They get honest feedback from real operators. And app store research handles everything in between.

Over $1 million in incentives has been paid out to merchants through the platform. New projects go live daily.

A few open right now:

  1. Omnichannel customer support — for brands running both online and physical stores ($100)

  2. Post-purchase revenue — replace 4+ apps with one platform: shipping protection, returns, order editing, cashback. No SaaS fee ($250)

  3. Subscription box fulfillment — how US brands reduce fulfillment costs by 30%+ ($250)

  4. AI visibility for ecommerce — feedback on a GEO/AI search ranking tool ($150)

  5. Superfans mobile app — for Fashion, Beauty, or Health DTC brands driving revenue from best customers ($250)

New projects are published daily.

Sign up takes under a minute - you pick what's relevant, you pick the time:

👉 Join as a Brand & Apply (sign up <1 min)

New Expert Listings

❋ Deyan Chernogorski — Front-End Developer · ⭐ 4.9 (67 reviews)

  • Custom theme development, Shopify Plus Function APIs, and complex feature implementation

  • Speed performance optimization and Core Web Vitals — including advanced CLS fixes

  • UX-focused design improvements built around conversion

  • 10+ years of Shopify experience across startups, scaling brands, and enterprise merchants

A strong fit if you need a developer who combines deep technical knowledge with measurable performance outcomes - and has the review count to back it up.

❋ Slash Themes — Shopify Agency · ⭐ 5.0 (11 reviews)

  • Custom theme development and Figma/PSD-to-Shopify builds

  • Platform migrations from WooCommerce, Magento, and legacy Shopify setups

  • Speed and performance optimization, app integrations, and custom functionality

  • 7+ years building for growing and enterprise Shopify merchants

A strong fit if you want a commerce studio that builds for scale from the start - technically precise, fast to deliver, and focused on stores that need to grow without limitations.

Know someone who belongs in the directory? Send them our way.

❤️ Quick Pulse Check

This week's question: How much of your store's operations still runs on manual processes?

A) Most of it - I haven't had time to automate much
B) Some - I've automated a few things but there's more to do
C) Very little - most repetitive tasks run themselves

Reply with A, B, or C. 
(We read every response)

Last week we asked: "Have you seen any AI-driven traffic or sales to your store yet?"

Almost a quarter still not tracking it at all - which is probably the most actionable number here. If you're in category D, the Agentic Storefront dashboard (admin.shopify.com/agentic) is the fastest way to find out what's actually happening. The 17% already seeing noticeable AI traffic are the early signal. The rest of the curve follows.

See you next Friday,
— Jon & the shopexperts team

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