ShopOps weekly

Hello there,

Last week we've rolled out a Confidence Score on shopexperts listings. It's a score out of 100 built from an expert's reputation outside shopexperts plus their track record on the platform - so when three developers look similar on paper, you have more to go on than a star rating. Every element is visible and explained. Read how it works here.

Now, this week:

• Shopify's Q2 numbers are in – and the AI channel figures are the story
• Microsoft Advertising is now part of Campaign Autopilot
• 400 operators just published honest reviews of 400 Shopify apps – the kind app store reviews never capture
• Quick tip – how deleting part of your email list can increase revenue • From the brand owners – three posts worth your time this week

See you next Friday,

- Jon

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Shopify Updates You Can't Miss

Shopify shipped two new theme features this month. One's a real improvement. The other has developers debating.

1. Shopify's Q2: AI channel traffic and orders both tripled year over year

$116B in merchant sales, up 32% YoY. $3.6B revenue, up 34%. Shop Pay crossed $400B in lifetime GMV.

But the number worth sitting with: traffic and orders from AI channels both tripled year over year – and 75% of AI-attributed orders came from outside the top 100 categories.

Why it matters: That last figure is the real signal. AI discovery is rewarding relevance over budget. Specialized, long-tail products are winning in AI channels in a way they rarely do in paid search, because the match is based on what someone actually asked for rather than who bid most.

What to do: If you sell something specific rather than something generic, this is your channel. Check admin.shopify.com/agentic to see whether your products are showing up, and where your product data is letting you down.

2. Microsoft Advertising is now available in Campaign Autopilot

Campaign Autopilot can now create or connect a Microsoft Advertising account and run Performance Max campaigns alongside your other channels, with budget allocated automatically based on what's performing.

Why it matters: Microsoft's ad inventory is consistently cheaper than Google's and skews older and higher-income – often a better match for considered purchases than the platforms everyone defaults to. Most merchants never test it because setting up another ad account isn't worth the hassle. Autopilot removes that friction.

What to do: Campaign Autopilot is in early access – head to the Growth tab in your admin to sign up or add Microsoft to your existing channels.

3. Stripe published its own subscription app to the Shopify App Store

Stripe Subscriptions is now on the Shopify App Store. It's free to install, with Stripe Billing handling plans, discounts, and dunning while the charge runs through your existing gateway. Stripe takes an additional 0.7% on subscriptions, or you can move to an annual Stripe Billing contract.

Worth knowing rather than acting on. It's not obviously better than the established subscription apps, and running a second system of record for subscriptions alongside Shopify introduces complexity most merchants don't need. If you're already deep in the Stripe ecosystem for other parts of your business, it may make sense. Otherwise, there's no urgency here.

Also worth knowing: → DoorDash got FAA certification for its own drone delivery program, DoorDash Air – relevant context given the DoorDash sales channel that launched for US Shopify merchants a few weeks ago. Same-day delivery infrastructure is being built out fast.

Quick Tip: Delete Part of Your Email List. Watch Revenue Go Up.

This one sounds wrong until you understand how inbox placement actually works.

Every brand treats list size as a trophy. Bigger list, more reach, more revenue. So nobody deletes anyone – why would you remove people you paid to acquire?

Here's the problem. When you send to your whole list, mailbox providers watch what happens. If a large share of recipients never open, never click, and never engage, Gmail and Outlook quietly conclude your mail is unwanted – and start routing it to promotions and spam for everyone. Including your best customers.

You end up tanking your own inbox placement by mailing people who were never coming back.

How to fix it:

1. Pull your subscriber list with open and click history for the past 12–24 months.

2. Identify the truly dead segment – no opens, no clicks, no site activity in over 12 months. For most stores this is somewhere between 20% and 40% of the list.

3. Run one final re-engagement campaign to that segment. Two or three emails, clearly framed: "Still want to hear from us?" Whoever opens comes back into the active list.

4. Suppress the rest. Don't delete them outright – suppress, so you retain the records but stop mailing them.

5. Watch your open rate and, more importantly, your deliverability over the following two to three weeks.
   

What usually happens: open rates jump almost immediately, because the people left actually want to hear from you. And because you're landing back in the primary inbox, your real customers start seeing you again.

Fewer emails sent, more revenue. Past a certain point, the dead part of your list isn't neutral – it's quietly deciding whether your best customers ever see you.

👉 Find an email marketing expert on shopexperts

400 Operators Just Reviewed 400 Shopify Apps. Honestly.

Shopify app store reviews have a structural problem: they get written at exactly two moments. Right after install, when nothing has gone wrong yet. Or right after cancellation, when everything has. The eighteen months in between – where you actually live with a tool – goes unrecorded.

app store research has just published something that fills that gap. 400 brand operators and agency professionals in their network shared their real experiences with over 400 Shopify apps. Until now that data was only visible to their clients. It's now public, anonymized, and unedited.

Three findings worth knowing:

→ Ease of use is mentioned four times more often than revenue, conversion, and ROI combined when operators describe what exceeded expectations. The thing that makes an app stick isn't what it promises – it's whether your team will actually use it.

→ 24% of operators who abandoned an app named price as the reason. No other reason came close.

→ 27% of reviews – 374 operators – describe running software they've quietly given up on. Still paying. Not using it. Retention looks excellent from the app's side. It doesn't feel that way from theirs.

Also notable: 65% of these experiences come from operators on Shopify Plus.

👉 Browse the app experiences

Open Projects on App Store Research

Short paid calls with the founders building the next generation of Shopify tools. A few open right now:

→ AI search visibility (AEO/GEO) – $150, 60 min

for anyone owning ecommerce, SEO, or content. You'll see a live demo using your own data and get a complimentary AI Search Visibility Assessment for your brand

→ AI customer support agent – $150, 60 min

for D2C brands running inbound calls, chat, and email support. First 20 minutes is entirely about how your support actually works, then an unfiltered walkthrough of the product. They explicitly want the skeptical parts

→ Multichannel marketplace monitoring – $150, 45 min

for brands selling across Amazon, Otto, Kaufland, Zalando, or niche marketplaces

→ Creator and influencer detection – for DTC fashion, beauty & lifestyle brands running seeding or gifting programs ($150)

→ Meta profitability and creative engine – $100, 45 min

for founders doing $50K+/month, plus a free Meta ad account audit built on playbooks from 5,000+ DTC brands

Over $1 million paid out to merchants so far. Sign-up takes under a minute.

👉 Apply to join as a brand

Top Listings

This week we're highlighting two agencies for brands ready to bring in serious help.

❋ Erick Kagai – Front-End Developer · ⭐ 5.0

→ Custom Shopify theme development and OS 2.0 builds
→ Conversion-focused UI improvements and Core Web Vitals optimization
→ Section and component builds, app integration, and checkout customization
→ Clean, well-documented code built for long-term maintainability

A strong fit if you need a front-end developer who builds with performance and conversion in mind – not just getting it to look right.

❋ Has Merit – Shopify Agency · ⭐ 5.0

→ Conversion-driven storefront design and custom development
→ Brand identity and visual systems built for recognition and growth
→ CRO audits and data-grounded UI/UX improvements
→ Strategy, design, and development all in-house – no handoffs between teams

A strong fit if you're planning a redesign and want a team that treats brand and conversion as one problem, not two separate briefs.

Know an agency that belongs in the directory? Send them our way.

❤️ Quick Pulse Check

This week's question: Are you currently paying for an app you've stopped using?

A) Yes – at least one, maybe more
B) No – I audit our stack regularly
C) I'd have to check

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

Last week we asked:
"Has an app ever broken something on your store?"

Almost three quarters have had an app break something. The split between "caught it quickly" and "cost us real money" is mostly a question of monitoring – the merchants in group B usually have someone checking the storefront regularly, not better luck. And the 27% who haven't noticed anything may just not have noticed yet.