Tag: Shopify

London, United Kingdom – Global digital agency DEPT has announced its new partnership with Shopify to unlock tomorrow’s commerce possibilities for today’s most pioneering companies. This new partnership will combine DEPT’s tech expertise with Shopify’s essential internet infrastructure for commerce to offer its clients an integrated solution that leverages technology and AI to support their business growth.

By combining DEPT’s unique blend of technology and marketing services with Shopify’s scalable platform, this partnership enables brands to thrive by supporting the entire digital customer journey—from awareness and acquisition to platform design and backend integration. 

The DEPT agency has the capabilities and award-winning industry recognition to support a variety of clients, internationally and locally, boasting a proven track record with successful digital transformation experiences including for international brands like Diageo, Meyer, Pit Viper, and Cowboy Bikes.

The agency remarked that in today’s complex digital environment, brands face the ‘multi/multi/multi challenge’—managing multiple brands, expanding into multiple markets, and engaging customers across multiple channels. 

These challenges can stifle growth, especially as businesses strive to deliver personalized, seamless experiences while adapting to new technologies like AI. Without an integrated strategy and the full capabilities to execute, brands risk falling behind in a landscape where speed and adaptability are crucial,” DEPT said in a press statement.

The DEPT and Shopify partnership is designed to tackle these complexities head-on, enabling companies to scale globally while maintaining local relevance​.

With over 125 Shopify experts, DEPT leverages its AI innovation accelerator and advanced AI tools such as Shopify’s growing suite of AI-powered tools to enhance personalization, optimise operations, and streamline omnichannel commerce. This fully integrated approach empowers enterprises to scale across regions and markets while maintaining local relevance, allowing brands to grow their commerce business from a single, unified platform.

Ritu Khanna, vice president of partnerships at Shopify, remarked, “Our global partnership with DEPT empowers brands worldwide, enabling them to seamlessly harness Shopify’s innovative commerce technology alongside DEPT’s AI-driven digital solutions to drive growth. As a leading commerce platform for brands of all sizes, Shopify is strategically positioned to deliver advanced, unified commerce solutions that support DEPT’s clients in expanding their global reach.”

Meanwhile, Andrew Dimitriou, chief client and growth officer at DEPT, commented, “This partnership unlocks possibilities to deliver unparalleled value to our clients. By integrating our commerce capabilities with Shopify’s scalable platform, we’re equipping brands to tackle the complexities of multi-brand, multi-market, and multi-channel engagement. Together, we’re not just providing tools but creating tailored commerce solutions that empower businesses and drive growth for ambitious brands.”

Singapore – StackAdapt, a multi-channel advertising platform, has announced its integration with Shopify, an internet infrastructure provider for commerce.

The update allows merchants and marketers on Shopify to integrate with StackAdapt, enabling them to automatically install StackAdapt from Shopify’s app store for business growth.

Through the integration, users can leverage pixels and audience activations while tracking conversion for monitoring. Consequently, they can optimise campaigns on the platform and create high-intent audiences.

Additionally, StackAdapt provides templates that allow users to define audiences through rule-based segmentation. It uses real-time customer data to create audiences while using first-party data.

The integration simplifies pixel installation for Shopify merchants and marketers, enabling them to streamline processes. It allows them to be more accurate in retargeting audiences while adapting to first-party data collection.

By allowing customers to adapt to a cookieless marketing environment, StackAdapt’s offering also improves how it engages customers.

“Enabling Shopify merchants to activate their first-party data through a simplified pixel onboarding process represents a major step forward in e-commerce advertising,” Vitaly Pecherskiy, chief executive officer of StackAdapt, commented.

“Our integration not only minimizes the complexities associated with digital advertising but also opens up new opportunities for merchants to connect with their audience in a more meaningful and personalized way,” Pecherskiy added.

Philippines – Around 80% of Filipino respondents consider free shipping to be the most important factor when shopping with online stores or retailers, a study by Shopify showed.

The study found that the free shipping feature is a must for the majority of Filipinos when making purchases online. Other key considerations for Filipino shoppers include using mobile apps for online shopping (46%) and free returns (45%).

Meanwhile, for in-store purchases, 66% of Filipinos said attentive staff is their top priority. Additionally, 57% emphasised the importance of sufficient stock, while 52% highlighted the need for attentive customer service.

Bjarati Balakrishnan, head and director for Southeast Asia and India at Shopify, said, “Experiences in the store are really changing rapidly because, you and I, when we walk into a store today, we pop out a marketplace and read the catalogue in detail before we decide what to buy. We’re not really relying on the salesman to tell us all the details, like we used to 10 years back.” 

She continued, “Invest in unified commerce, but please get your basics right before you enter the world of (augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence). Let’s get catalogue and content assortment, inventory, pricing, and promotions right.” 

“I definitely think mainly the present is omnichannel. How it evolves into being more unified, more driven by technology, more driven by a unified experience for customers, so they feel, no matter where they want to buy you, they can find you, is really what the future is,” Balakrishnan further noted.

Singapore – Southeast Asian retailers are placing big bets on social media as 68% plan to increase investment in social commerce over the next 12 months, according to the latest data from Shopify. This dovetails with the finding that social media is now the biggest driver of brand and product discovery in Southeast Asia, with more than 4 in 5 consumers (82%) discovering new products through social media. 

According to the report, social commerce platforms are seeing staggering growth in the region, with platforms like TikTok projected to grow their user base in Asia-Pacific by 11.3% in 2024. In line with this, 39% of retailers surveyed for the report said social media engagement is one of the most crucial metrics for determining the ROI of commerce infrastructure, ranking just behind profit margin (44%). 

Moreover, the current economic climate has greatly impacted purchasing behaviour. Inflation and the rising cost of living have led the majority of Southeast Asian consumers (83%) to cut back on non-essential expenses, with over half seeking the best value when they shop. 

When it comes to making a purchase, price is the top factor for shoppers in Southeast Asia. Nearly all consumers surveyed (96%) said that they would stay loyal to a brand if it offered them an incentive, with consistently low prices or promotions being a top draw for 70%. In line with this, contextual real-time pricing (71%) is the number one area in which retailers plan to increase their technology spending so that they can drive conversions while maintaining favourable margins.

It is also worth noting that business websites, also referred to as brand.com sites, are important to shopping journeys in the region. Around 81% of Southeast Asian shoppers agree that a company with a brand website is more trustworthy and credible, compared to those without one. This trust factor is especially important to shoppers when making large purchases – two in five (42%) of SEA consumers prefer making large purchases on a company’s website instead of its online marketplace store.

While online channels are the stand-out preference for Southeast Asian shoppers, physical stores remain an important channel. Over a quarter (28%) said they enjoy in-store shopping as much as online shopping, and another 19% prefer in-store shopping. This highlights the importance of creating omnichannel shopping experiences. To succeed in omnichannel, a unified commerce platform that provides a holistic view of customer engagement, inventory, and fulfilment across channels is key. Testament to this, more than 3 in 5 retailers (66%) surveyed said they will increase tech investment in a unified commerce platform. 

The report also highlighted that around 85% of retailers face operations-related challenges, with efficiency issues stemming from manual processes and complex business systems. Almost all retailers surveyed (99%) believe that technology will remedy these struggles and are planning to invest about 20% of their total revenue into innovation initiatives in the next year. Topping the list of increased tech investments: contextual real-time pricing (71%), social commerce (68%), business intelligence (67%), unified commerce platform (66%, and composable stacks (65%). Given that technology is set to reshape the retail landscape, an overwhelming majority (93%) of retailers believe that the chief technology officer will contribute to the evolution and/or revenue growth of the business. 

Shaun Broughton, managing director for APAC and Japan at Shopify, said, “In this current economic climate, the imperative for both shoppers and retailers to achieve more with less has never been greater. Retailers are turning to advanced technology solutions to not only meet evolving customer demands but also to fortify their long-term resilience.”

He added, “Unified commerce is set to be a key growth catalyst, enabling retailers to harness comprehensive data and insights across their customers, inventory, and operations to make informed and strategic decisions. With technology being the linchpin to the future of retail, Shopify is the partner of choice for retailers across Southeast Asia, from large enterprises to small businesses, with solutions that are purpose-built to cater to their unique needs.”

Bangkok, Thailand – E-commerce enabler aCommerce announced the release of its new connector that will help data streams from Shopify to the former’s proprietary omnichannel order management platform EcommerceIQ.

The connector is aimed at helping e-commerce managers keep track of their multiple sales channels switching between marketplaces, social commerce, and direct-to-consumer dashboards to monitor their online business. 

It is also expected to enable a smooth flow of products, inventory, sales orders, returns, delivery updates, and all related data between EcommerceIQ and Shopify.

The connector is secured by EcommerceIQ’s proprietary tokenized module and will automatically consume and synchronise order information, inventory, and pricing control through a unified panel.

Upon its release, aCommerce’s existing partners will have the opportunity to be among the first to opt in and sample its capabilities with full EIQ integration. The connector will then be brought to the broader market in the next few months following the pilot.

“We are thrilled about the upcoming release of what this new connector can bring to our clients and the wider market,” said Roberto Kauffmann, aCommerce’s group chief product officer.

He added, “For our brand clients, this Shopify and EcommerceIQ turnkey integration-as-a-service allows us to simply add and operate Shopify stores as an additional channel. Likewise, brands wishing to launch a store or existing Shopify merchants, can now easily scale up their business by tapping into our fulfillment and other EcommerceIQ services almost instantly. It also provides clients with centralized multichannel monitoring and insights that are vital for professional ecommerce.”

Paul Srivorakul, aCommerce group chief executive officer, also commented, “Direct-to-consumer is a crucial piece of the puzzle. With the new public integration, our clients will have a 360 view of their operations, where they can manage and optimize their ecommerce business. This is an opportunity for brands and merchants to leverage their existing marketplace presence and create an efficient multi-channel strategy.”

aCommerce was previously tapped by Shopify Plus to be its first partner in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines.

Japan — Pinterest is launching ads for all businesses in Japan. Businesses of all sizes now have access to multiple types of ad formats and targeting options in Japan to reach new audiences with meaningful, useful content as they discover ideas and plan new projects. Japan is the next country to launch as part of the global expansion of Pinterest’s ad program. Alongside this, Pinterest is also expanding its partnership with e-commerce company Shopify.

On Pinterest, brands are additive to the avid users of Pinterest’s or ‘Pinner’s’ experience. Because of Pinterest’s dynamics for product discoverability, advertisers are keen on the platform’s potential. With Pinterest, ads can inspire the decisions of consumers because commercial content enhances the Pinterest user’s experience. People come to Pinterest looking for products and services to plan their futures and build their lives.

Because 97% of the top searches on Pinterest are unbranded and consist of 2-3 word queries, the majority of consumers are not typing a brand name into their searches, which is why Pinterest is such an effective place to reach people while they’re still considering their next purchase and haven’t decided on a brand. Pinterest is one of the platforms where it is possible for brands to engage with new customers who are intentional, open and making buying decisions.

The platform recently opened ads to a small group of Japanese businesses as early partners. Brands such as BAYCREW’S and Cowcamo have already seen success using Pinterest Ads to tap into an audience on Pinterest that is looking for what to try or buy next.

Kei Narita, country manager for Japan at Pinterest, said, “Pinterest stands out as a positive environment where consumers come to find inspiration for what to do or buy next. We give businesses of all sizes an opportunity to connect with consumers early in their decision-making journey and we’re proud to expand our global advertising program to Japan. Our advertisers play an incredible role in enabling Pinterest users to turn inspiration into action so they can create a life they love, and we’re excited to enable Japanese businesses to now connect with our engaged audience through ads.”

Pinterest is also launching new features for businesses in Japan to reach people who want to go from finding ideas to making purchases.

Via the launch, businesses in Japan can upload their full catalogue to Pinterest and automatically turn their products into shoppable Product Pins. Enriched with metadata and formatted to let people on Pinterest know that they’re shoppable, Product Pins feature the most up-to-date price, availability and product title and description from your website. By uploading their catalogue of products to Pinterest, businesses can link directly to the product page on their site so Pinners can buy one of their products in just a few clicks. Product Pins are more discoverable in places like Home Feed, search, recommendations like Related Pins, and Lens camera search results.

Pinterest is expanding its partnership with Shopify to Japan. Now, Shopify merchants in Japan have an easy way to bring their products to Pinterest and turn them into shoppable Product Pins that are discoverable across the platform.

The Pinterest channel on Shopify provides frictionless access to Pinterest shopping features including tag deployment, catalogue ingestion, and advertising buying interface, without the need to edit code or deploy resources on their own site.

Small-to-medium-sized businesses with shops on Shopify will have easy set-up and access to distribution across Pinterest either organically or through ads, as well as reporting and results to maximize reach. Thanks to this integration, SMBs will save time to set up shop on Pinterest and will be able to showcase their products to a global monthly audience of more than 400 million people, many of whom come with the intent to shop and discover new products.

Makoto Tahara, country director and head of Japan at Shopify, shared, “By expanding our global partnership with Pinterest, Japanese merchants can now access the Pinterest channel to create targeted, audience-building campaigns all without leaving Shopify. This is particularly important for Japan’s small and medium-sized merchants to help them thrive by creating new opportunities for discoverability among Pinterest’s 400M+ users around the world.”

With the launch of ads in Japan, Pinterest is continuing the global momentum of its advertising program.

Sydney, Australia – Global commerce platform Shopify and global audio streaming platform Spotify have entered a strategic partnership that allows music artists to expand beyond music and traditional merch to build fully realized brands, all with the capabilities of both platforms in their own specialities.

Using the Spotify channel, artists can introduce products to the place where listeners and fans are already engaging with their music most. By connecting their Spotify for Artists accounts with their Shopify online stores, artists can sync their product catalogues and seamlessly showcase products of their choice directly on their Spotify profiles, making it easy for fans to browse and purchase. 

Said feature period is currently in beta testing, and is available to users across Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S.

“Shopify is already powering the online stores of local and international acts, and the Spotify integration will further empower Aussie and Kiwi artists to showcase their unique talent, brand or creativity, and engage their fans even more effectively,” said Shaun Broughton, managing director for APAC at Shopify.

With Shopify, artist-entrepreneurs have access to an all-in-one commerce platform to manage their brands across multiple touchpoints that not only include leading social and entertainment channels and marketplaces, but now one of the most popular audio streaming services in the world.

“For new artists, Shopify is an easy-to-use, all-in-one commerce platform to start, grow and manage their brands. For artists with large followings and pre-existing businesses, Shopify’s world-class infrastructure effortlessly handles high volumes of traffic, key sales moments, and highly anticipated product drops,” Shopify said in a press statement.

Sydney, Australia – Global commerce company Shopify in Australia aims to encourage businesses and consumers to view the brands that have reimagined retail in their own business operations through Shopify’s latest out-of-home (OOH) advertising, made in partnership with creative content agency Chello and media agency iPROSPECT.

Titled ‘Reimagine Retail’, the OOH campaign is best considered as a celebration of Australian brands that have disrupted retail with innovative products and cutting-edge e-commerce strategies – while doing it all on Shopify.

The campaign comes to life when users scan an inbuilt QR code functionality on all assets, giving users an opportunity to ‘meet’ Australian brands who have reimagined retail, and then shop their stores — from anywhere on any device.

“We wanted a campaign which celebrates and showcases local, independent businesses, who are the backbone of Australia’s entrepreneurial economy,” says Robin Marchant, head of marketing for APAC at Shopify.

Initially intended for a pre-lockdowned Australia, Shopify was keen to proceed as a show of support for its more than 100,000 merchants in Australia. Some of Shopify’s customers featured in the visual assets of the campaign include Go-To Skin Care, frank green, MAAP, and Who Gives a Crap.

“At Shopify, we power more than 100,000 Australian retail businesses to launch, run and grow by making it possible to sell to anyone, anywhere. Every day, we’re inspired by our merchants as they reimagine the possibilities of retail, and we can’t wait to see what the next generation of budding entrepreneurs will do with the exciting, evolving retail space,” Marchant added.

Speaking about the campaign, Tristan Velasco, creative director and co-founder at brand and content agency Chello, shared, “Working with Shopify made two things clear to us. One, that they’re merchant obsessed, and two, they help a long list of innovative, Australian brands redefine retail. It was a no-brainer that these brands would be the heart of our campaign.”

He added, “With so many businesses being hit hard by these latest lockdowns, it’s an exciting time to demonstrate the resilience and willpower of Australian brands on Shopify that have truly reimagined retail.”

Meanwhile, Sam Cousins, chief strategy officer at iPROSPECT, commented, “We recognize more and more in our business that every media touchpoint is a commerce opportunity. It’s great to have Shopify on board with us to help drive this forward through our partnership with Chello.”

Said campaign will run out of home, digital out of home, programmatic and digital as well.

Sydney, Australia – As e-commerce company Shopify brings to Australia its latest suite of integrated retail hardware and payments for retailers in the country, the company has recently published a study on the status quo of the local retail scene.

According to the study, despite online shopping likely to double, most Aussies still prefer to shop in-store. However, retailers are having to cater to and accommodate new ways of shopping such as contactless payments, local delivery, and click-and-collect that have been accelerated by the global pandemic.

Furthermore, Aussies are increasingly turning online to make their purchases. The research shows the number of shoppers buying mostly online will likely double post-pandemic vs. pre-pandemic, from 7% pre-pandemic to 15% now that many COVID-19 restrictions have started to ease. 

Shopify also noted that buying in brick-and-mortar stores, still tops Australia’s shopping preference with 64% of people choosing to buy mostly in physical stores post-pandemic, compared to 79% before COVID-19.

“We are experiencing a fundamental shift in how people shop following the global pandemic. This new retail renaissance is forcing retailers to adapt to new business models, as digital disruption is fueled by rocketing customer expectations for convenience, personalization, experience, and safety,” said Shaun Broughton, managing director APAC at Shopify.

The report also reveals the number of Australians buying online for click-and-collect or local delivery will continue to grow compared to pre-pandemic. The former increased from 17% pre-pandemic to 23% post-pandemic, and deliveries from online purchases grew from 37% to 43% accordingly. On the other hand, buying through social media is predicted to stay relatively low among Aussies, sitting at 5-6%.

In other data, Shopify noted that the top 3 expectations of consumers are free shipping (64%), easy returns (58%), and efficient customer service (57%). About 8 in 10 shoppers say buying local is important to them, with proximity (77%) and supporting local business owners (60%) cited as the main reasons why. 

Meanwhile, 29% of online shoppers would select pick-up from a physical store location if free-shipping is not available, and 52% expect retailers to offer ‘click-and-collect’. Furthermore, 93% have used a non-cash means of payment while shopping in-store (e.g debit card, credit card, mobile wallet).

“Australia has quickly become an important market for Shopify, so bringing integrated retail hardware and in-store payments to our Australian retail merchants is a pivotal step in future-proofing their businesses,” Broughton added.

Shopify’s hardware launch, categorized under the Shopify Point of Sale (POS) and Shopify Payments suite, aims to bring said benefits:

  • The ability for retailers to accept all major payment methods, however, and wherever they need to in order to make the sale
  • Secure and reliable checkouts for both retailers and customers when completing a sale, all through a single POS system.
  • Unified back office to track and manage sales, payments, and payouts across online and in-person retail all from a single location
  • Returns and exchanges helping retailers assist customers with purchases made online or at other locations
  • Upfront pricing with a single rate for all credit cards and no hidden fees or hardware rental fees

Singapore – Mobile-first commerce solutions for businesses, KADDRA, has announced the completion of its integration with accounting software XERO to provide a fully automated sales-to-accounting flow for SMEs to improve their productivity and have the right tools to scale.

KADDRA provides mobile-first e-commerce and marketing solutions by connecting businesses with their customers through a white label end-to-end platform. It operates under the premise of improving sales processes, marketing reach, and customer service through a subscription based model for native mobile technology catered to SMEs venturing into digitizing their operations. 

According to Quentin Chiarugi, executive chairman and CEO of KADDRA, the integration is part of a larger roadmap the company has slated for software integrations this year.

“It is a crucial step, and it will provide a huge advantage to companies using both our solutions to run their operations. With minimal cost, productivity will dramatically improve from sales to accounting,” Chiarugi stated.

Meanwhile, Will Beattie, CTO & COO of KADDRA, said, “Xero, like KADDRA, is an easy-to-use, plug-and-play solution used by forward-thinking businesses. Their rapid global expansion is proof that back-office operations want to streamline and evolve. With this integration, sales orders can seamlessly be created as invoices in Xero, reducing manual work, data-entry errors and ultimately saving time for the whole operation.” 

Last month, KADDRA has also integrated e-commerce service Shopify in its platform to amplify its stance for business support for SMEs.