I ruthlessly unsubscribe from almost all newsletters. Eric’s one of a select few that I look actually forward to opening because it has proven itself consistently valuable for Shopify merchants.
— Kurt Elster, Ecommerce Strategist, founder of Ethercycle, and a top Shopify Plus Expert.
Past issues
Shopify Dispatch Issue #451 - Community building, Structured data checklist
Issue #451 - May 15th, 2024 Ryan Hall (y'all) Kevin Hillstrom writes about the importance of building a community instead of renting one from Google/Facebook/etc. Structured data checklist for your Shopify SEO Ilana Davis shares a checklist you can use to evaluate if your structured data is good enough. Which...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #450 - WLS radio, Advertising cookies
Issue #450 - May 8th, 2024 WLS - Chicago Kevin Hillstrom writes about Sears, the WLS radio station, and how Sears was doing Amazon Prime-like tactics over a hundred years ago. Another everything old is new again moment. Google’s Cookie Delay Reveals Industry Fears Armando Roggio reports that Google has...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #449 - Avoid IP redirects, EU Accessibility Act
Issue #449 - May 1st, 2024 Avoid automatic redirection based on IP address Ilana Davis writes about how automatic IP redirection is bad for SEO. I wish Shopify would follow the rules about it instead of letting stores break their entire domains. Feels like they flip-flop every year since I...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #448 - Low-cost items, PCI DSS v4 in Shopify
Issue #448 - April 24th, 2024 Your Low-Cost Items Kevin Hillstrom writes about having a low-cost product that's loved by customers and keeping it low-cost. This is why Costco's $1.50 hot dog is so loved. Powering Shopify’s High-Performance, PCI DSS v4 Compliant Checkout with Sandboxing A technical post by Ilya...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #447 - First-party data, AI in Google results
Issue #447 - April 17th, 2024 What is First-Party Data? A Complete Guide on Data Holly Stanley writes about first-party data and how to use it on Shopify's blog. Analyzing the first-party data that's automatically collected for you in Shopify is a big reason why I created Repeat Customer Insights....
Shopify Dispatch Issue #446 - Shopify SEO, Your own event
Issue #446 - April 10th, 2024 What's missing in Shopify SEO? Ilana Davis asks what's missing in Shopify SEO? From my experience, the gap is documentation. Shopify has a lot of SEO features but they were never documented or are buried in one of their several documentation sites (that get...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #445 - Site speed scores
Issue #445 - April 3rd, 2024 The problem with fussing over site speed Ilana Davis writes about how site speed scores can lead you astray and are easily manipulated. Get a complete view of your customer behavior The cohort analysis in Repeat Customer Insights will automatically build cohorts for all...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #444 - Create a marketing strategy
Issue #444 - March 27th, 2024 How to Create a Marketing Strategy: 7 Steps Michael Keenan writes a guide for to getting started with a marketing strategy. Planning is great but more often than not, long-term marketing plans have to dramatically change as you adapt to reality. Get a complete...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #443 - Content for people, The endless sale
Issue #443 - March 20th, 2024 Create content for people, optimize for bots Ilana Davis writes about Google's guideline to create content for people. For decades people have been trying to game search engines to manufacture content for rankings. From footer links to content spinning to now AI, people keep...
Shopify Dispatch Issue #442 - Controlling an industry, Multi-channel selling
Issue #442 - March 13th, 2024 Headphones Kevin Hillstrom shares his story of buying different headphones and how he made buying decisions. An interesting part is at the end about how a small number of people can control an industry's popularity and why isn't that you or your employees? How...