Yotpo x Shopify Are Ecommerce Partners

Ecommerce Partners 🤝

Have you heard the news? It has been announced that Yotpo and Shopify are now ecommerce partners. Both companies have entered a multi-year platform collaboration in respect of the future for ecommerce.

In 2021, brands must build strong and long-lasting relationships with their customers for the industry of ecommerce to thrive and grow.

Naturally, this announcement from Yotpo and Shopify has led to chatter from staff and retail partners, as the prospect of these two platforms fusing to create a deeper technology integration is extremely exciting.

However, the true mission behind the Yotpo Shopify collaboration is to benefit the future of online business and we can feel that something big is coming after this ground-shaking disclosure.

Rosa Hu, the Vice President of Product Marketing at Yotpo stated:

“I am so excited about this news and the tremendous opportunity we have to further our mission of helping brands strengthen their relationship with their customers.

Last week, we hosted an online event to give brands a sneak peek of what’s coming and the shared vision that Yotpo and Shopify have for this partnership.”

The Yotpo x Shopify - Vision for the Future

During the event, Rosa had the pleasure of hosting a Q&A with Yotpo’s Co-founder and CEO - Tomer Tagrin alongside Shopify's Vice President of Product Acceleration - Brandon Chu.

The two speakers discussed their vision for the future of ecommerce and that of their new partnership. The discussion was interesting to say the very least, so we thought we would share some highlights from their conversation for those of you who didn't catch it:

Customer Relationships

With recent changes implemented both by Google and Apple to better protect the privacy of their consumers, brands are now scrambling to create strategies for collecting zero-party and first-party data.

We have to say that this is without a doubt one of the trends in ecommerce that will continue in the upcoming months and years ahead.

Both Tomer and Brandon agreed that online businesses must own the direct relationship that they have with their customers. With the Yotpo Shopify partnership truly underway, both companies' spokesmen have stated that the plan is to develop even more tools that merchants can utilise to connect and understand their customers fully.

“When we saw how Yotpo was evolving its product, it proved to us that they’re seeing where commerce is going. We need to work with companies like Yotpo to make sure that merchants can continue to be successful because it’s not going to be the same game that they played for the last 10 years,” stated Brandon from Shopify.

Customer Experiences

Both ecommerce partners care strongly about merchant success and it is believed by the two companies that brands who deliver top-notch customer experiences will be able to acquire and retain an audience which is extremely important for online retail.

Customer acquisition costs are rising and there’s no end in sight. It’s important to have a strong retention strategy which is why Yotpo and Shopify are working together to help merchants enhance their customer experiences.

“As ecommerce gets bigger, the problem of how to win over consumer attention becomes harder and brands must own the relationship with consumers. They have to build that community. They have to engage that community and they have to learn how to get that community buying again and again and again.” said Tomer.

Merchant Success

The biggest takeaway from the discussion is that the Yotpo Shopify partnership will create unconditional value for applicable brands to utilise.

Additionally, Yotpo stated - “Creating a deeper integration between our platforms is exciting for us, but it should matter to brands because it allows us to innovate on what’s possible with marketing technology.

We want to create new features that help brands get closer to a 1:1 relationship with customers and let them dream even bigger for their customers.”

Merchant Demands

As the motivation behind the Yotpo Shopify alliance has been created to unlock new capabilities for online stores, a roundtable was hosted with Nik Sharma - the CEO of Sharma Brands, alongside two mutual Yotpo x Shopify brands.

Krisserin Canary, the Senior Vice President of Growth Marketing at Starface and Shray Joshi, the Head of Digital and Growth at Health-Ade discussed their hopes and demands for the partnership from a merchant’s perspective.

A few elements on their wish list stood out for us, so we’ve compiled a shortlist of the respective details below:

Both merchants expressed that a better understanding of customers is an important element of business so retailers need to receive access to a holistic view of Shopify and Yotpo’s customer insights in an informative and actionable way.

Furthermore, additional purchasing tools are essential as this will make robust customer understanding easier to personalise customer experiences, both online and offline.

Deeper integrations with other apps are extremely important as businesses will be able to leverage the partnership more deeply and expand their functionality with other apps on Shopify’s platform.

“I’m excited to see what this partnership brings and how it will improve the Yotpo experience and make it even more integrated into the shopping experience for our customers. I just know that it’s going to add a lot of value, so that’s pretty exciting.” Krisserin shared.

Yotpo x Shopify FAQs

As you may have already heard, Yotpo hosted a live chat during the event and it’s fair to say that the attendees had many questions to ask the ecommerce partners involved.

Here are some of the queries that came up, alongside Yotpo’s response to each one:

N0.1: Will This Partnership Alter the Cost of Shopify or Yotpo?

Merchants will be glad to hear that the answer to this question is undoubtedly no. Whichever plan merchants have with Shopify or Yotpo, the pricing and details will remain the same.

N0.2: What Does This Mean for Merchants?

Shopify and Yotpo are now ecommerce partners who are working together to develop smarter tools that will have a greater impact on online businesses. These tools will allow merchants to better connect, understand and own direct relationships with their customers.

As product development roadmaps have been aligned during this process, Yotpo has promised to meet all of their customer’s demands, faster than before.

N0.3 When Will Merchants Hear More About this Partnership?

Both platforms are hoping that merchants will be provided with further updates very shortly, as Yotpo and Shopify already have new features and products in the early stages of development and plan on sharing these new features with their users as soon as they’re ready.

N0.4: What’s the Advantage of Consolidated Apps?

Just like Yotpo’s platform, consolidated apps unlock unique synergies that help brands to increase ROI via their marketing efforts by enabling more cohesive, impactful and on-brand customer experiences.

N0.5: What Will Shopify Merchants Achieve from Adding Yotpo to the Tech Stack?

With Yotpo, merchants will receive access to a platform that’s designed to strengthen customer relationships through advanced solutions for; engagement, community advocacy and retention.

Additionally, Yotpo also offers solutions for; loyalty, SMS marketing, reviews and more whilst integrating with everyday tools such as; Google, Instagram, Shopify, alongside the rest of their tech stack.

N0.6: Will Yotpo Be Free for Shopify Merchants?

It has been clarified that Yotpo will continue to offer its free plan on Shopify, which is perfect for smaller businesses that process less than 50 orders per month.

For nearly a decade, Yotpo has enabled the growth of hundreds of thousands of Shopify merchants through first-class; engagement, community advocacy and retention solutions.

With the Yotpo Shopify partnership steering full speed ahead, their combined technologies will surely enable the acceleration of development for innovative marketing solutions.

The team here at Karmoon are excited to hear what Yotpo and Shopify are working on in the background and we’re sure that both partners are eager to work with one another to build upon their current success.

That’s the latest news in regards to the Yotpo Shopify partnership. What are your thoughts on this collaboration? Connect with us on social media or drop us a line and let us know.

If you’re actively looking to work with a Shopify agency designer or developer to assist you with your business, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch to get started!