Recently, we made a pretty huge announcement at Yotpo that got our staff and brands extremely excited about the future of our technology.
We announced a multi-year platform partnership with Shopify that will create a deeper integration between our technologies, enabling us to accelerate the development of innovative marketing solutions for brands.
As the VP of Product Marketing for Yotpo, I am so excited about this news and the tremendous opportunity we have to further our mission of helping brands strengthen their relationship with 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. Below, you can watch a playback of the event and read some of our top takeaways.
Yotpo and Shopify’s vision for the future
During the event, I had the pleasure of hosting a Q&A with our Co-founder and CEO, Tomer Tagrin, and Brandon Chu, VP of Product Acceleration at Shopify. They discussed their vision for the partnership and the future of eCommerce. Here are some of my favorite insights from that conversation.
Brands must own their relationships with customers
With recent changes implemented by Google and Apple to better protect consumer privacy, brands are now scrambling to create strategies for collecting zero-party and first-party data. And that’s a trend that’s going to continue.
Both Tomer and Brandon agreed that brands must own direct relationships with customers. With the Yotpo x Shopify partnership, we plan to develop even more tools to allow brands to connect with and understand their customers.
“When we saw how Yotpo was evolving its product, you know, it really proved to us that they’re seeing where commerce is going,” Brandon shared during the session. “And we need to really 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.”
Brands must deliver great customer experiences
Both Yotpo and Shopify care about merchant success, and brands that deliver top-notch customer experiences are going to be the ones that are able to acquire and more importantly, retain customers. Customer acquisition costs are rising, and there’s no end in sight. It’s important to have a strong retention strategy, and Yotpo and Shopify will work together to help merchants enhance the customer experience.
“As eCommerce is getting bigger, the problem of how to win over consumer attention becomes harder, and brands must own the relationship with consumers,” Tomer emphasized. “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.”
Yotpo x Shopify = merchant success
The biggest takeaway from the discussion was that Yotpo’s partnership with Shopify will allow us to create value for brands.
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.
What brands want to see from this partnership
Since the motivation for this whole alliance is to unlock new capabilities for brands, we also hosted a roundtable with Nik Sharma, CEO of Sharma Brands, and two mutual Yotpo x Shopify brands.
Krisserin Canary, SVP of Growth Marketing at Starface, and Shray Joshi, Head of Digital and Growth at Health-Ade discussed what they hope to see from this partnership, and a few of their wish list items stood out.
- Better understanding of customers: Being able to get a holistic view of Shopify and Yotpo’s customer insights in a way that can inform actionable strategies.
- More personalization tools: Taking that robust customer understanding and using it to better personalize the customer experience, both onsite and off.
- Deeper integrations with other apps: Leveraging the partnership to integrate more deeply and expand functionality with other apps on the Shopify platform.
“I’m really 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,” Krisserin shared. “And I just know that it’s going to add a lot of value, so that’s pretty exciting.”
Yotpo x Shopify: FAQs
We held a live chat during the event, and attendees had a lot of questions! Here are the ones that came up most frequently, and our answers to them.
1. Will this change the cost for me to use Shopify or Yotpo?
Nope! Whichever plan you have with Shopify or Yotpo, your plan details and pricing will stay the same. To learn more about Yotpo pricing, click here.
2. What will this partnership mean for merchants?
Shopify and Yotpo are working together to develop smarter tools that will have a greater impact on your business. These tools will allow you to better connect with, understand, and more importantly, own your direct relationships with your customers. And because we’re aligning our product development roadmaps, we’ll get all of this to you faster than before.
3. When will I start hearing about the impact of this partnership?
We hope very soon! We already have new features and products in development, and will be announcing them to our brands as soon as they’re ready.
4. Will I need to switch to Shopify to keep using Yotpo?
Nope! Since this partnership is not exclusive to Shopify, Yotpo will continue to be on all the major eCommerce platforms. We want to develop the best tools possible for all eCommerce brands, regardless of what platform they’re on, so we’ll continue to invest in smart product developments that leverage the unique capabilities of each ecosystem.
5. What’s the advantage of using consolidated apps?
Consolidated apps like Yotpo’s platform unlock unique synergies that help brands increase ROI on their marketing efforts by enabling more cohesive, impactful, and on-brand customer experiences. Plus, you can do all of it more efficiently, which is super important for small or stretched teams.
6. As a Shopify merchant, what do I get by adding Yotpo to my tech stack?
With Yotpo, you’ll get a platform that’s designed to strengthen customer relationships through advanced solutions for engagement, community advocacy, and retention. We offer solutions for Loyalty, SMS Marketing, Reviews, and more, and we integrate with the tools you use every day, including Google, Instagram, top eCommerce platforms like Shopify, and the rest of your tech stack.
7. Any updates on Yotpo for Shopify POS?
Yotpo currently integrates with Shopify POS. If you have your Shopify eCommerce and POS connected, we can send automated review requests to your POS retail customers. You can learn more about this integration here.
8. If I want to switch to Yotpo, will my reviews transfer from other platforms? How long will it take?
Yes! With our self-service import, you can directly import your existing reviews into the Yotpo dashboard using an import file. Once imported, it usually takes 24 hours for your reviews to appear onsite. If you’re importing native reviews from Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, or Volusion, you can follow the instructions here.
9. Will there be a free version of Yotpo for use on Shopify?
Yes! Yotpo will continue to offer its free plan, 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 solutions for engagement, community advocacy, and retention. We look forward to working with Shopify to build on that success, and we can’t wait to share all the things we’re working on in the background soon!
