Latest / Leaders on Shopify with John Readman / Too many Shopify apps? What your tech stack is really costing you.

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Too many Shopify apps? What your tech stack is really costing you. · Leaders on Shopify with John Readman

• Gareth - Herd: Well then John, thanks for having us. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, so for those who don't know you and don't know Herd, can you give us a little bit about you and a little bit about what Herd's famous for? Gareth - Herd: Yeah, yeah, of course. My name's Gareth, MD and co-founder here at Herd. Cracky, we started way back in 2013, but our journey with Shopify was even before then, so late noughties into early teens when we first started working with Shopify. I started out as a front-end web developer, a computer science graduate from Holy University, and then ended up moving into digital marketing. after graduating. And then from there, I started to learn about Shopify, building websites, lots of people asking about e-commerce, how do we get into e-com. And then asking, I guess, after they'd built a website, how do we then market that? How do we get that to the top of search engine results? I guess a blended history career, I guess, initially in front-end development and then moving into marketing before setting up Herd. And that's where we first set out back in 2013. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, and you mentioned you were sort of exploring and playing with Shopify in the sort of early days. What was it about Shopify that sort of excited you or you thought, hang on, this is the, cause that was either, I suppose it's very easy to look back now and go, that was a good bet to make. But what was it about Shopify that felt like, hang on, we need to, we need to back this. We need to jump on board. Cause there's not many agencies in the UK, a lot of jumped on board since, but you were quite early in this. What was it? What sort of sparked your interest there? Gareth - Herd: Yeah, that's a good question. So like I said, back end of 2000s, I can remember being agency side and we'd got one or two clients who were asking about e-commerce and I did an extensive review of all the platforms at the time. Thinking way back when, Magento's, et cetera. And Shopify was early days then, but it stood out as, well, it stood out certainly for me in terms of the best platform for the end user. So not only was it decent to build in, but when you handed it over to the merchant, if you like, you could quickly upskill them, provide training, and really enable somebody. And you could see it as the platform that was certainly going to be up and coming at the time, but it was going places, that you really could empower the merchant. And you didn't need a large development team once you'd handed over a website. and you didn't necessarily need PHP developers to make small changes, etc. This is going back probably 15 years ago, so really early doors. You could almost see then it was going to be the platform of choice in the future. yeah, to your point, John, perhaps a little bit of luck as well that we're back to the right horse. John - Leaders on Shopify: There's always a bit of luck involved, Gareth. There's always a bit of luck and timing. But you've sort of built your business now around helping some, like both startup brands and scale up brands on Shopify. And a lot of people, think this perception is changing, but certainly in the early days, the perception was Shopify is just for the sort of small SME mom and pop shop type thing. And we were chatting before the show about... actually Shopify is now probably a legitimate enterprise player. What have you seen shift and what were the challenges and I suppose what are still the challenges with Shopify if you're medium to large brand looking to scale maybe from a Salesforce or a Magento or whatever onto the Shopify ecosystem? Gareth - Herd: Yeah, early days, as we say, the challenges back then were almost trying to get that across to medium-sized businesses, enterprise brands that actually Shopify was a legitimate platform. And there were concerns back there about, it good for SEO? How malleable was it? Or were you sort of constrained within the limits and the confines of the Shopify system? So there were early challenges. And trying to get that across to merchants actually know this is this is a platform of choice And certainly one that they should be considering should be using So that's that's definitely one of the things that That used to come up quite regularly We often heard people say no, it's no good for SEO for instance And actually it is just because there's a fixed URL structure that isn't malleable. It doesn't really matter we don't see any John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, I think the world's got over that whole URL structure. I used to sit on the other side of the fence when I was agency side going, this is no, you your URLs this way. You need your URLs this way. And I think as long as you've got good content and you've got a quick enough site. And I think the interesting thing now, Gareth, is the speed of the out of the box themes are good enough. If not. some of the best you can get rather than, and I suppose, well, it'd be interesting your view on this. I don't know how many headless you've done versus sort of just out of the box. What's your view on whether people do or don't need headless? Because a couple of years ago it was like, we're all going to go headless because it's so much faster. But I think there's make, Gareth - Herd: Yeah. John - Leaders on Shopify: we've seen in the, from these podcasts, we've interviewed people who've switched back to an out of the box theme just because the maintenance of the headless has become too complex and actually the gains are marginal now. What's your view at Herd? Gareth - Herd: Yeah, I think that's a fair point. And if a theme is built correctly in the first place and optimized for search for speed, call web vitals, all of the usual suspects, there's no need to jump in with headless. And it's probably only edge cases where you would perhaps consider it. So we'd be erring towards the side of why do it if you don't do it or don't do it just because it's something new. So that would be our take on it. And in terms of that headless. approach we do very few to be honest. On the themes on theme store there are some great themes out there there are some themes that are not so good and perhaps don't consider all of your usual suspects, cobalt vitals, speed etc. So I'd perhaps just have an air of caution there but fantastic still if you want to pick an off-the-shelf theme and launch your site quickly no problem if then you were perhaps building the business scaling further, that might be when you'd consider a bespoke theme that is built with searching mind and speed, etc. But yeah, hopefully that answers your question. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, yeah, no, it's a, and when you sort of set the business up and you were sort of moving into e-commerce, I suppose from a sort of Shopify point of view, what support and interaction have you had with them? How's that changed over years? Cause it's, I was at the Shopify.dev conference last week and there's five and a half thousand Shopify developers. I just, and what I hadn't expected, they had their company conference in a conference center on one side of the road, and then they had the partner conference in a conference center on other side. And then on the evening, they put us all together and it was like 8,000 people. And it's just vast. And I suppose one thing I remember back in the day when, at Summit when we were a Magento partner. It was a very strange partner relationship. You had to sort pay to be a partner. had to pay to go to the conference and you had to do this and you had to do that. What's your experience of partnering with Shopify? Is it a case of it's a tech partner, you get the tech or do you see other benefits from being in that ecosystem? Gareth - Herd: No, it's a huge ecosystem and one that's thriving. Like I we've been partners now for 13 plus years and we do see the benefits of it. And I think that's where you get the best from tech partnerships when there is a real relationship and not just from their side and what can we get from Shopify, but from our side too, like what can we... what can we send back if you like. we're continually referring clients to Shopify and recommending that platform and 100 % bought into the ecosystem. And I guess off the back of that, then we get support from Shopify, whether that might be funding for campaigns, for instance, whether that might be access to support lines that other people just don't get. I guess if you're a Google Premier partner, et cetera, we get that from being a Shopify Premier partner. One thing that we're on the mission towards now striving, having made it to Shopify plus status back in 2022, more recently to Premier status, now striving to get towards platinum status. So fingers crossed. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, then they'll introduce a diamond or something above where they push you. And then they've got this Gareth - Herd: Yeah, probably. John - Leaders on Shopify: one that's right at the top. And I don't think agencies can get this yet, but this is the one we're trying to strive for as a technology app. want to get built for Shopify badge first. And then there's the Shopify technology partner. And that's like now they've just put the bar even higher and that sort of Gareth - Herd: Yeah, that'd be perfect. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, that sort of segues quite nicely into you must have seen and played with thousands of different apps when building stuff for your clients. And you must have some sort of go-to, right? These are our, when we go into a pitch, we talk to you about, these, we're gonna do your design, build, all your data stuff, get your site, but it's probably, we would recommend either this one or this one for certain things. What do herd normally recommend and what are the sort of go-to apps that are very reliable that you stand behind and partner with? Gareth - Herd: Yeah, yeah, good question. And whilst it's a fantastic ecosystem, like you say, thousands of apps out there that will help you do things that, yeah. John - Leaders on Shopify: It's very noisy. It's very, and it's confusing. If you're a merchant, it's confusing. So they need, I think, the guidance of experts like yourself. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I guess our stance initially would be think about an app installation first and do you actually need it rather than just going out there at like somebody in a sweet shop and thinking, right, I'm going to have something off the shelf everywhere and installing things left, right, and center. And that'll have an adverse impact on speed for sure. And even if you think I'm going to try an app and then uninstall it, not all apps will tidy up after themselves and might still leave remnants of code in place, et cetera. Again, it'll have a detrimental impact on performance. So I guess our first starting point would be make sure that you need the app. And if it's something that's fundamental to your business, perhaps consider building something bespoke if it is that important, rather than just bolting on app after app after app, et cetera. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. Gareth - Herd: and that's something that we're good at. John - Leaders on Shopify: And you'd build sort of bespoke things for clients that work then within for Shopify. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, exactly like things like our product filtering system things like deal wallet more recently we were launching apps on the App Store that will solve specific problems for merchants So yeah, we've got plenty of examples of those But if we were getting into and that's not me saying yeah, beware apps don't use them absolutely the ecosystem is fantastic and Where you've got a specific problem that an app can solve? Don't necessarily reinvent the wheel, but just be careful around what you're installing. guess that's the message. Categories where we'd definitely be considering apps would be things like lifecycle, customer experience, text messaging, et cetera, with apps, integrations, clavios, digital is gorgeous. Things around loyalty, whether it be reviews, user generated content, perhaps you'd be thinking Yacht-Pos. And then even things around subscriptions, if you need subscription models. And measurement as well. So a key thing you'd be making sure measurements right. So while Shopify does have its own measurement, you want to be sure that you've got good analytics set up and make sure that you can do attribution in the right way. So certainly be thinking around that. Actually, we launched a five must have Shopify app recently on our blog at Herd. that like usual suspects with things like Shopify search and discovery, definitely making sure you've got. that in place. John - Leaders on Shopify: Well, if you share the blog afterwards, Garth, I'll put it in the show notes and we can promote that. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, absolutely. John - Leaders on Shopify: And with your apps, are they just sort of private apps for your customers or are you sort of monetize those apps as well? Is that a business opportunity for you? Gareth - Herd: Yeah, that is a really good question. So up until this point, I would say up until the last two or three months, they've very much been proprietary tech, whether it's product filtering, deal wallets, et cetera. And we rolled out those out on all of our builds for all of our merchant clients. We are taking steps now to almost appify those and get them onto the Shopify App Store. So some of those will be coming. Probably the first few will be. things for specific integrations. So we've done quite a bit. In fact, world's first IP cost gold integration. We're getting really into the weeds now, but it's a parts ERP system and there isn't an integration available. So we built it. So we've done that plenty of times already. Next step is rolling that out on the app store. So anybody on it, it costs that we were considering Shopify can just have a one click away. got integration. John - Leaders on Shopify: And I suppose that helps you Gareth - Herd: So things like that. John - Leaders on Shopify: build relationships with other people in the future who might see your clever app and think, well, actually we might need some more support or work. then they've heard of you, they've heard of your brand, they know what you do. So it could also be a bit of lead gen and business development for you as well. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, yeah, 100%. I guess that's the that's the nice thing as well about the app store and even the theme store to be fair and people ask us, well, have you never launched your your proprietor's theme on the theme store? And we've been in two minds whether we should do that. So we've spent years and years, I guess, tinkering with Shopify, tinkering with liquid, improving performance. And should we publicly make that theme available? and perhaps the reach then would be hundreds of thousands of people versus do we just offer it to the clients that we're working with. John - Leaders on Shopify: So that's a difficult decision. What are you going to do? Gareth - Herd: So I think we will launch a theme at some point. John - Leaders on Shopify: We're going to get an exclusive here. Is this going to be an exclusive for the leaders on Shopify? Gareth - Herd: Yeah, I think we'll probably be launching a theme at some point in the future, whether that's a, I shouldn't really say a scaled back, but maybe that's a lighter version. John - Leaders on Shopify: Maybe you want to keep the bells and whistles though. You want to keep all the bells and whistles for your actual retained clients and then a slightly so we've got, I don't know, the full turbo version over here and then only the GTI version over here in the app store is sort of what I'm saying. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Definitely. I'll definitely mention that to the dev team, but that should be one that's on its way along with various Shopify apps launching as well. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, I know that's interesting. you've worked with some amazing brands over the years and some quite well known household brands. Which ones are you sort of most proud of the journey they've been on and what was it that really stood out? Gareth - Herd: Yeah, wow. More recent brands, the likes of Chili's, Chili's Water Bottles, fantastic migration and a really good case study for us. If you looked at their technology stack prior to starting the migration piece and early doors in discovery, it was like a spaghetti junction. The number of apps, the integrations of technology. everything hanging together. And I know the guys at Chili's wouldn't mind me saying this. And one of the real benefits and wins from going through that migration and working with Herd was that sort of total cost of ownership piece, reduction in the number of apps, reduction on the amount of external development resource required, post-migration and moving to Shopify. So a massive success for the brand. And we've been working with them ever since across performance marketing and development as well. John - Leaders on Shopify: And what did Chilly's where Gareth - Herd: really good care study. John - Leaders on Shopify: did Chilly's come from? it were they already on Shopify? Did they migrate from a different platform? Gareth - Herd: So no, they were migrating from a custom platform. And that one was a really fast turnaround as well. So it was a scenario where I think the platform was coming to end of life and they needed to be migrated quickly. So we took a two-phased approach. We did almost an initial quick launch to get them moved away from existing platform. and then a fast follow with a bespoke theme a little bit later. So it's possible. We definitely wouldn't recommend it all of the time and saying, right, we're going to get you launched in a number of weeks. We'd rather do it methodically. John - Leaders on Shopify: I've heard of horror stories of clients phoned up going, we need to do it next week, right? Because some things happen, Gareth - Herd: Yeah, yeah. John - Leaders on Shopify: it's, yeah, you're often here, but it sounds like you did a good job there. And I'm assuming you've got some amazing Chili's Bottles merch in the herd office. Gareth - Herd: We definitely have. I've not got one to hand actually, but yeah, we've got some lovely branded Herb bottles. I should send you one actually. If you'll use it, I'll pop you one across. John - Leaders on Shopify: Well, well, next time we meet up, I'll grab one. That would be great. And which other brands that maybe people haven't heard of where there's an interesting use case or story about something you had to do, but actually the result was really good that either you or the team are super proud of. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, there's, I mean, the number of examples that we've got are endless, but just stop. John - Leaders on Shopify: Well, I suppose you've been doing this a long time. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A recent migration and integration with Chaos Control and quite on point, guess, topical at the minute that people would be familiar with around the explosion of Paddle. So, PDH Sports doing a fantastic job there and obviously quite in-depth integrations involved and helping that brand really scale now. around that paddle explosion. So migrating them across to Shopify plus. SEO migration as well, mitigating all of the risks associated with platform migration, et cetera. So really nice one. And then other ones, probably brands that people won't have heard of. So Spitfire Audio, another good one. And they sell almost sound samples. online for people in music industry who might be putting together video and audio. So their site allows you to go off and purchase those sound samples, but they've got a really complicated pricing structure. And you can imagine scenarios if you're an existing customer or you bought this and then this changes price, et cetera. And that type of structure just not available within Shopify. So you end up having to build a custom pricing model with perhaps hundreds or thousands of different logic options. So that one was really quite technical and lots of integrations behind the scenes as well that were required. But I know the team are really proud of that one as well. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, no, that sounds good. I'll take them. Yeah, we'll get the links for those and we'll share those as well. We've done really well here, Gareth, because we've managed to get through nearly 20 minutes or whatever it is, and we haven't talked about AI. Right? So this is good. doing really well. Gareth - Herd: Wow, yeah, yeah, it's coming, isn't it? Yeah. John - Leaders on Shopify: That's impressive. One thing that everybody's talking about is agentic. or AI creative or AI content, I suppose, what's your view on, first of all, we'll talk about agentic commerce, and then we'll talk about images and content and video and other stuff in a minute, but where do you sit on agentic commerce? Is this something that is happening now? Is it something that's gonna happen in the future? What's your sort of view on where that sits and what do you tell your clients? Gareth - Herd: I think we're already seeing it. Of course, it's not the first port of call, but will it be in the future? Yes, it's coming. And you can see that even with Shopify backing, I guess, UGC and the code develop. Not UGC, sorry. John - Leaders on Shopify: UCP is it? Yeah, yeah, there's so many acronyms now isn't there? Gareth - Herd: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they've co-developed with Shopify, haven't they? John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. Gareth - Herd: So they're obviously pushing that that way. Will we need to consider optimizing for agents now as well as optimizing for search and optimizing for the end user? I think yes is the answer. And there's going to be that push, isn't there, from Shopify as well. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, I was having a big discussion last week with somebody and it's like, do we ever see a world where it's It's less about the website in terms of discovery. It's now more about the data feed and what can we feed the agent and are people ever, not ever, because I think they already are, but what products are going to be, because there's going to be certain types of products, a bit like the types of products you go to Amazon to buy, where I need a stapler, I'm willing to pay this and I need it tomorrow. you could brief an agent to do that. It's got your shop pay details and off it goes and the stapler turns up tomorrow. So we were having this discussion is actually, does this allow smaller brands to potentially compete with Amazon? Right. That was like an interesting discussion and debate. And actually is Amazon going to open itself up to this whole agent at commerce? They've got to be on the building some sort of connector. is where we sort of got to with all of this LLM discovery and agentic commerce stuff was actually, is this a moment in time where it could enable smaller brands to punch above their weight if they get their house in order and if they get organized? And I don't know what your view on that is. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, does it level the playing field somewhat? I think yes. And is AI in general enabling merchants to do that and do more and compete where they perhaps couldn't previously? I think that's a fair point. On the optimizing for AI, I think if you've been doing it correctly for SEO for years anyway, you'll be ahead of the curve. So what would I be thinking there? around structured data for sure and making sure that product feeds are good, making sure that all of your site is marked up in the right way. And if you've been doing that, thinking about schema.org for instance, and whether you're using markup, whether you're using JSON, LD, et cetera, if all of that is already there, you're taking the right steps for all of that to be easily discoverable by agents and have your products popping up. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, Gareth - Herd: limited. John - Leaders on Shopify: we were talking to someone the other week and they were in a situation where their business had made a decision not to invest in SEO for the last few years because of whatever reasons, because of all the updates, because of this, because SEO doesn't work anymore, because SEO is bad and all of these different murky things and they took the budget and spent it somewhere else and... I completely agree with you. Those who've been building good content in good technical structured websites have an opportunity. They're going to have to think about maybe changing or rephrasing their content to be more answer led. Actually, if they've been thinking and putting the customer at the heart of their content in the first place, they shouldn't be in a terrible position. But those who stopped doing SEO have got a bit of catch up to do. But the one thing a lot of people we've been talking to saying is what's interesting is now, even though the numbers are small, that the growth is rapid. It's a boardroom conversation. So actually, if you're in that SEO world, that is a boardroom conversation again, where the board haven't been talking about SEO for a long time. were everybody sort of got addicted to performance media. And I think because performance is getting hard with measurement and attribution and all of those things. Yeah, it's an interesting time for agencies that offer SEO or geo or AIO or whatever you decide to call it this week. So Gareth - Herd: Yeah, and it's got to be a good thing, Performance channels aren't getting any cheaper either. You know, we're only ever going to see auctions increasing in cost for merchants. So if you are able to do the right things around organic, around UCP that we mentioned in AI, agentic, et cetera, absolutely does that give you an edge? And does it allow you to perhaps own a piece of real estate rather than buying it? I think that's fair. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, no, it's going to be interesting over time. As these things play out is how do we, and there's all the other people building tools to talk about LLM visibility or LLM this LLM that, but over time, hopefully they just release a search console version for the LLM so we can see what brands are getting cited and when they're getting cited. But it's going to be really interesting over time to see how this evolves and plays out. There's separate questions on who's going to monetize it. Now we're to start seeing sponsored blue links and all of this, but going back to. Of course it is. I think. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, you can imagine that's coming, can't you? I think that's just a matter of time. John - Leaders on Shopify: You and I have sat in enough meetings with Google and Facebook over the years is like I've never sat in a meeting with Google where they've said spend less money on Google. All right. And I've never signed a meeting with Facebook where they've said that. So it's and I imagine chat GPT we've seen clients already putting ads in chat GPT and I imagine that's going to go down a similar road as well. So I suppose it's it's understanding where are we getting the most. And if anything if you're a brand now the opportunity is great but arguably it's getting more gates to organizing marketing. And I suppose that's a good opportunity for agencies. And if the brands get it right, it's a good opportunity, but it's becoming, I suppose, more complicated and a bit more to think about. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. Gareth - Herd: that's where, and that's one thing that we've tried to major on over the years and not operating, I guess, those two areas in isolation. So making sure that your dev team are aligned with your marketing team and the two are working together for the benefit of a merchant. I think when you try and separate those and they're not on the same hymn sheet, if you like. it becomes very difficult and you end up pushing in different directions. Or perhaps you're rolling out a development over here that hasn't considered a marketing channel over here. Or, I mean, you've seen it yourself, you want to get a dev request in to help with paid media landing page or something related to conversion optimization. And you're having to feed that into perhaps a dev team in a different area or a different agency. And that's something that we've spent years honing and trying to get right and bringing those together. And that's something that we certainly major on here at Herd. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, no, no. And I think there's definitely benefits to having everything in the same place so that you can just move faster. But also there's a joined up plan, but also joined up accountability. I think that's, that's the other bit from a client's point of view. That's the benefit they really get. so just quickly on AI image generation and AI content. There was that EU thing, I think, was it yesterday or last week? And I think it was this week where they're saying, if you're generating human looking like images on a product and it's not a real human, it's an AI human, you've got to declare that. And obviously it's EU, UK is not in the EU. So it'd be interesting to see. I suppose there's two things. Interesting to see if people can actually spot it. And is it, that's one thing. Secondly, how's it all going to be enforced? What's going to happen? So leaving the legislation aside, what's your view? What have you seen that's worked really well? What are your clients doing? And I suppose what's Herd's approach on the whole AI image generation? Gareth - Herd: I think this has been coming for a while, hasn't it? And legislation aside for a second, let me say the use cases for it are endless. Whether you're taking a flat product shot and then you're adding it to models and you've seen people walk down a catwalk or whether you've got, I don't know, might be a carpet manufacturer, for instance, and you want to generate images in different rooms or on staircases or wherever. Allowing you to do that without needing to have photoshoots every time a new product launches, a new range launches is fantastic. Whether or not if you are displaying something, perhaps on a model that's AI generated, you need to specify that actually this is an AI generated image, this is an AI model. Just to let people know, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. you know, does that help then in terms of trust signals, et cetera, and actually stating to people, look, we're using AI, we're being upfront about it, we're being transparent. Does that take away from the product? Not necessarily. John - Leaders on Shopify: And I don't know what the consumer's view is gonna be. There's gonna be some consumers going well, and I suppose the bad news for you and I, Gareth, is probably the end of our modeling careers. is, it's, yeah, and there's two sides to that. Is it an AI generated version of the product? I think that's more risky. But if it's the right product on an AI generated human that never existed, Is that a problem or not? And your point about photo shoots, we talk to brands all the time and they sell it maybe on a pair of shoes or a pair of swimming trunks or whatever it is. 30 or 40 pounds, they couldn't afford to go to the Bahamas and do a photo shoot. But now AI enables them to put that product on a person on a beach in the Bahamas. And you and I both know the conversion rate of a situational image will help conversion and assist conversion and also give them more content around that. And have you had any? Sorry, carry on. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, and I think my opinion on it would be if that helps the consumer to almost say, I could see myself wearing those sandals or those shorts, that shirt on holiday in a particular scenario. Why not? But I think being upfront about its AI generated is absolutely fine. It wouldn't necessarily put me off. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. Gareth - Herd: And why not be transparent about it rather than trying to hide it or make it look so real that you're trying to pass it off as this is an actual photo shoot. I'm not sure we should be doing John - Leaders on Shopify: And Gareth - Herd: that. John - Leaders on Shopify: you don't have to share names, but if you've got clients that are like, right, we're all in on AI, do you do whatever you want, let's go. Or, and have you got any examples of clients saying, right, hang on, we're not doing that. We're just sticking with the old school proper product, proper situation, photo shoot. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, a bit of a mixed bag. So some people and some merchants that are forward thinking quite happy. So long as things are approved and done carefully. Yeah, let's use AI assisted imagery, whether that's for creative assets, media, in-page search, in-page social, et cetera. And if that allows us to do more tests, more variations in advertising campaigns, fantastic. Then at the other end of the spectrum, We do have clients who are, on a minute, we need to be really careful around this, that perhaps got more layers of sign off required, legal and compliance, and you just wouldn't be able to get AI past those merchants. So depends on who they are, it depends on sector. But I think it's, I mean, it's gonna change the world that we know and it already is. And I guess you could look at AI as the next big frontier. you think back to when were we 1996 ish 96 97 when the web first first sort of kicked on. Yeah, are we there again? And will we? John - Leaders on Shopify: And unfortunately, we were already in the workplace. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We're showing our age now and definitely less hair now than back then. But John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. Gareth - Herd: will we see another shift perhaps in our lifetime as big as this one? Maybe not. John - Leaders on Shopify: I think it's got, if anything, but I think the thing about the internet and the first, I remember crowding around a monitor in an office in London whenever Google was launched. it 19... Eight? Not Google? Can't remember. 99. Anyway. Gareth - Herd: It's a round then, isn't it? Yeah. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. And we were standing around this monitor and it was, and remember it was like Lycos, Ask Jeeves and all these other things beforehand. And it was all popping up and this that and there was adverts everywhere and it was really busy. And then Google just launched this white screen with a box and everyone was like, that's just not going to work. Yeah. How does that work? But then the quality of the results and this and that, and we all know what's happened since. but fundamentally, think. In terms of marketing and e-commerce, AI is a huge thing. But I also just think in business generally, is this the industrial revolution for almost like white collar tasks? I think there's a whole load of other things and I'm sure you're doing it in heard about business operations, business process. How can we streamline things? How can we be more efficient? How can we be more capital effective with what we're doing? And I just think, yeah, there's going to be an interesting three or four years. It feels like a bit of an arms race. We could probably have a whole separate conversation about what's our favorite, what skills have a team built? What about this? What about that? But it's, there's a fascinating time to me in business. And I also think if you were, I suppose imagine setting up herd now, right? Yeah, Gareth - Herd: Yeah, yeah. What would you do different? Yeah. John - Leaders on Shopify: like what would you do to help? What would be easier? All right. Just setting up banking, just setting up like your first website and all of that. It's like the opportunity for smart people out there now, I suppose, or curious is vast and it is quite exciting. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, 100%. And even thinking about the, even touching on automation, what can we automate via AI? We talked earlier a little bit on Shopify apps. So certainly it's more accessible now. Can you have agents running in the background? And I know the dev team will be doing this and not just one agent, they might be running now for a dozen agents at the same time and then checking back in, how are they getting on with progress, et cetera. Is that allowing us to do things more economically faster than we perhaps were even 12 months ago? Yes, absolutely. yeah, will we see a future where, you know, it's perhaps not enterprise agencies with hundreds of developers. Perhaps it is more boutique agencies that are able to compete with them with far less headcount because they've embraced. AI. I think that could certainly be something that's coming. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, no, I completely agree. I think there still needs to be human elements in the strategy and the creative end and then in checking the execution. But I definitely think a lot of the doing in the middle is going to get compressed and consolidated and smart person driving AI is definitely the future. So a Gareth - Herd: Yeah, yeah. John - Leaders on Shopify: couple of last questions before we wrap up. So and we've talked about some of the brands that you've worked with. So Chili's and etc. But Who are the other sort of brands on Shopify who you think, yeah, they're doing a really good job. Who do you sort of look at and think, that's pretty smart. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, I think the one that probably would be familiar to most people would be Gymshark. That always seems to get a mention. Doing a nice job. And certainly a brand that we would aspire to work with. John - Leaders on Shopify: outside of Gymshark, who else is doing some interesting stuff? Anybody else that sort of thinks to mind that people could get inspiration from? Gareth - Herd: Anybody that jumps to mind? I mean, I would always reference herd clients to be fair and some of the stuff that we're doing. We've been doing quite a bit in equestrian recently, which sounds like a quite a niche sector. we've had a couple of conversations and one of the apps that we are launching that will assist with retail point of sale, warehousing and e-commerce. So I guess more on the channel if you like and Small things that you would think you know, that's that should be so achievable. why is nobody solved this? And we have an app that's just launched called replenish and the idea around that is You're helping merchants make decisions based on warehousing in-store and e-commerce to replenish stock Store direct from warehouse and you generate in a pick list at the end of the day that the staff could just pick up and go Yeah, that in this size that in this size. I can restock the shop floor It just doesn't exist on Shopify and you're like, not? So we built it and we've launched it for one of our first equestrian plants Our in our country just across in Selby local to us and another showroom down in Mountain, Moab, And then we've got one or two other Ecom Equestrian brands that are asking for it have also got part of sale and showrooms But then you're imagining hang on if if they're having this problem any Merchants John - Leaders on Shopify: Who else? Gareth - Herd: have got this problem, too So I guess the goal there is can we solve it for the initial clients that we're working with and then roll it out further? so it's I guess in terms of who Who are we working with that are interesting or which of the types of problems that we're solving for merchants? They'd be the ones that I lean into where you can actually solve real problems, real day-to-day things that merchants are seeing and help them on a journey and make their lives easier. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, no, no, that's good. So for those people listening who want to get in touch, where's the best place to find your garroth and how they find heard or yourself? Gareth - Herd: Yeah, the best place to find us online, herd.io, dead easy to find. If you're ever in Hessel in East Yorkshire, the kettle's always on, feel free to pop in. And if you wanted to reach out, can find me on LinkedIn as well. So yeah, drop me a John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, well, show all your... Gareth - Herd: DM. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, we'll show... And it sounds to me, listening from afar, that over time, you're going to be doing as big a job in apps as you are in your actual e-commerce business, it sounds, with a lot of the ideas and technology you've built. And I suppose that's consolidated by the knowledge you've got. So, yeah, super exciting. Gareth - Herd: Yeah, apps integrations and watch this space themes. can we ultimately, I guess, end up with a little bit more of a show the service business will still be there and helping merchants scale? And that's really our strapline. So growing Shopify giants is something we've been leaning into since becoming a Shopify partner. But then at the same time, would it be an aspiration to think? Can we have that sort of software as a service part of the business too? And similar to yourself, John, and ASK BOSCO, it'd be fantastic to be in that position where you've got the service element and the SaaS element. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, no, great. Well, great. Thanks for coming on. I've really enjoyed our chat and we'll catch up soon. And yeah, I really enjoyed that. Thanks a lot, Gareth. Gareth - Herd: Perfect. Thanks very much. Thanks for having us.