Nick Gray

🚀 Summer Editions just dropped and it’s another massive release from Shopify! Just in time for editions.dev tomorrow in Toronto. Shopify is rolling out fantastic new features that I’m excited to dive into. 1. Managed Markets (formerly Markets Pro) Duties included in prices, making international sales seamless. This simplifies cross-border transactions for our merchants, enhancing global reach and customer satisfaction. The last nail in the coffin for the managed markets vs Global-e debate! 2. Search and Discovery Enhanced search capabilities allowing merchants to efficiently manage large inventories. We built a store with 1 million SKUs using this feature, demonstrating its robustness. This reduces the need for third-party search solutions, lowering costs and improving site performance. 3. Hydrogen Builder A powerful tool for building customized storefronts while maintaining ease of use for business users. Hydrogen allows us to create highly tailored and powerful storefronts without compromising on user-friendliness. This is a game-changer for merchants looking to enhance their online presence. 4. Automatically Ship to Store & Pickup instore Automatic ship-to-store and store transfers. We are already integrated to import these transfers into WorkMate, our app, and with our API into your ERP or accounting software. This unlocks in-store fulfillment for our merchants some with up to 1,000 stores, significantly unifying their inventory availability. 5. Post-Purchase POS Extensions New extensions for post-purchase processes. Increased extensibility throughout the POS system will enhance the post-purchase experience, driving customer satisfaction and loyalty. One thing we were hoping for a GA release was account extensions GA. Eagerly waiting to use that for some of our massive B2B brands we’re migrating to Shopify this year. Shopify consistently delivers features that unify their platform, ensuring consistent extensibility across all aspects. They are trailblazing the path for the trillion-dollar retail and B2B opportunity, expanding their reach as the leading commerce stack. These advancements just show the value Shopify continues to deliver as a product-led company that improves at a pace no one can compete with. Check out the latest features from Shopify Editions Summer 2024: https://lnkd.in/g4Xqd_pR #Shopify #Ecommerce #TechInnovation #ShopifyPlus #RetailTech #WorkMate #HydrogenBuilder #SearchAndDiscovery #POS #TeifiDigital

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Over the weekend, Tobi, the founder and CEO of Shopify, discussed the major reason investors passed on Shopify in the early days : market size. I remember that financing round, & I remember having the same concern, & making the same mistake. Living in the valley & driving on 101, the billboards & logo-adorned headquarters of successful companies provide a daily infusion of all the mistakes in I’ve made in guessing how a company or a market might evolve. Years later, I listened as Bill Gurley shared his thoughts about market size. He asked himself a question : whether the startup was increasing, decreasing, or maintaining the market size? (I can’t seem to find the link - but I have it in my notes!) I added that question to my diligence list when meeting startups. Now much later, having seen many companies create categories or reinvigorate aging ones, the question I ask myself has evolved. It’s not as the market size large enough? Instead, it the question is : do we believe this company can create the market? Market size is the output of all the players marketing, selling, building. Their efforts alter, distort, & juice the supply/demand curves of macroeconomics. It’s not a given - not an output or a steady-state CAGR. Often it’s the startups that engender the demand, change the market dynamics, & make markets massive by taking risks with products. When done right, these founders create category-defining businesses like Shopify (now worth $90b)!

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Weekly Update 8.2.24 ⚡ • One month ago, I posted about how we shifted our operating cadence to better manage the tension between dedicated deep work time vs. managing increased merchant onboarding volume as we scale our Shopify App. A few shifts we made as an organization: 1. Engineering cycles — 2 week sprint on new functionality, 1 week focused on maintenance/tech debt. This ensures we continue shipping at a face clip while dedicating 1 week towards housekeeping. So far so good. 2. Dedicated deep work time — Jennifer is leading the charge by carving out 9 am - 1pm on select days for sacred deep work time, allowing her to focus on her top priority. Others on our team will follow lead by carving out dedicated deep work time and silencing notifications during these hours. I'm delinquent on this! I'll follow suit on this next week. 3. Product-led engineering — we've been inspired by companies like PostHog that champion product-led engineering and people like Arnaud Lassignardie, who takes extreme ownership. Our engineering team at TryNow increasingly makes product decisions, interfaces directly with merchants, and pulls forward our product roadmap. Typically, Product Managers define the "What to build" and Engineers define the "How to build." At TryNow, we're increasingly relying on Engineering to define select components of the "What" in addition to the "How." This level of ownership makes for better products. Josh Rathke, excellent work leading the team in this shift! • Onboarding Ian Schneider, Director of GTM at TryNow.com. Grit and Empathetic Leadership are two core value of ours at TryNow. Ian is as gritty as they come and leads with empathy. He's off to an electric start — 8 new deals created in week 1! ⚡ 🔥 • We're onboarding brands across a variety of new verticals (#TryNewThings): pajamas, fine jewelry, color cosmetics, streetwear, bedding, wedding dresses, and premium sandals. #TryBeforeYouBuy #TryNewThings #Shopify

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Deep Pockets Over Party Rounds It's YC demo day in 2 weeks and fundraising around the Summer 24 batch is already at fever pitch. Many founders are experiencing a lot of demand and it's tempting to raise a bunch of money from lots of small checks. I'm biased but if you are lucky enough to have plenty of interest, I suggest you engage those with deep pockets. 1. Most Companies Need More Money. Regardless of your momentum now, most companies end up needing a little more capital to reach the next round. If you've only raised from angel investors, they most likely won't be able to add much more to their position. 2. Term Sheet Minimums. Plenty of lead investors will ask for a minimum amount to be raised for the next round to close and for them to wire the funds. If your cap table has funds who can participate at the later stages, this relieves a lot of the pressure to fundraise beyond securing the term sheet. 3. Investor Network. Most funds are measured by who invests in their companies after they do and at what price. So your fund investors are heavily incentivized to help you fundraise your next round, if they've invested a large enough check. #startups #fundraising

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🚀 AI-Powered Fintech on the 23% Share Rise 🚀 ... being an E-Commerce company. Earnings update 🤑 Shopify just pulled the Toronto Stock Exchange out of a 5-week slump with impressive second-quarter results. The tech sector is on the rise, thanks to Shopify's 23% share increase, fueled by its AI-powered e-commerce solutions that outperformed analysts' expectations and set a positive tone for the upcoming quarter. While global FinTech investment cooled in H1 2024, AI and RegTech are shining bright amid the uncertainty. Case in point: NCR Voyix, with a workforce of around 15,000 across 35 countries, has agreed to sell its digital banking product (serving 1,300 financial institutions and over 20 million active users) to Veritas Capital for $2.45 billion. On another note, Monzo Bank, a leading Open Banking and Neobank, just hit 10 million customers in the UK. This highlights a clear trend in how Gen Z prefers to manage their finances, and it’s a trend to watch closely. Stay tuned! #FinTech #AI #Ecommerce #StockMarket #DigitalTransformation #GenZ #RegTech

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Klaviyo is just an email tool for the Shopify ecosystem, right? Q2 earnings definitely tell a different story, and the company is quickly solidifying itself as a true fast-scaling public SaaS Co with a ton of room to run. The TLDR - stock was up 31% yesterday. Nuff said Quick Metrics Summary 🔢 Revenue of $222M ( ⬆ 35% YoY) Gross Margin: 79% (⬆ 4% since S1) - I'm shocked to see this holding so strong with increasing prevalence of SMS amongst the customer base which is an inherently lower margin product. Management sited less reliance on 3rd party technology as they roll their own solutions in email servers etc. Net Dollar Retention: 112% - continues to trend down, but they explain it away because of a big pricing shift they did in 2022 that has rolled out of the data Customers over $50k in ARR: 2,386 (⬆ 64% YoY) - hands down the most exciting thing about this business looking forward. They continue to crush their move up-market and are closing true enterprise customers like Samsonite. They also had a really interesting ancedote in the call about a grocery retailer they moved from a homegrown system onto Klaviyo. These are the type markets you don't think about but could be huge growth opps moving forward. Free Cash Flow Margin: 14% - generating significant cash and $700m+ on the balance sheet is very impressive Rule of 40: 50% ⭐ - continuing to trend down but still very healthy balance of both growth and profitability. Product and Strategy 🗺 It's always interesting to watch messaging oscilate quarter over quarter - a few quarters ago it was all Klaviyo One and CDP. Now, that emphasis is a bit more subdued and they're doing more story telling on what actual value/actions those products can drive. With a strong launch in France, they've proven internationalizing the product can lead to rapid growth in a market so I expect to see a lot more of that moving forward. Klaviyo is actually a really logical platform to leverage AI, and it seems like they're doing a lot of it across their product suite which is cool. Looking Forward 🔭 Klaviyo raised guidance on both revenue and profit and believe they'll continue to perform well in international markets as well as deepening penetration across CDP, SMS, and Reviews. It's been a wild rollercoaster for Klaviyo bouncing between $21-$39 over the last year since IPO, but I think as they continue to show the market they can reliably forecast and grow their business, that volatility should level out. #saas #earningsseason

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Initially, Shopify struggled to raise VC because of 1 misunderstood metric. Today its market cap is $86.5B. 😳 Investors evaluating Shopify were stuck on the fact there were already 10,000 e-commerce merchants, causing concern around TAM. But if you don't get TAM right, you won’t be able to calculate slope, which is what you’re supposed to be investing in anyway. You need to answer two questions to get that evaluation right: → Is this a trend that’s going to continue to grow significantly? → Is this a company that’s capable of catalyzing that growth? If investors had answered the above, they would have seen that the addressable market was likely to grow exponentially—and that Shopify was going to be the primary enabler of that growth. In theory, investors get it. But in practice, it's actually very hard to invest in because you have to be able to understand the dynamics of why that increase will happen. One indicator is the rate and quality of progression in a product’s service, particularly if you're a user of a similar product. AI is a great illustration of how this is happening right now. Its progression rate is astonishing. If a service provider's service is getting better over time, you should invest in it with the assumption that it’s progressing exponentially. That's why I'm bullish on Notion right now. The way they've implemented AI indicates that as AI improves, Notion will accrue increasing benefits. Take their recent announcement that inside Notion, users can call on their other apps for information, reinforcing themselves as the front page of where you do work, making it your OS. I break it all down in the video below. Comment any topics you want me to cover for future Whiteboard Wednesdays. 

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Four reasons Shopify is WINNNNING in the enterprise. Caveat, this is also why Andy Cloyd and myself are betting so heavily on the Shopify ecosystem in the coming years at Superfiliate Now, how are they winning? Product Velocity: Shopify's relentless product innovation is pulling enterprise brands into their ecosystem. It's not just about switching platforms, it's about Shopify's ability to integrate every crucial business need, from Shop Pay to POS to Commerce Components (CC and kudos to Ilya Grigorik) The Power of Shop Pay: This isn't just a payment method... it's become a trusted brand that drives conversion. By introducing Shop Pay to non-Shopify sites, they're starting to show significant lift, easing brands into Shopify’s full suite of solutions. Agency Migration: The shift is happening quickly. Former exclusive Salesforce Commerce Cloud agencies are now building Shopify teams. They’re attending Shopify Unite not just Dreamforce. This momentum is driving enterprise re-platforms at scale. CIO Career Moves: Just like the cloud migration was once the career-defining project for CIOs, Shopify is becoming the same for enterprise commerce. A new generation of tech leaders sees the upside, and Shopify is positioned to be their golden goose. My favorite quote from Andy about choosing Shopify as a brand: "...it starts to become stupid to be anywhere else." The leadership at the top of Shopify knows exactly what game they're playing and are building a multi-front product, technical and services infrastructure to become the dominant player. Kudos for the masterclass: Tobias Lütke, Kaz Nejatian, Jeff Hoffmeister, Mikhail Parakhin, Harley Finkelstein, Bobby Morrison, Archie Abrams, Glen Coates, Daniel Debow

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Custom stacks can lead to two very real problems: depending on custom development and increased tech debt. Combined, your pace slows and ultimately, your trade-off is innovation and growth. That’s why Mejuri went from a fully custom stack to Shopify. Before Shopify, Mejuri was on an entirely custom stack: custom ecommerce, payments service, and middleware that was built to connect their custom ecommerce site to their point of sale system [POS]. This led to a ton of challenges. They were spending too much time building and maintaining 3rd party integrations to coordinate channels, data, and functionality between systems. With limited resources and team members, the trade-off of building custom features was they were not able to address their mounting technical debt. Addressing those issues in-house, slowed down their pace of innovation making them unable to deploy features as fast as they needed to. That’s the ‘invisible’ cost component with a custom stack. You spend an inordinate amount of time building custom features at the cost of innovation. Brands can avoid that with Shopify. Shopify is a natively unified ecommerce and POS system so everything just works together really really well. It doesn’t require middleware or integrations. Your customer, order, and product data flows to both channels from a single source of truth. It’s simpler and allows you to move faster. Hear about from Mejuri yourself. Rohit Nathany, the Chief Digital Officer sat down with us to talk about the pain points they faced on a custom stack. As Rohit says, what better way to simplify than to have a unified ecommerce and POS solution? See the full interview here: https://lnkd.in/eyCSdVgf

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This was the single most requested feature by our entire customer base – and it even made it into Shopify's Earnings Call. Beyond stoked to announce our new Bundle Builder! At Fermàt, we live by one philosophy: experiment and test at high velocity and broad scale. Especially with bundles. They’re one of the highest-performing eCommerce strategies, used by 95% of brands to increase AOV, conversions, and sell-through rates. The reason most brands avoid high-velocity testing is the headache that comes with it: ➝ It’s a pain to figure out the customer experience ➝ It takes hours, or even days, to set up a single bundle Even if you managed to set it up quickly, you’d still face post-sale challenges like fulfillment issues, inventory management, and more. How we’re fixing it: Our goal is to decouple testing from the headaches. Testing bundles shouldn’t be a nightmare. The Bundle Builder allows your brand to easily mix and match products, create any bundle you want, and launch multiple funnels with different bundles. Ultimately, it gives you the ability to experiment rapidly—in minutes—the true Fermàt way. There’s a reason so many people have been asking for this feature – and now it’s here. Shoot me a DM if you'd like to see a demo!

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Just jumped off the Shopify Q3 Earnings call. If you missed it, I'll summarize: Q3 was an incredible quarter for Shopify. Here are the highlights of Q3 2024 Shopify:  1️⃣​ Financially, it was a strong quarter. - GMV was up 24% Year over Year in Q3 - the 5th consecutive quarter where GMV growth was more than 20% - Revenue accelerated to 26% - the 6th consecutive quarter where Shopify delivered 25% or greater top-line growth, excluding logistics - Gross profit grew 24% Year over Year - Our Free Cash Flow Margin expanded to 19% which means we’re delivering profitability that allows us to both grow the business and invest in the future of commerce. 2️⃣​ We’ve built the most integrated platform on the planet where everything in your business works together really really well. Shopify POS is powering more and more large, complex, multi-location merchants like legendary Canadian women's fashion retailer, Laura, which migrated over 130 stores to Shopify’s POS in Q3. We are making every part of commerce work better. This quarter we helped merchants make in-person shopping truly delightful by expanding Tap to Pay in more countries. And, we’re making it easier for our merchants to sell in new countries with our Managed Markets product, which has helped some merchants see an average global sales increase of 40%. The power of our platform is unmatched. 3️⃣ Shopify is increasingly the go-to platform of choice not just for entrepreneurship, but for all of commerce. We are making massive strides across our long-term growth drivers like B2B, international, enterprise, and offline commerce. - We had our single largest B2B GMV month ever, with it growing over 145% Year over Year. This is a trend at this point, marking 5 consecutive quarters of triple digit B2B GMV growth - International GMV continues to outpace the growth of North America accelerating to more than 30% and our international merchants grew 36% Year over Year - In Q3 alone we had 16 enterprise launches on Shopify, including brands like Hanes and On Running. The best brands like Reebok, and Victoria’s Secret and high fashion brands like FashionPhile and Off-white are all coming to Shopify. Our mission has always been the same: make commerce better for everyone and, ultimately, create more entrepreneurs across the world and help them grow bigger and faster. We are doing exactly that. We are focused on helping merchants of all sizes thrive today and in the future. It’s why you see brands come to us and never leave. Thank you to everyone on the Shopify team, our partners, and our incredible community for an exceptional quarter.

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DTC Brand's Wake-Up Call Are Confusing Prices Costing You Sales? Last year, one of Canada’s top DTC brands faced an alarming trend. An increasing number of customer complaints about pricing confusion. Shoppers were excited to see a 30% discount on their favorite products, only to find a different price when they added items to their cart. Analytics revealed a troubling pattern. They saw a huge decrease in "add to cart" events, as customers left the website because they couldn't see the discounted price clearly. Abandoned carts skyrocketed as frustrated customers left the site, unsure of what they would actually pay. Despite marketing efforts to promote these discounts, customers felt misled. The advertised price looked great, but without consistent visibility of the discount throughout their shopping journey, many shoppers simply gave up and left. Realizing this critical issue, the brand’s team understood they needed a solution that ensured clarity and transparency in pricing. Confusing pricing led to abandoned carts and customer complaints. → Implement Adsgun for clear, consistent pricing that builds trust. With Adsgun, they could leverage dynamic pricing adjustments. Discounts became visible immediately on all pages of the website before being added to cart or at checkout. It’s crucial to note that analytics showed more than 70% of customers simply scan for discount percentages and skip reading detailed messages. If the discount isn’t clear and upfront, they might continue shopping without realizing they’re missing out on savings. Customers now enjoy a better experience, seeing their discounts upfront, which builds trust and significantly boosts the chances of conversion. Time-consuming updates and reliance on developers made pricing adjustments difficult. → Adsgun’s user-friendly interface allows for easy management without developer intervention. By implementing Adsgun, the brand not only regained customer trust but also reported a notable increase in conversions and a decrease in abandoned carts during peak shopping times. 🚀 Don’t let pricing confusion be your downfall this Black Friday and Cyber Monday! Curious... will you install Adsgun on your Shopify Store now? If so, with a 7-day free trial, you can see the difference for yourself. → let’s connect and make it happend! Wanna be Adsgun partner and start helping merchants? → Please feel free to send me a DM. P.S. Don't forget to repost ♻️ this for others. Thanks!

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Important fact about most startup (and VC) success stories. It is convenient to overlook this, but the best companies and products are not built on any specific timeline. The best people win, and that is the only thing that has consistently and repeatably truly won over the test of time.

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🤝 Influencer App Node Sells for $13 Million to Talent Agency Dulcedo Group, a Montreal-based talent agency, has bought the startup Node, described as an "AI-powered influencer marketing platform." If you look at influencer M&A activity, most startups are bought for either their existing relationships or their technology. In the case of Node, their 5,000 content creators/micro-influencers and their AI technology are what was attractive to Dulcedo Group. These add to a larger agency's credibility in the realm of "influencer marketing" and can help them win new clients. The ability to mention your "AI capabilities" and your existing relationships with creators are major selling points. The creator economy is one of the biggest trends in media, marketing, and advertising. There is a limited (but growing) supply of native influencer/creator-related agencies and platforms and there is a massive amount of more traditional agencies who know that they need to build out their creator capabilities. They either build that capability in-house or acquire that capability via another company. These supply and demand dynamics will shape the creator economy over the next 3-5 years. More influencer M&A is definitely on the way! #influencers #influencermarketing #creators #creatoreconomy #marketing #advertising #media #entertainment #agencies

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Most Shopify brands focus heavily on marketing but overlook what happens after a customer hits “checkout”. If you think about the difference in checkout to delivery experience between your last Amazon order and last (non PDQ-powered) Shopify experience, you’ll know exactly what I mean. PrettyDamnQuick is bridging that gap by providing end-to-end visibility from the first click to delivery. Think Amazon's level of customer data and logistics insights—but accessible to brands at any scale. Our platform predicts everything from customer preferences to optimal shipping rates, enabling brands to offer a prime-like experience that’s tailored, efficient, and profitable. It’s about giving each customer their own “Amazon experience”—right on your Shopify store. This is the new frontier of e-commerce, where customer satisfaction and profitability go hand in hand.

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I’ve noticed many founders don’t realize how much non-dilutive capital is flying under the radar in Canada. So I’ve shared a list of alternatives you should know about before choosing to raise capital: 1. Business Scale-up and Productivity (BSP): BSP provides funding to help you scale your operations and increase your market reach. It’s a great way to drive growth without sacrificing equity. 2. Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP): IRAP offers financial support for research and development. It’s perfect for taking your technical ideas to the next level. 3. Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED): SR&ED provides tax incentives for technical development. It’s one of the most generous programs in Canada, helping you reclaim a portion of your R&D costs. 4. FedDev Ontario: If you’re based in Southern Ontario, FedDev offers funding to help businesses scale, innovate, and compete globally. It’s a solid option for companies looking to make a big impact. 5. Canada Small Business Financing Program (CSBFP): This program helps small businesses access loans for purchasing or improving assets like equipment or property. It’s designed to help companies grow and invest in their infrastructure. 6. CanExport SMEs Program: If you’re looking to expand into international markets, CanExport provides funding to cover costs related to market research, business travel, and participation in international trade events. 7. Canada Media Fund (CMF): For those in the digital media industry, CMF offers funding for the development, production, and marketing of innovative media projects. 8. Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) Programs: OCE offers various funding programs aimed at driving innovation and commercialization in Ontario. Their programs often focus on collaboration between businesses and academic institutions. 9. Mitacs Accelerate: This program provides funding to support research internships, allowing companies to collaborate with universities to solve specific challenges while benefiting from academic expertise. 10. Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF): Targeted at larger-scale projects, SIF offers funding to support R&D, commercialization, and the growth of innovative businesses in Canada. 11. Women Entrepreneurship Strategy (WES) Ecosystem Fund: This fund supports organizations that help women entrepreneurs grow their businesses. It’s part of a broader effort to increase women’s participation in the economy. 12. Innovative Solutions Canada (ISC): This program helps Canadian startups by funding R&D projects that address government challenges. It’s a great way to secure funding while working on real-world problems. 13. Alberta Innovates: For businesses in Alberta, Alberta Innovates offers several funding programs to support R&D, commercialization, and business growth. They focus on fostering innovation in sectors like energy, health, and technology. Have I missed any?

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Shopify needs to kick out all of the payment options to recapture 40% of platform GMV + regain Billions in rev/year. Today they only process 60% of its stores’ Rev. Other payment processors/options (Paypal, Amazon Pay) capture 40% of GMV. Their major problem: how does Shopify stay friendly with the bizs who pick Shopify’s pocket? Shopify’s value prop has always been flexible options at checkout. But 70% of Shop’s Rev is from payments. At the end of the day, Shop needs to collect that Rev. Their options are limited: - Restrict options at checkout. - Charge a toll to the other payment providers. - Hide/deprioritize others in the UI. I’m watching this evolution closely. Shop’s still growing, so this won’t be a tomorrow update. But eventually, Shopify will need to monetize more of their GMV. Leaving half of their current opportunity on the table is only excusable when there’s other growth to be had. #shopify

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Shopify is reimagining analytics. The new Analytics experience will be faster, more flexible, and more intuitive, so you can track the metrics that matter most. You can create new reports from scratch and use any combination of metrics, making it a lot easier to analyze your data. You can resize, add, or remove metrics to create a personalized dashboard with the data you care about. You’ll be able to discover deeper insights into your store’s performance in real-time and get a complete picture of your business. Making data-driven business decisions just got a lot easier. And it’s all within the Shopify admin.  https://lnkd.in/e-wK2dMM

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