About Product Y:

Product Y is a Shopify app that helps to educate consumers about the hair products on a merchant’s website. Shoppers can interact with Product Y directly on the merchant’s product page. After a quick conversation, they receive a match score which informs them of how well the merchant’s product(s) is predicted to perform on their hair. Also within the app, is an admin panel that Shopify merchants use to view app activity and manage Product Y on their site.

Essentially, Product Y provides the experience of the Product X mobile app on e-commerce platforms.

Background:

The pivot from redesigning Product X to creating Product Y came about as a result of potential customer demand. Instead of utilizing the mobile app as a means to provide analytics to brands and retailers, there was more opportunity to aid businesses on e-commerce platforms (with Shopify being the first).

My team and I familiarized ourselves with Shopify, its structure, and its processes by becoming certified Shopify Partners in its business, product, and app development fundamentals. 

After getting certified, the next step was to understand who we were designing for. On the consumer side, our target market remained the same. However, creating a Shopify app requires that we create an admin panel product for merchants to manage our app on their site. 

Shopify merchants can vary drastically, most times due to the size of their business. In order to give us a starting point, I started off by doing research to find out more about different merchants on the platform.

Objective:

Since this was a new endeavor, we needed to understand who we were building this product for. In order to do this, I took the following approach:

• Acquire or create a list of at least 20 Shopify merchants with decent traffic/~$3M in annual revenue

• Send research/interview requests via email to Shopify merchants to schedule customer discovery interviews

• Conduct customer discovery interviews

• Create merchant persona(s)

Solution:

Shopify Merchant Information List

To create this list, I started by asking Shopify if they had any merchant lists available. They were not able to provide this information. 

My next approach involved Googling hair product websites and using Chrome developer tools to determine if the site was hosted on Shopify. After going through over 100 search results, I was able to find online stores and merchant contact information. I also learned of the myip.ms website a bit later in the process and took advantage of that tool as well. 

Once the list was created, I drafted the emails to send out. In this email, I introduced the company, briefly explained what we were working on, and asked for an hour of their time to conduct the interview.

After sending the message, I received 4 responses and was able to complete 2 customer discovery interviews. These interviews focused on 4 core things:

• Their current Shopify use

• Their experience and satisfaction/dissatisfaction with Shopify apps

• What was important to them as store owners

• Feedback on our current idea

Major Findings:

From Shopify Certification

• Embedded Shopify apps (i.e., apps with admin panels that are embedded into Shopify’s admin) that utilize Shopify’s design system, Polaris, are easier for merchants to acclimate to because it maintains Shopify’s UX

• There are 3 main types of Shopify merchants: 

  • Shopify beginners - typically new to the platform 3 or less years; may not be using any apps; if using, most likely free apps; not interested in data, just trying to get customers

  • Shopify small businesses - typically been on the platform for at least 3 years; striving to increase sales; just starting to care about customer data and how that can be used to help increase sales; no dedicated person for data

  • Shopify powerhouses - typically been on the platform for more than 3 years; targeted marketing, looking for new customers to market to; strongly values data; on Shopify Plus plan; dedicated teams/persons in different departments, including data

• The Shopify app approval process is long and intense; a major part of the QA is performed on the app’s UI and performance

From Customer Discovery Interviews

• Merchants are interested in apps that will help increase sales (if they use apps)

• Email lists are valuable

• Merchants are comfortable with apps that charge up to 15% commission

• Merchants care about helping their customers

• Merchants are not very technical

Results:

The information I gathered from the interviews and researching existing data about merchants on the platform equipped me with enough information to create 3 personas*: 

• New Business

  • Main Goal: Acquire customers

  • Been on the platform 3 years or less

  • Signed up for Shopify pricing plan

  • Does not care about data

  • Might not use Shopify apps

  • Not tech savvy

• Passionate Small Business

  • Main Goal: Grow current customer base

  • Been on the platform more than 3 years

  • Signed up for Shopify or Shopify Plus pricing plan (but does not use it to its fullest)

  • Interested in data; may not have a dedicated person for data

  • Uses Shopify apps

  • Not tech savvy

• Powerhouse Businesses

  • Main Goal: Expand customer base; targeted marketing

  • Been on the platform more than 3 years; sells through multiple channels

  • Signed up for Shopify Plus pricing plan

  • Utilizes data heavily; has a dedicated person for data

  • Uses Shopify apps

  • Has a dedicated tech person

*personas altered for portfolio

Lessons Learned:

• Cold emailing research prospects yielded a reply rate of around 2% — getting feedback from business customers is not as straightforward or simple as getting feedback from consumers. In regard to estimating time for this type of task, it’d be better to overestimate since the process is more arduous

• Larger businesses are less likely to respond to cold emails

Next Steps:

• Design the consumer experience with Product Y

• Design the merchant experience with the Product Y Admin Panel
  

To continue learning about the next steps taken after the creation of the merchant personas, please click here.