Shopify

Overview

Shopify's own shipping product was lagging behind third-party apps and integrations. I was approached to help the team move from lower-tier shipping experiences—low margin, high effort—and to overhaul the admin experience to help users see the benefit of Shopify Shipping. Once the product was complete, we created branding, positioning, and a launch strategy.

Problem

Shopify Shipping faced several challenges:

• The product was not growing despite various launch attempts (home cards, banners, case studies, email campaigns)
• Embedded status meant no standalone app store presence or strong SEO leverage
• Third-party tools had dedicated websites, brands, and ad campaigns creating an uneven playing field
• Merchants saw shipping as a "boring" segment with low excitement
• Adoption had been steadily dropping by double digits each quarter for 18 months
• The product was essentially a glorified feature, not positioned as a competitive offering

Goals

• Reverse the 18-month trend of declining adoption
• Position Shopify Shipping on level ground with third-party tools despite embedded limitations
• Create a launch campaign that stood out in a "boring" segment
• Build supporting narratives and materials for enablement and support teams
• Show merchants actual value rather than telling them about features

Process

Don't Tell. Show. Shopify had defaulted to launching new embedded products with solutions such as home cards—banners inside the admin—or extensive case studies and email campaigns. The Shipping team had tried them all and the product was not growing.

After an on-site sprint with the team, we began building a tool to show a merchant their actual shipping rates for their store without having to install or switch services—right in the admin. It was our Pepsi challenge. Through a simple badge style and new brand look, we created a fun tool that made it easy to see the savings and give it a try.

If you like what you saw, you could print the label right there from the calculator and you were signed up and activated—no messy install required.

Building a Supporting Narrative Once we had the tool to show the product in action, it was time to take the embedded product and put it on level ground with third-party tools that had their own websites, brands, and ad campaigns. We workshopped where the product would fit in with our merchants and what they should think, feel, and believe when encountering it.

We then shaped a standalone brand and design system to launch and market the product to new and existing merchants.

Overcoming Objections It wasn't enough to build and launch the product, we then had to equip our enablement and support teams to drive adoption up and churn down. We positioned the product in both the Shopify ecosystem and the shipping ecosystem to determine what messaging, creative, and product support materials we needed to create.

This led us to creating a second product: Shipping Insurance. Out of the box, by using our product, users get $200 embedded insurance against damage, loss, and theft with each eligible label bought through Shopify Shipping. No install, no mess, it's just there.

Solution

Coloring Inside the Lines Technology limitations be damned, we took Shopify Shipping on its own journey to find its own story. Through moodboarding, brand creative, and content strategy we created a launch campaign and found new ways to show the embedded tool in the admin.

A Brand that Stands Out and Fits In Our resulting brand and creative paved the way for substantial changes to many of Shopify's embedded products—both in how they looked and how they functioned in the admin. Additional tools were built to demo and test other services in AI, Translation, and payments using this model.

The brand style inspired our Markets and Tax products, two other boring segments, that were able to set themselves apart from the competition and stand out as the OEM solution.

We had all sorts of temptations and chances to complicate the product, but we stuck to creating a simple, clean experience that clearly communicated value.

Result

Shopify Shipping adoption was up 6% quarter over quarter and continued to rise. It had been steadily dropping by double digits each quarter prior for 18 months.

The Shopify Shipping Insurance program was an immediate hit. In partnership with the new Fraud Protection product launched inside of Shopify Payments, it resulted in merchants publicly stating they were moving to Shopify because of the embedded and included support tools.