ASR Sunday Brief #13

From the founder:

Two things this week worth your Sunday.

One: we opened up our app reviews to everyone. From day one we've been quietly building a database of real, unbiased app reviews from operators — never bots, never paid placements. Until this week they were only visible to researchers. Today they're public. Details in the section below.

Two: the verb that keeps recurring in this month's intent data. Not "add." Not "evaluate." Pattern of the week digs in.

• Jon • Connect on LinkedIn • Book a call

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App reviews are now open to everyone

From the beginning, we've been collecting app reviews directly from brand operators — not as a marketing move, but because we wanted to build a real database of what actually works and what doesn't. What we ended up with is different from what you'll find on the Shopify App Store.

No paid placements. No incentive-gaming. No bots. Just operators writing about apps they run every day.

Until now those reviews lived inside the platform, visible only to researchers. Today they're open to anyone. If you're evaluating an app for your store, start here →

If you use an app we haven't covered yet, you can add your own review through the App Stack tab in your account. Every one you write helps another operator make a better decision.

Welcome to the brand network

These are a few brand operators that joined us this week:

Thomas L. — Owner · Electronics · Grow plan

Niklas H. — Owner, Denmark · Jewelry & Accessories · Grow plan

Jordan M. — E-commerce Manager · Jewelry & Accessories · Plus plan

Start a project to meet these participants and others like them.

Popular projects last week

• Sell on both Shopify and Amazon? Talk inventory planning with an app founder 
  Research Call · Incentive: $150 · 30 mins — for brands managing inventory across both channels (FBA replenishment, cross-channel stock, purchase orders)

• How do you run fulfillment? Chat with an inventory planning app founder
  Research Call · Incentive: $150 · 30 mins — for brands using a 3PL or WMS to manage inventory, POs, receiving, and bundles

• Are you using Gorgias? 
  Research Call · Incentive: $85 · 30 mins — how ecommerce brands experience Gorgias across the customer service lifecycle

Log in as a brand to see all available projects →

Pattern of the week

A single verb keeps showing up in the intent data since August 1.

Replace. Not "add." Not "test." Not "evaluate." Replace.

"Looking to replace Klaviyo." "Considering replacing nine apps at once." "Replacing our billing system, our email system, and our fraud stack in the same buying cycle." Different operators. Different stacks. Same verb.

Why it matters: operators aren't in the "figuring out what to try" phase anymore. They're in the "swap this out for something better" phase. If you're building for Shopify, the pitch that lands is no longer "here's what our tool does" — it's "here's what we replace, and what your operator saves by making the swap."

The verb is the whole story.

From the feed this week

Three reads worth your time this week:

1. River Doyle, Ecommerce Manager @ Baden Sports - on why he's tired of marketers celebrating AI-generated UGC funnels — customers can spot the dead eyes and scripted praise, and it erodes trust for the entire industry →

2. Bill Banta, CEO @ Decked - on why an in-person factory tour in Defiance, Ohio changed the whole conversation with customers — and why that's a hard trick to pull off when your manufacturing is on the other side of the world →

3. Derek Halpern, Co-Founder @ Truvani - on Truvani's electrolyte launch selling out in days, and the specific product-market fit signals in customer survey data that told them it would →

A quick ask before you go

August is usually our quietest month - holidays everywhere, submission volume dips right when researchers are ramping up for Q4 planning. So we're running our once-a-year Referral Contest through the end of August to keep the flow healthy.

If you refer a Shopify operator into the network, we pay you on the referral - $50 per Shopify store, $100 per Shopify Plus store. On top of that, the top three referrers this month split:

• 1st — $1,000

• 2nd — $500

• 3rd — $300

Prize money is coming from us, not a sponsor. We wanted to say thank you properly for the referrals that come in during a hard month.

The first leaderboard went out Friday. 1–3 activated referrals is enough to be in the top three right now. If you know a Shopify operator who would actually get value from being in the network, this is the moment.

Copy your referral link →

Thanks in advance. Every referral genuinely helps.

Join our private communities

Join the ASR Brand Operator Slack

Private discussions for Shopify brands. Apply to join →

Join the ASR Shopify App Slack

For Shopify app founders. Apply to join →

Photo of the week

A Ford Model T rolling off the moving assembly line, 1913. Before Ford, building a car took 12 hours. After - 90 minutes. Ford didn't optimize the hand-built process. He replaced it. Every hand-built manufacturer in Detroit went bankrupt within a decade. The operators writing "replace" in intent data this month are doing something smaller in scale but similar in nature - they've stopped tuning what's already broken.

See you next week.

Jon and team
— app store research