ASR Sunday Brief #17

What Shopify operators were talking about this week

September 13, 2026

From the founder:

We've been tracking the AI search story in this brief for about six months now. First operators talking about preparing for it. Then learning the vocabulary - AEO, GEO, agentic commerce. Then restructuring product data for it.

This week the story moved again, and it's the least comfortable stage yet: operators have done the work and can't tell whether it's working.

Pattern of the week gets into it.

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Welcome to the brand network

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

Sable F. — Owner · Home & Lifestyle · Grow plan

Colleen D. — Owner, Canada · Food & Drink · Basic plan

Jacqui M. — Owner · Fashion & Accessories · Grow plan

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

  • How DTC brands handle 3PL and carrier claims 
    Research Call · Incentive: $200 · 30 mins

  • Free Track Page Hub to Improve CX & Reduce WISMO Tickets 
    Sales Call · Incentive: $250 · 30 mins

  • How are you handling your stockouts? 
    Sales Call · Incentive: $250 · 30 mins

Pattern of the week

Five operators this week named AI search visibility as a focus. Getting cited by ChatGPT. Showing up in AI Overviews. Being recommended by Perplexity. One is specifically chasing Reddit as a discovery surface.

None of them named a tool that measures whether any of it is working.

The clearest statement of the problem came from an operator who does this professionally for merchants: most tools report Google rankings, almost none show AI-assistant visibility credibly, so he ends up building his own checks.

Why it matters: for six months the AI search conversation has been about doing the work - structured data, product copy, schema, llms.txt. That work is now underway across the network. What's missing is the scoreboard. You can restructure every product page you own and still have no idea whether ChatGPT started recommending you, or whether it was already going to.

That's an uncomfortable place to spend a Q4 budget. It's also the most obvious gap in the tooling market right now.

Everyone is optimizing for a channel nobody can see yet.

Referral contest - two weeks left

The referral contest runs to the end of September, and the leaderboard is still genuinely open. 2–4 activated referrals is enough to land in the top three.

Prizes, on top of the ongoing referral pay ($50 per Shopify store, $100 per Shopify Plus store):

  • 1st — $1,000

  • 2nd — $500

  • 3rd — $300

An activated referral is someone who signs up through your link and completes their first research call.

Something you can copy and adapt:

Hey — thought of you. It's a research network where Shopify brands get paid ($100–$250) for 30–45 minute calls with app teams building tools for stores like yours. You hear what's coming before it launches and get paid for the time. Here's my link: [your link]

Thanks to everyone who's referred someone so far. It genuinely helps.

From the feed this week

Three reads worth your time this week:

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 →

See you next week.

Jon and team
— app store research

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