- ASR Sunday Brief
- Posts
- ASR Sunday Brief #2
ASR Sunday Brief #2
What Shopify operators were talking about this week
From the founder:
Welcome back to the ASR Sunday Brief - issue #2.
If you're new here, this newsletter exists for one reason: to stay genuinely connected with the brand operators and app teams in our network, and to share what we're actually seeing inside it. Patterns from intent data, brands joining us, apps catching our attention, honest reviews from operators running real Shopify stores.
We're still figuring out what this newsletter should be. Issue #1 went out last Sunday and we got a few great replies already, which shaped some of what's in this one.
So - what would make this newsletter more useful for you? More patterns from the network? Deeper app reviews? A specific category we should dig into? Something we're missing entirely? There's a small feedback section at the very end of this email - it's the easiest way to tell us. We read every reply.
Like this newsletter? Forward this email to another brand operator or app developer!
Welcome to the brand network:
These are a few brand operators that joined us this week:
Julie L. - Marketing, United States · Pet & Supplies · Plus plan
Rachel P. - E-commerce Manager, Canada · Fashion & Apparel · Grow plan
Joel A. - Owner, Australia · Food & Drink · Grow plan
Start a project to meet these participants and others like them.
Popular projects last week:
How visible is your brand inside AI shopping conversations?
Research Call · Incentive: $150 · 45 mins
Seeking Brands that have tried using AI for Customer Support
Research Call · Incentive: $100 · 45 mins
Returns you prevent beat returns you ship. How Order editing and Post Purchase can give you a 28% revenue retention lift.
Research Call · Incentive: $250 · 60 mins
Breakout Apps of the Week
623 new Shopify apps hit the marketplace this week as per SASI by Mantle.
Here are 3 innovative apps that caught my attention this week:
1. EliteCart | Cart upsell and conversion optimization This category of apps focuses on the cart drawer as a conversion surface - turning the last screen before checkout into a place to add upsells, free gifts, and incentives without redirecting away.
2. askBOSCO | Marketing analytics and forecasting This category of apps is rebuilding marketing attribution for brands who can't trust last-click anymore - blending channel data into a single picture of what's actually working.
3. Superfans | Mobile app builder for retention This category of apps gives brands their own mobile app to deepen the relationship with repeat customers - push notifications, early access, and loyalty experiences that don't live inside someone else's algorithm.
Pattern of the week
This week the pattern wasn't about what operators want to buy. It was about something quieter and more uncomfortable - operators don't trust their own numbers anymore.
Seven different brands described some version of the same problem in their own words this week.
One operator called platform-reported ROAS "inflated and unreliable."
Another had cancelled their attribution tool and was struggling to measure blended ROAS across Meta, Google, and affiliates.
A third said they're "collating data from Shopify, Klaviyo, Meta ad manager, Google ad manager, and the bank account" just to figure out if the business is healthy.
The shape of the pain is consistent: spend is going up, the platforms keep saying things are working, but the bank account tells a different story.
What this tells me, if you're a Shopify brand operator:
If you're feeling this - you're not behind. Attribution clarity is the most-named pain across our network this week, and the people writing about it are not beginners. They are operators running real revenue who have hit the same wall: last-click is misleading, platform dashboards are self-serving, and stitching the picture together manually is eating the team's week.
If your gut feels off about what your ads are doing - your gut is probably right. Trust it, and start measuring what platforms don't want measured.
New App Reviews
Our brand network frequently writes reviews for apps they use. These reviews are visible from all Shopify app accounts under the App reviews tab.
1. A2X Sync for QuickBooks & Xero
Reviewer: Owner, Fashion & Apparel
Operator liked: | Didn’t like |
|---|---|
does the core reconciliation job reasonably well | too many gaps and unclear mapping pathways |
has held up over 2-3 years of regular use | describes it as "the best of a bad bunch" - including competitor Link My Books |
still considered critical for the day-to-day finance workflow | actively waiting for AI-native finance reconciliation tools to replace it |
2. Gift Card Hero • All-in-one
Reviewer: Owner, Food & Drink
Operator liked: | Didn’t like |
|---|---|
fully automated what used to be a manual gift card process | no complaints after 3+ years of use |
3+ years in, customers buy and redeem without team involvement | |
eliminated a recurring source of small errors |
3. Okendo: Product Reviews & UGC
Reviewer: Marketing, Health & Fitness
Operator liked: | Didn’t like |
|---|---|
easy integration setup | product review collection is weak - forces a rebuild in Klaviyo or use of Okendo's own email system |
clean and intuitive UI | email flow integration feels limiting |
straightforward to connect reviews across similar products |
From the Feed This Week
Oisin O'Connor, CEO/Founder @ Recharge ($100M+ ARR) - on bootstrapping to $20M ARR before taking a dollar of outside capital, and what those 5 years actually taught him →
Tobi Lütke, co-founder & CEO @ Shopify, on Uncapped with Jack Altman - a long-form conversation on building Shopify for 20+ years, why founder-led companies move faster through AI, and what's actually changing for small businesses →
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
Merchandising hasn't changed much in 70 years. This New York storefront from the 1950s sold hundreds of products with one simple strategy: put the most interesting things in the window and make people curious enough to walk in. The best Shopify stores still do the same thing today, and there's an entire app category to help them.
See you next week.
Jon and team
— app store research
Let us know what you think of this newsletter (one click 👇) |
Reply