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- ASR Sunday Brief #5
ASR Sunday Brief #5
What Shopify operators were talking about this week
From the founder:
Welcome back to the ASR Sunday Brief - issue #5.
Big news on the app side this week. Mantle is winding down. They announced it on June 16 - most services shut down on August 14, Mantle Billing customers have until September 30. For a lot of teams in our network, this was a surprise. Mantle's billing, analytics, helpdesk, email and the SASI index we link to in every issue of this brief - all of it is going away in 60 days.
For app teams reading this: what are you switching to? Hit reply and tell me. If we get enough answers in the next few days, I'll publish what the network is moving to in issue #6.
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:
Thor B. — Owner, Denmark · Jewelry & Accessories · Advanced plan
Sophia C. — Owner, United Kingdom · Fashion & Apparel · Basic plan
Kevin K. — Owner, United States · Home & Lifestyle
Start a project to meet these participants and others like them.
Popular projects last week:
Seeking ecommerce DTC brands seeking mobile app solutions
Research Call · Incentive: $100 · 30 mins
Seeking DTC Brand Owners investing in Organic Traffic, Content & SEO/GEO/AEO Visibility
Research Call · Incentive: $100 · 30 mins
Seeking Marketing Leaders/Founders at DTC Brands wanting to scale influencer marketing into predictable revenue
Sales Call · Incentive: $250 · 45 mins
Breakout Apps of the Week
Three categories worth knowing about — each is approaching a familiar operator problem from a new angle.
1. Onton | AI shopping assistant for product discovery This category of apps is rebuilding home decor discovery around AI — typed or image-based search across 100+ retailers, surfacing products the algorithm wouldn't. It hints at where AI-driven discovery is heading for every Shopify vertical, not just home.
2. Rockridge | Managed customer support as a service This category is the alternative to "buy a CS tool and figure it out." Rockridge runs your entire support operation across chat, email, voice, and social, using AI behind the scenes but keeping the customer-facing reply human. For founders pulled into the inbox, the unit economics often work.
3. PhotoRoom | AI product photography at scale This category of apps removes the bottleneck of product imagery — backgrounds, lifestyle scenes, variants, format adaptations — without a photo studio or weeks of turnaround. The brands compounding here are the ones treating product imagery as something that gets refreshed monthly, not annually
Pattern of the week
This is our first issue looking at a full month of intent data — and one trend keeps repeating. Half of all June operators (52%) named CRO & Store Experience as a focus area. It's tied with AI & Automation for the most-named category of the entire month.
The verbatim language is consistent:
"My conversion rate has never been great." "I would like to increase my conversion rate, we are been trying few things already." "Close the gap between traffic and conversion." "Improve conversion rates across product and cart pages, optimize checkout performance."
Why it matters: the public benchmarks tell the rest of the story. The average Shopify store sits at about 1.4% conversion, while the top 20% convert at 3.2%+ and the top 10% reach 4.7%+. That's roughly 2.3x between average and top 20% — a gap that translates directly into how much revenue an operator gets out of the same ad spend.
What's quietly significant about this month: the same operators chasing CRO are also chasing AI. A third are doing both at once. The brands moving fastest aren't picking one — they're treating conversion and AI as the same problem, asking which AI surface (search, recommendations, support, content) actually moves the funnel.
The 2.3x gap is closed by knowing which lever to pull, not by adding more tools to pull.
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. Fittingbox Glasses Try-On
Reviewer: Owner, Eyewear & Accessories
Operator liked | Didn't like |
|---|---|
Virtual try-on tech is outstanding — AR experience is genuinely useful | Setup takes meaningful time to get photos right |
Helps customers see how frames look on them, creating a real shopping moment | Lenses needed to be removed to avoid glare — makes sunglasses harder |
Becoming a differentiator versus stock product photography |
2. ShareASale
Reviewer: Operations, Health & Beauty
Operator liked | Didn't like |
|---|---|
Generated 20% of sales at one point — meaningful affiliate revenue source | Clunky interface, resolution on issues slow |
Still considered critical to the role after 3+ years | Broken links went unaddressed for a month — no retroactive fix |
Solid foundation for affiliate programs targeting website partners | Declining share of revenue (now 12%) as the business has grown elsewhere |
3. GOAFFPRO – Affiliate Marketing
Reviewer: Marketing, Health & Beauty
Operator liked | Didn't like |
|---|---|
Intuitive interface — easy to manage codes, creators, and commissions | Language and currency limits cause friction with international creators |
Streamlines profile creation, custom codes, sales tracking, payout math | |
Makes a previously manual affiliate workflow fast |
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Photo of the week
The original IKEA showroom in Älmhult, Sweden, 1958. Curious fact: IKEA invented the self-serve furniture store after a designer named Gillis Lundgren couldn't fit a table into his car and removed the legs. That accident became the flat-pack model. Most "innovations" in retail came from operators sitting with a friction point long enough to see the obvious solution. Photos are in IKEA's museum archive and widely republished.
See you next week.
Jon and team
— app store research
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